Netflix And Chill: The Thursday Murder Club (2025)

Okay, let me state this very clearly from the beginning, books and movies are very different things. You have to accept that they just cannot deliver the same experience. Liberties need to be taken when it comes to adapting something from the page to the screen. Having said that, I believe I made a mistake in rushing to read The Thursday Murder Club, a very successful murder mystery novel that started the lucrative fiction writer phase of Richard Osman's long and healthy career in the world of media and entertainment.

Let's get to the film anyway, and what it gets right. The Thursday Murder Club is set in a fairly luxurious retirement home, in which a few residents work together to see if they can find solutions to various cold cases. The club used to include an ex-PC named Penny (Susan Kirkby), but she is currently barely hanging on to life in the hospice wing. The main members are now Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), Ron (Pierce Brosnan), Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley), and, relative newcomer, Joyce (Celia Imrie). Each brings their own set of skills to the group, but Elizabeth appears to be the one with a past that has her most prepared for anything that can be thrown at them. And what ends up thrown at them is a new murder, a lot of suspects who seem very bleeding obvious, and ties between the past and present that recontextualize friendships and relationships. Oh, and then there's another murder.

Turned into screenplay form by Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote, The Thursday Murder Club would seem to be a hard film to get wrong. Chris Columbus is in the director's chair. The cast includes the four leads just mentioned, as well as Naomi Ackie and Daniel Mays as a couple of investigating officers, Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Tom Ellis as younger men who find themselves entangled in the creeping spiderwebs that the murder creates, and Jonathan Pryce, David Tennant, Geoff Bell, Paul Freeman, Ruth Sheen, and Richard E. Grant. It's a real pick 'n' mix of delightful performances.

So why does it feel like such a slog?

The dialogue generally works well, helped by the fact that it's being delivered by people who feel almost perfect in their roles (let's just not mention the accent that Brosnan uses), but the mystery feels half-baked and hard to care about. Having said this, I wonder if I feel that way because I just read the book. While I still stand by my opening statement, there are choices here that feel very odd, including a detail revealed in the very opening scenes that is actually held back in the book until a finale that shows all of the pieces finally falling into place. I can understand some things being omitted, one other plot strand would have required the runtime to have at least 5-10 minutes add on to what already pushes up close to the 2-hour mark, but that just makes it a bizarre experience for those who know the material well enough to know that certain characters and moments are only being hinted at while never being given the time and attention that they deserve.

Both the direction and writing feel trapped by a prison of their own design. They're either too beholden to the book, or they make strange decisions to veer away from elements that could have made the film a much more rewarding experience, for both readers and non-readers alike. And, as much as I complain about it as a new standard, would anyone be bothered if the runtime had been just over, instead of just under, two hours? Those ten extra minutes could have given us a very brief overview of two whole other lives, and those whole other lives feed into the main themes of aging, regret, and the repercussions of different choices made at crucial junctures.

Still, it's easy enough to forget the many mistakes and mis-steps made here when any scene revolves around Imrie having a twinkle in her eye and Mirren having a glint in hers. The cosy and easygoing feel of the whole thing will certainly appeal to those after something that feels like the movie equivalent of a comfortable pair of slippers. I just wish we'd been given nicer slippers. Slippers that stay warm and comfortable for the duration. Not the cheap kind that fall apart after one month of regular use. 

5/10

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Mubi Monday: Good Luck To You, Leo Grande (2022)

An older woman and a young man meet. Sex is a distinct possibility. It is, in fact, the reason for their meeting. But that changes as the two start to talk and get to know one another, with a number of moments feeling much more like therapy than any casual date with a sex worker.

Written by Katy Brand, there are a lot of positives to take away from Good Luck To You, Leo Grande. It tries to show how much healthier and happier people could be if they stopped thinking of the idea of their own pleasure as something to be ashamed of. It tries to show sex work in a healthy scenario, although I am sure everyone involved knows that this is an idealistic representation (but other scenarios are acknowledged in conversation). And it serves as a reminder that getting older, or losing a loved one, doesn’t have to be the end of your life. You can be any age when you start exploring new experiences, and any day can be the first day of finding ways to make yourself happy and more confident. Because, let’s be honest, a really good sex sesh can put a spring in your step and give you a glow that others respond to, feeding your confidence and aura in a way that allows you to create a looped circuit running through your body, all well and good until one or two knocks break off that energy supply.

Director Sophie Hyde, who has a filmography that features a mix of dance, and explorations of sex, gender, and the loud ticking of the clock counting down the minutes of our lives, doesn’t do a bad job, but she is tied to the material in a way that is restrictive. This feels like a stage play, and it also feels too contrived on a couple of occasions. Viewers know they will see some nudity, for example, but all the talk of pleasure and healthy attitudes to sex don’t mean anyone is brave enough to, god forbid, show an actual penis. This may have been a censorship issue, but I suspect it was a decision made as part of the writing process. Because as well-intentioned as everyone involved surely is, they are also stuck in the mindset of great dialogue being the best medium for ideas that they don’t want to seem squeamish about.

It’s a good job that the two main leads here are Daryl McCormack and Emma Thompson, both doing great work (which is always assumed from the latter anyway). McCormack is a perfect blend of good looks, good sexual techniques, and good conversation. Thompson, on the other hand, is there to build up her confidence, to shake off her hang ups that end up being both about sex and about how she views herself. She is critical of what she sees in the mirror, she tries to deflect any compliments, and she takes a long time to start seeing herself differently. It is, for obvious reasons, the braver of the two performances, and kudos to Brand for using Thompson’s character as a way to underline the importance of boundaries and consent within any relationship, with her being the one who crosses a line in a way that she doesn’t even view as a big deal. It’s unfortunate that THAT moment signals the beginning of a downward slide in the third act, with moments of revelation and extra honesty that, ironically, feel inauthentic compared to the rest of the movie. And still the leads do what they can to lift the material.

The biggest criticism that can be said about Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is that it needed even more of everything. It needed more honesty, it needed more courage in its convictions, it needed more space for the characters. Hell, it even needed a bit more energy, and maybe a few choice soundtrack selections would have helped.

Much like how I would be rated by my own smattering of lovers, the end result is okay, pleasant enough and tries hard, but isn’t completely satisfying. 

5/10

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