At first glance, there’s nothing wrong with trying to make a whodunnit set on a yacht. “The Woman in Cabin 10” lines up a terrific cast, sets up a colorful array of suspects, and then sends a journalist on a mission to find the truth. And yet director Simon Stone’s mystery is aggressively dull from the get-go, sacrificing almost any personality in favor of the pretty interiors of a luxury pleasurecraft and the thinnest possible motivation for his protagonist. The film aspires to be yet another eat-the-rich parable in our time of oligarchs, and while there’s no rule that these stories need to be dark comedies, they should at least aspire to have some kind of personality. While depicting the wealthy as bored and indifferent to the suffering around them is a good start, there’s a problem when the audience shares that bored indifference to the story you’re telling.
Laura Blacklock (Keira Knightley) is an investigative reporter for The Guardian who was emotionally scarred by her last assignment. Seeking a light human interest story as a change of pace, she leaps at the opportunity to cover a charity gala held by the wealthy Richard Bullmer (Guy Pearce) on behalf of his cancer-stricken wife Annie (Lisa Loven Kongsli). The invite includes a three-day trip on Richard’s yacht before arriving at the gala on a private island.
However, once on board, Laura discovers little to relax her including not only Richard’s snobby friends, but also her ex-boyfriend (David Ajala) for that extra dash of awkwardness. On her way to dinner, Laura notices a woman in the adjoining cabin, and later that night, it appears that woman has gone overboard. When Laura voices her concern to the captain, crew, and fellow travelers, she’s informed there never was a woman in that cabin. Laura continues to investigate, questioning her sanity as everyone denies that a crime even took place.
There’s a good hook here about people in power refusing to even acknowledge the validity of your claims, arguing that a crime never even happened let alone its criminality. If Stone nails anything, it’s the general aloofness of this crowd — fellow passengers include Hannah Waddingham, Kaya Scodelario, David Ajala and David Morrissey. And while it’s strange to line up so many good actors to sit around and do nothing, they at least manage to convey the ennui of this social strata. It’s not merely that Laura is bothering them on their trip; it’s that little could bother them at all. They’re ostensibly there for their friends Richard and Annie, but even these bonds are superficial. If they weren’t busy looking down on Laura, we get the sense they’d be looking down on each other. It’s even a stretch to call them self-interested since that would imply they’re at least interested in something.
But this broad disinterest expands to the general tone of the movie (which is adapted from the bestselling book by Ruth Ware). Even though Laura is ostensibly on a mission to find the truth, it rarely feels noble or invigorating. Instead, it relies on the overcooked “trauma” trope where Laura’s search for the woman in cabin 10 is a form of atonement for a source who died during a previous investigation. It creates the sense that these young women are interchangeable in Laura’s life. Additionally, the backstory is largely unnecessary, as if we’d ask why Laura is so determined when simply being a good person and a good journalist would be enough to keep her going. The past trauma does provide a useful pretext for questioning Laura’s sanity, but since the film never plays with the surreal and she’s surrounded by wealthy jerks, we know it’s safe to assume that a crime happened. You haven’t packed the boat with suspicious characters if this is all about one woman’s loosening grip on reality.
It doesn’t help that despite the luxury interiors of the ship, everything is rendered as gray and overcast regardless of its setting. It’s an aggressively gloomy picture even though it wants the momentum of a thriller. The visuals constantly suck the life out of the picture, and while you could argue that they’re meant to reflect Laura’s emotional state, they still make for a drab movie that appears actively resistant to having a personality beyond its dour investigation. While there’s plenty of precedent for seeing the wealthy in miserable confines despite their ostensible riches, in “The Woman in Cabin 10,” the pall drains the picture of a pulse.
Having Laura run around the boat, find a clue, and then either lose the clue or face some kind of resistance is all the film does for most of its runtime. Rather than playing like a psychological thriller, it’s more of an exercise in tedium as we know there’s an answer to this riddle, but we don’t particularly care what it is. None of these characters are compelling enough to warrant our curiosity, and the movie’s examination of the wealthy never has any deeper perspective beyond wondering if any of them could be the perpetrator.
Not every recent movie that has taken aim at the wealthy hit its mark, but at least there tended to be some energy in the effort. At most, “The Woman in Cabin 10” can only manage to reflect back the sneer of its wealthy supporting characters.
“The Woman in Cabin 10” will be released exclusively on Netflix on Oct. 10.
