The Thursday Murder Club made its way to Netflix on August 28th after a six-day run in theaters. Since I refuse to go to a movie theater and pay money for something I already pay Netflix for, I watched it from the comfort of my couch. There are fewer things better, in my expert opinion, than enjoying my favorite actors all on screen together, pretending it’s fall already, and practicing my British accent from the safety of my living room. The Thursday Murder Club gives me the chance to do all those things at once.
The murder mystery movie is based on a book by the same name by Richard Osman, which I did not finish. I love, love, LOVE a good cozy mystery. I read ’em, I watch ’em, I even write ’em when I’m feeling antsy, so for me to DNF a super popular one means 1. It didn’t grab me and 2. I didn’t want to owe my library any (more) money.
The movie, like the book, presents an adequate murder mystery that I don’t really care about. When the mystery is good, I’m sleuthing alongside the characters—I’ve even been known to make a murder board in my journal, a la Only Murders in the Building. But, in this adaptation, I wasn’t itching to solve the case before the characters.
The victims are unlikable, which is normal for a cozy but doesn’t help me get invested in the urgency of solving the crime since avenging them doesn’t matter. The side plots aren’t very intriguing—the retirement facility is a great setting, but the B plots don’t keep my attention. And the main characters are cute but not deeply developed.
Unlike the book, however, the movie succeeds because it is populated by beloved British actors, which makes it the perfect cozy for people who are obsessed with Brits.
We have Dame Helen Mirren at the helm of the ensemble cast and they fully acknowledge that she’s our queen. If you recall, a year after playing Queen Elizabeth I in a mini-series, Mirren played Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen and won an Oscar for it.
In The Thursday Murder Club, when Mirren’s character is getting ready to go sleuth, she puts on a long coat and wraps her head in a lil scarf. Her husband, played by Sir Jonathan Pryce (who, speaking of royals, played Philip on The Crown), tells her she looks like the queen, which I’d just said out loud to my television! I was waiting for her to start walking a Corgi.
Rounding out the ensemble, we’ve also got a Bond (Pierce Brosnan), MY Doctor (David Tennant), Lucifer (Tom Ellis), Gandhi (Sir Ben Kingsley, and yes I know that casting aged like milk), and so many other British actors that I found myself playing a game of “Were they in Harry Potter, Doctor Who, or Spice World?”
David Tennant is a distinguished alum of both Harry Potter and Doctor Who, but I haven’t figured out if anyone is the true triple threat. You’ll see your favorites from Julian Fellowes’ projects (Richard E. Grant, Spice Girls alum), Bridget Jones iterations (Celia Imrie, Doctor Who alum), and BBC shows galore (et al).
The characters amble around their very fancy old folk’s home, the exterior of which just so happens to be a filming location of X-Men, Descendants, and others including, you guessed it, The Crown. Other picturesque filming locations look familiar because they are—there are only so many quaint English villages to go around, and you’ve seen many interiors and exteriors in The Thursday Murder Club in your other favorites.
Since it’s directed by Harry Potter 1 and 2’s Chris Columbus with the same earnest straightforwardness, watching The Thursday Murder Club gives us the opportunity to engage in our Anglophilia in a safe space, both emotionally and because I’m watching at home.
British media has increasingly become a minefield. My household will not be acknowledging the Harry Potter reboot because FU, JK, and we’ve banished Neil Gaiman’s oeuvre from the house. As a result, we have been mourning the loss of some of our favorite British franchises. What was once a magical land (England) is now sullied because of its status as the turf of TERFs, but, of course, the entire country and all of its intellectual property isn’t ruined—just a few massive chunks of it. Despite not always being willing and able to separate the art from the artist, I’m still a fan of most British film and TV.
So, even if The Thursday Murder Club isn’t a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie-level mystery, it’s comforting to take a trip to the cozy countryside to spend an afternoon solving a gruesome murder or two and getting my British accent fix with the Thursday Murder Club.
