If you are anything like me, you have been eagerly awaiting the new Thursday Murder Club movie for I don’t know how long. There are few movies that I’m truly excited for these days- I’m just not a huge fan of superheroes or action films. (If you are, I am happy for you, though!) However, if you are giving me the movie adaptation of one of my favourite mysteries, I will be waiting on tenterhooks. Let’s get into my The Thursday Murder Club review!
The Thursday Murder Club Film Details
Adapted from the first book in Richard Osman’s series, The Thursday Murder Club follows Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron at Cooper’s Chase retirement home as they solve a murder to save their home. We’ve got 400 pages taken down to 118 minutes, so we are working with a streamlined story!
My The Thursday Murder Club Review
I will do my best to limit spoilers here, but if you really don’t want to know anything, you may want to skip this.
The Thursday Murder Club film did not match what I had pictured in my head, in regards to setting or characters. That isn’t good or bad, but it was different than what I had expected.
Cooper’s Chase gives strong Hogwarts vibes- I was expecting Madame Hooch to fly by at several points. The castle setting rather changed the feeling of it for me; however, I think that it helped to establish the film as a separate entity. (I had more of a vision of Cotswolds-style
The cast is fairly stacked. We have Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, and Jonathan Pryce, meaning we are entirely spoiled. I would agree with some reviewers that Brosnan’s Ron is quite a departure from the novel’s Ron, but I still found the character entertaining. I also somehow missed that David Tennant is in it, and I think he was brilliant- the perfect villain, charismatic from start to finish.
SPOILER TERRITORY
The resolution of who did it and what happened to them was quite different from the novel. (How many times can I use “different” in one review…) It would affect what happens in further films, if they are being made, so I am curious if this was only ever meant to be one film or if the trajectory is meant to be changing going forward. Given that Osman was very involved with the film project, I’ve got to guess that he is okay with the change but I would love to know why/how it came about.
I also found the lack of Joyce’s journals from the book to be a real loss, as her internal monologue really helps to set the tone of the novel. We also don’t have the time to get to know all of the characters, and I think that is absolutely a loss as well. This would have done well as a television show or mini-series that allowed slightly more time to breath. (I’m going to guess that Osman’s team saw the Netflix name and wanted to capitalise on everything that brings, but I would have preferred a Masterpiece-style adaptation.)
Who Should Watch This?
If you only enjoy strict adaptations that are mostly identical from page to screen and you have read The Thursday Murder Club, this will not be the adaptation for you. (If that is you and you want to watch it anyways, go for it, but it’s probably not ending well for you.)
If you enjoy a fun murder mystery, or you have read the book but are not fussed about being strictly faithful to the text, I would absolutely give it a go. It may not be the Thursday Murder Club family that we know from the novel but I think it is worth watching!
Have you watched The Thursday Murder Club movie?
Cheers,
The Historian
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I think the stellar cast was utterly wasted in this tepid whodunnit. It was uninteresting. I haven’t read the book, so I watched it as purely a moviegoer, which I think is what any review of a movie ought to do. In that regard, it was a bizarrely wan mystery. We suspected it was the grave digging Polish man and then, lo, it was the grave digging Polish man. If Elizabeth feared for her husband why didn’t she call one of her friends to go directly to her apartment instead of having them all go in after she arrived. How did her husband figure anything out? There were no clues, just a man wanting his passport and wanting to go see his ailing mum. So Elizabeth’s husband suddenly, in a lucid moment, saying, “I know you did it,” was the antithesis of what a whodunnit is supposed to be, something worked out with clues. Why wouldn’t Ron have just told the police he had an alibi? So what if it was having sex. BUT the most egregious parts about the movie were two-fold, the glee when someone was killed and the last scene of Penny and her husband in which suicide was encouraged and his final act of love of killing his wife was likewise given the green light. Creepy, normalizing lack of valuing life. That’s Netflix and Hollywood for you. The TMC’s choice in that hospital room was letting the 50-year-old murder of a murdering boyfriend and the recent murder of a man they went out of there way to show as a vile individual, David Tennant’s character, go unpunished, or have their dear friends commit a murder/suicide, then … Wow! GIve me a break. And Elizabeth finally noticed Penny’s expression in photos she’d been studying for months and realized Penny had killed the murdering boyfriend?? Another Wow! Do not waste your time with this. Read the book if it is, as An Historian About Town indicates, is any better than this drivel. Two hours wasted. We almost didn’t finish.
Sorry to hear that it was such a disappointment! If you are looking for a good mystery adaptation, the television series of the Marlow Murder Club is a fairly faithful adaptation, and has the benefit of several episodes per novel for more time to develop.
I would heartily recommend the TMC books, though- the first four are wonderful and we’ve got a fifth out at the end of September 2025!
I liked it but the book is better,,as usually. Great cast, except from Bogdan, he definitely doesn’t look Polish
I did enjoy the book more, but I don’t think the movie is as much as a write-off as people are saying! I also was okay with Bogdan, but I’m Ukrainian and Polish and probably wouldn’t be identified as such ha.
If people want a more faithful mystery adaptation, I think that the Marlow Murder Club television series is doing a great job!