Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club, which is set in a retirement village and features pensioners solving murders, was a publishing sensation. (There are now four books in the series, with combined sales of more than ten million copies.) I’ve never read it. ‘Cosy crime’, as it’s called, is either your bag or it isn’t. This adaptation, however, feels exactly like the book that I haven’t and would never read. I hope Mr Osman et al. will take this as praise. In other words, the film knows what it is doing, who it is for, and fans will, I’m convinced, be delighted.
It’s reminiscent of Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five, but at the opposite end of the age spectrum
It’s not cinematic. It’s a Netflix production and will be in theatres for a week before landing on the streamer on 28 August. It could easily be a TV Christmas special. That said, it’s certainly not been made on the cheap. Produced by Steven Spielberg’s company and directed by Chris Columbus (Mrs Doubtfire, the first two Harry Potter films), it has so much star power that if, God forbid, something calamitous had happened as the cast were being bussed to set, the whole top tier of British acting would have been wiped out. (Only Judi Dench – who wasn’t cast for whatever reason – would be left to hold the fort.)
Our four retirees are: Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), a one-time spy; Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley), a retired psychiatrist; Joyce (Celia Imrie), an ex-nurse; and Ron (Pierce Brosnan) known as ‘Red Ron’ from his days as a fiery trade union leader. Coopers Chase Retirement Village is the White Lotus of retirement homes. It must cost a bomb. Residents are housed in multi-roomed apartments and have access to vast grounds, swimming pools, an archery range, llamas, even a wine menu at lunch. (What was ‘Red Ron’ doing here and how could he afford it, I wondered. If he had headed your trade union back in the day, I would have checked the financials for the time he was in office.)
These four prefer police-autopsy reports to intermediate knitting and meet every week in ‘the jigsaw room’ to solve cold-case murders. (The group was started by Penny, a retired police detective who had access to files but she’s now in the hospice wing.) As we join the action there are tensions afoot. Ian Ventham (David Tennant), the village’s rapacious developer, wants to raze the village to the ground and build luxury flats. (Hang on, isn’t it already luxury flats?) He is in partnership with a builder, Tony Curran (Geoff Bell). First, Curran is murdered and then Ventham. So whodunnit? The four investigate along with Stephen (Jonathan Pryce), Elizabeth’s husband who is slipping into dementia but still has moments of astuteness (the pair are very touching). It’s reminiscent of Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five, but at the opposite end of the age spectrum, and minus Timmy the dog.
The mechanics of the plot – which also throws Daniel Mays into the mix, and Richard E. Grant – need not detain us, and I wish the film hadn’t been as detained by them either. It eats into the time in which we could simply be hanging out with the characters while enjoying their quirks and admiring Joyce’s cakes. (Her four-layer lemon drizzle looks dreamy.) I can see why the books are so successful. It’s not patronising. These are all interesting people who have led interesting lives and who, given the opportunity, are fully capable of running rings round the police. It could have been more playful but, on the other hand, it’s not every day you get to witness Brosnan bouncing through an aqua-aerobics class.
Columbus doesn’t introduce much suspense or tension. And the cast’s talent is barely made use of. But, overall, it’s a loving salute to an old-fashioned kind of storytelling – and a book that I’ll never read.
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