Aspiring to be Agatha Christie-lite, mounting a narrative that reminds one of the Knives Out films and attempting to throw in a bit of Hitchcockian suspense in a confined space setting, The Woman in Cabin 10 is the latest in the subgenre of unreliable female narrators, one that has gained momentum in the last decade with films like Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, Before I Go To Sleep, The Woman in the Window, et al.
The Woman in Cabin 10, recently released on Netflix, is based on Ruth Ware’s 2016 novel, and swaps the manor-style/chamber drama setting reserved for mysteries of such kind for a cruise ship. While that may initially come across as inventive, one immediately realises that Christie did it almost 90 years ago with Death on the Nile, that found its way to the big screen in 1978 and then as recently as 2022.
Adapted for film by Simon Stone, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, The Woman in Cabin 10 has Keira Knightley taking a break from period dramas to star in stylish thrillers, with this title marking her latest in the genre after Official Secrets (2019) and Black Doves (2024).
Knightley plays Laura “Lo” Blacklock, an investigative journalist at The Guardian whose last assignment on NGO corruption left her with a dead informant and a haunted conscience. So when an opportunity presents itself to take off on a “soft junket” on a billionaire’s cruise ship to the Norwegian fjords for a weekend culminating in a gala to celebrate an announcement of charitable import made by the cancer-stricken wife of Mr Moneybags, Lo finds herself jumping at it. The super rich can be kind too (and not only when they are dying) and Lo sniffs an opportunity for a story of human interest.
Once aboard the Aurora Borealis, she finds herself being part of a motley crowd, all of who fit right into the stereotype of the wealthy and obnoxious. There is a dissolute old rock star (Paul Kaye), a hippie-ish tech entrepreneur (Christopher Rygh), an “alpha male” CEO (Daniel Ings) with a vapid influencer date (Kaya Scodelario), a catty art dealer (Hannah Waddingham) and the yacht’s suspiciously sincere owner (Guy Pearce), who is launching a foundation in honour of his dying wife (Lisa Loven Kongsli). A familiar face for Lo emerges in the form of a photographer (David Ajala) who is also on assignment and happens to be her former lover.
Things are hunky dory at first, with the crowd gossiping over infinite flutes of champagne and endless rounds of hors d’oeuvres. That Lo doesn’t belong to this world is established in the form of minor details like her overdressing for a casual dinner and escaping to her cabin — No. 8 — whenever she can.
Privy to a crucial aspect of the billionaire’s wife’s will, Lo is woken up in the middle of her first night on the ship by the sounds of a scuffle in the next cabin — No. 10. Before she can react, she sees someone being thrown overboard, but the alarm raised by her meets with all-round reactions that she is dreaming it all up. Not one to let go, Lo keeps looking for evidence to back her claim, but is gaslighted at every opportunity. Much of it is put down to post-traumatic stress from her previous assignment. But Lo is single-minded in her pursuit of the truth... even if it poses a danger to her life.
The Woman in Cabin 10 departs from the novel on a few counts. With Knightley being at least a decade older than her counterpart in the book, she is presented as a valiant star journalist as opposed to the gawky novice in the original. “Your Guardian expose on those brave Kurdish women really stuck with me,” the billionaire’s wife tells her at some point. Knightley is poker-faced for most of the film, which I am not sure works for her part at large.
For all its posturing and character building — only of Lo’s, the rest of the players are cardboard cutouts functioning as props — The Woman in Cabin 10 isn’t an awfully intelligent film. Red herrings are strewn throughout the plot, but for anyone even paying a little attention to what is going on on screen, the culprit is exposed within the first 30 minutes of this 95-minute watch. But then this is a film that has perhaps been made for this attention-deficit age. It is a murder mystery that only works if you are not really paying attention, with the characters on screen not doing so either.