Amongst the Benoit Blancs, Hercule Poirots, and Only Murders in the Building crew, the murder mystery genre has now given us The Thursday Murder Club, a quartet of inquisitive pensioners originally written and characterized by Richard Osman and now adapted to screen through the milquetoast powers of Netflix and formerly whimsical director Chris Columbus. Despite excitement from fans of the book, it is safe to say that, at least for this fan, disappointment consumes me.

The Thursday Murder Club is about a group of four retirees with an eclectic set of skills who have a fascination with solving cold cases, particularly murders, soon finding themselves surrounded by actual murder in their idyllic community known as Coopers Chase. Amongst our main characters, we have Elizabeth (Dame Helen Mirren), a retired spy who acts as the leader of the group; Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley), an eccentric psychiatrist who loves analyzing the facts; Ron Ritchie (Pierce Brosnan), a former union leader and workers advocate with a penchant for acting rough and tough; and finally the new member, Joyce (Celia Imrie), a retired nurse with open arms and a big heart. 

At the beginning of our story, we find these four engaged in a cold case involving a young woman’s murder that was never officially solved, although the four believe they know who committed the crime. Their cold case investigation is quickly forgotten, though, as the community discovers that one of the Coopers Chase owners, Tony Curran (Geoff Bell), has been murdered in his own home. The investigation thus begins for both the police and the Thursday Murder Club in what can only be described as a bland caper, which may be an oxymoronic turn of phrase, but feels appropriate for the expectations versus reality that viewers may be hit with in this.

The striking thing about The Thursday Murder Club is how it falters as an adaptation of the original work. Adaptations do not have to be one-to-one, picture-perfect to work.  Unfortunately, The Thursday Murder Club, despite having the broad strokes of the novel’s narrative, fails to capture the intrinsic spirit of the original work, whilst also making characterization and narrative changes for a significantly worse product. 

The movie changes some significant details that not only affect our characters’ decisions and relationships, but also affect the fascinating themes from the original novel. Some characters are integral to the camaraderie that makes the book feel so lively. Here, they are just shoved aside in the film and hardly given a character. The police officers, DCI Chris Hudson (Daniel Mays) and PC Donna de Freitas (Naomi Ackie), are two characters with point-of-view chapters in the book as well as full story arcs. It’s a challenge to remember their impact within this adaptation. 

There are also characters whose characterizations are changed for reasons that remain at best baffling. Bobby Tanner (Richard E. Grant) goes from a mysterious but good-hearted florist who’s turned a new leaf to a rough florist who clearly remains connected to crime and immorality. 

Most importantly, the changes affect the novel’s conclusions, which in turn makes the film lack the more poignant themes of morality and justice. 

The spirit of the film is really quite boring as opposed to the more whimsical nature of the book. Reading the story feels like a cozy murder mystery with a distinct charm to it, a la Agatha Christie, whereas the film feels like an overly polished Netflix film with zero stylization and charm. At no point while watching this film does anything close to the feeling of excitement brew about. The film’s tone and spirit are about as milquetoast as one can get. All in all, this film was a disappointment as an adaptation and a disappointment as a film, both of which were due in part to the utter boredom felt throughout. 

Now, there are some good things to this, namely the aforementioned cast. The pensioners are cast to perfection, with Mirren embodying her role particularly well between the stone-cold exterior needed for her investigations and the softer interior reserved mostly for her husband. Imrie is also lightning in a bottle for this role, although the film needed more material for her to really shine as she should’ve. 

Additionally, some of the supporting cast work very well. Jonathan Pryce as Elizabeth’s dementia-suffering husband, Stephen, does some fine work in an otherwise less-than-fine film. David Tennant as Ian Ventham, the brash and rash douchebag owner of Coopers Chase, works immensely well as Tennant really nails the demeanor of someone truly despicable in a way that anyone has likely encountered and has one of the few lines that really struck out to me as funny, in its own little horrible way, when he is calling his divorce lawyer who is informing him his soon to be ex-wife wants everything and Tennant’s response was “It was just one shag!”, clearly not caring that one shag is one shag too many, but Ventham is meant to be hateable and Tennant nails that to a tee.

Overall, there is very little positivity for The Thursday Murder Club. It’s not even a film that is hateable, it’s truly just bland. Perhaps those without the knowledge of the book would enjoy it more, but even then, The Thursday Murder Club still lacks the charm present in the other high-profile films and shows of this genre in the modern era. I genuinely hope others enjoy this tale, or at the very least, I hope people don’t write off the source material if they find this as bland as I did.

Review Courtesy of Tate Fowler

Feature Image Credit to Netflix