Reel Rundown: Like cozy British mysteries? Then Netflix’s ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ is for you
Fans of the writer Anthony Horowitz know how he likes to play around with traditional British mystery plots. His novel “The Magpie Murders” is a good example, deconstructing the genre by being a book within a book.
Chris Columbus’ film “The Thursday Murder Club,” which is streaming on Netflix, offers a more traditional take on the same genre. Yes, there are murders (it is in the title), but the script that Columbus follows substitutes Horowitz cleverness for pure star power.
Based on a 2020 novel by Richard Osman, and adapted by the screenwriting duo of Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote, the film boasts a cast headed by a couple of Oscar winners, Helen Mirren and Ben Kingsley, a former James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and even a one-time “Doctor Who” (David Tennant).
Mirren plays Elizabeth Best, a resident in the comfortable retirement home of Coopers Chase. She and her friends Ron Ritchie (Brosnan) and Ibrahim Arif (Kingsley) are the three active members of what they call the Thursday Murder Club. (A fourth member, Penny Gray, resides comatose in the facility’s hospice wing).
When a new resident, Joyce Meadowcroft (Celia Imrie) comes to live in Coopers Chase, she immediately arouses Elizabeth’s curiosity. Joyce is a former trauma nurse, and Elizabeth suspects that she has the knowledge they need to help them clear up an old unsolved … well, murder.
And, too, Elizabeth recruits the aid of a young policewoman, Donna DeFreitas (Naomi Ackie). Bored with her job, Donna is treated like a servant by her fellow officers especially DCI Chris Holden (Daniel Mays). But at first reluctantly, then slowly but surely, she agrees to help.
Soon there is lots for Donna to help investigate as, one by one, the bodies begin to pile up. Much of the violence appears to be connected to the plans that the shady businessman Ian Ventham (Tennant) has. It seems he wants to evict all of Coopers Chase’s elderly residents and convert the place into luxury apartments.
There might even be a tie to the long-unsolved murder that brought the club together in the first place.
Not much about “The Thursday Murder Club” is surprising. Director Columbus does keep things moving well, and he manages to provide enough clues to contrast the obligatory red herrings designed to throw viewers off the scent. Even so, veteran mystery hands should have little trouble figuring out who did what to whom (although I admit that I did not).
The real joy in watching the film comes from appreciating the talented veteran cast. Mirren gives Elizabeth an enigmatic background, and her scenes with her husband (Jonathan Pryce) are touching. Kingsley is perfect as a retired psychiatrist whose deliberate mind tends to conflict with Elizabeth’s determined manner.
Ackie, who played the title role in the 2022 biographical film “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” proves convincing as a woman who gradually recognizes her own worth. Even Brosnan, never considered an acting heavyweight, plays a former union organizer well enough to fit in with such imposing company.
Netflix has yet to announce whether a sequel is in the works. But four books in Osman’s series have been published so far, with a fifth – “The Impossible Fortune” – scheduled to be available on Sept. 30. So more material is available.
No matter, anyway. Until Netflix makes a decision, fans of cozy British mysteries just might like to curl up with what the company is already streaming – no deconstruction needed.