Keira Knightley’s ubiquity faded a bit in the last decade, but she’s enjoyed a recent profile bump thanks to a pair of British thrillers on Netflix. She follows 2024’s well-received series Black Doves by headlining the film The Woman in Cabin 10, a taut mystery based on author Ruth Ware’s bestselling novel. She draws a thoughtful director in Simon Stone (the overlooked The Dig) and anchors a muscular cast that includes Guy Pearce, Hannah Waddingham and Kaya Scodelario. One gets the sense that this throwbackish thriller might not exist without the resurgence in interest in murder mysteries, considering it’s set on an inescapable place (a yacht on the ocean) populated with potentially suspicious people (they’re all disgustingly rich) and she plays a journalist who’s very much a fish out of water around these parts. Now let’s see how tightly this one grips us.
The Gist: Laura Blacklock (Knightley) needs a vacation. She’s a journalist, so that goes without saying. She’s an investigative journalist, so that especially goes without saying. And she’s fresh off a story where she witnessed one of her sources being murdered for talking to her. Oof. Back at her desk at The Guardian, a nice little working getaway arrives in her inbox: An invitation to cover the announcement of a Norwegian billionaire’s charity foundation, which involves a three-day ride on a seabound luxury hotel pointed in the general direction of the Northern Lights. Cushy. Puff piece. Champagne. Spa. The ideal working vacation. What could possibly go wrong?
Don’t answer that. It’s the movie’s job. Laura arrives at the boat and is sniffed at for wearing jeans on the excursion and not understanding “yacht etiquette,” prompting a flashback to my good ol’ days at the daily when I pinned down a half-dozen deadlines and hustled to a gala with my notebook in the pocket of my biker jacket while everyone else was all tuxed up (side note: got chewed out by my classic battle axe of an EIC). Anyway, I didn’t catch what Laura’s fellow passengers “do” – too many give off vibes of being rather, shall we say, idle – but one’s an influencer (Scodelario) skilled in the art of passive-aggression, one couple comes off as judgy drunks (David Morrissey and Waddingham) and then there’s the requisite beardo tech zillionaire and eccentric rock star, etc. The whole shebang is the domain of the Bullmers, Richard (Pearce) and his wife Anne (Lisa Loven Kongsli); she’s dying of leukemia and therefore wants to bulldozer a big pile of money in the general direction of cancer research.
Perhaps it’s worth noting that Laura is staying in cabin 8. One of the other passengers happens to be Laura’s ex, Ben (David Ajala), a photographer, the other journo on board. It’s a bit awkward and on her way to being overdressed for dinner (d’oh) she spots him flirting with another woman so Laura quickly ducks into cabin 10 and intrudes on a blond woman just emerging from the shower. Oops! After dinner, Anne invites Laura to the library – the yacht has a library! – and shares how much she admires her journalism. Anne wants Laura to read over her big speech, during which she’ll surprise-announce that she’s giving every last penny of her fortune to charity. That night, Laura awakens from a nightmare (she’s haunted by the aforementioned woman’s death) and hears scuffling from the neighboring cabin, then a splash. She dashes to the balcony, sees a body in the water that looks like the blond woman, sees a bloody handprint on the partition, and calls for help. The ensuing investigation turns up no evidence. Laura protests. Ben suggests she let it go, but asking an investigative journalist to “let it go” is akin to asking a cat to, well, do anything. Laura must have been seeing things. She was recently traumatized, you know. Besides, journalists! Who can trust them? But if you think Laura is going to just acquiesce on this trip to Gaslight Island, you’ve got another think coming.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Cabin 10 is roughly Glass Onion with most of its sense of humor siphoned out.
Performance Worth Watching: A moment of Keira Knightley appreciation: Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Never Let Me Go, Anna Karenina – she was the period-piece queen for a while there. She’s well-suited for anything, even denim-clad ink-stained wretches, but a return to elaborate-gown glory wouldn’t be unwelcome.
Memorable Dialogue: Laura tries to convince a lawyer lady of her theory:
Lawyer lady: This is insane.
Laura: What if I can prove it?
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Gaslight Island isn’t the only stop on this cruise – there’s also Plot Hole Atoll and Port-au-Preposterous Nonsense. Don’t hold that against The Woman in Cabin 10, at least not too much, though; its intentions are modest and its execution is rock-solid. Sure, it indulges some silly histrionics and uncomplicated character dynamics, but Knightley smooths over most of the bumps with an earnest portrayal of the classic hero-journo who, as ever, compromises her own well-being for the sake of the truth and/or our entertainment.
Sure, this lacks the enduring verve of the Knives Out films, or even the buoyancy of something as dowdy as The Thursday Murder Club, but it’s nevertheless entertaining in its twists, reveals and floating real estate porn, and Stone is a sure-handed filmmaker who holds everything steady even when the plot seas get a bit choppy. But, someone will inevitably say (whine?), is it ABOUT something? Yeah: The grotesque entitlement of far-beyond-rich people, although this isn’t necessarily another entry in the increasingly overtrodden eat-the-rich schadenfreudesque subgenre.
The film brushes against a moral question suggesting an inability to comprehend suffering without experiencing it firsthand – would the Bullmers have started a charity if Anne hadn’t received her fatal diagnosis? Would the Cheneys be sympathetic to gay people if their daughter wasn’t a lesbian? – then refocuses on the pulpier component, namely, indulging the fantasy of a woman in (gasp) jeans transcending her lowly stock and righteously smashing caviar in the faces of icky billionaires. Right now the scenario feels more like a pipe dream than anything resembling reality, but via The Woman in Cabin 10, it’s nevertheless diverting.
Our Call: Cabin 10 is a solid B- of a thriller that’s a little too poker-faced for its own good, but gets the job done competently. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.