The charms of The Thursday Murder Club, Netflix’s adaptation of Richard Osman’s 2020 novel, are slender but sturdy. A group of three not-so-old folks—the term senior citizens is far too stuffy for them—meet every Thursday in the common room of Coopers Chase, a cozy-luxe retirement village, to tackle unsolved crimes. As they ponder the mystery of a young woman’s grisly 1973 death-by-stabbing, they’re sidetracked by a murder in their own midst: One of the Coopers Chase landlords, a man with thuggish business connections, is found dead. Delighted to have fresh, local material to work with, the stalwart group set out to uncover who did it, and why. The suspects include a greasy ne-er-do-well with a financial interest in Cooper’s Chase, a menacing gangster whom everyone had presumed dead, and even the offspring of one of their very own members.
The plot of The Thursday Murder Club twists and turns gently, like wind chimes in a light breeze. It’s one of those movies you watch not necessarily for its whodunnit complexities, but for the pleasure of watching a group of actors having fun, in a storybook English-countryside setting complete with happy, well-kept flower beds and cemeteries dotted with gravestones both ancient and new. The director is Chris Columbus, perhaps best known for Home Alone and its sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, not to mention Mrs. Doubtfire and two Harry Potter installments. He’s a director who screams “Fun!” and there’s a fair bit of fun-screaming here: At one point the Trammps’ “Disco Inferno” breaks out on the soundtrack to remind everyone that these over-sixty folks aren’t ready for the grave yet, dadburnit. The point doesn’t need to be driven home quite that obviously.
Read more: How the Low-Stakes Murder Mystery Took Over Pop Culture
Still, The Thursday Murder Club is so good-natured, and so gorgeous to look at, that to carp about it just seems churlish. Veteran cinematographer Don Burgess gives the visuals the sheen of a Victorian pearl. The gloriously (if sadly) fictional Coopers Chase is actually a restored convent somewhere around Kent, grand but welcoming at the same time, and llamas—yes, llamas—graze its rolling grounds with placid indifference. (In the film, Englefield Estate, in Berkshire, stands in for this lavish complex.) It’s a marvelous setting for the movie’s stars to cavort in: Ben Kingsley plays Ibrahim, a well-mannered psychologist who wears a suit each and every day; Pierce Brosnan is Ron, a onetime labor organizer who still knows how to get large groups of people to the barricades; Celia Imrie plays charming, soft-spoken, cake-baking Joyce, a Coopers Chase newcomer who’s still proving her worth to the group, though it turns out her nursing background will be invaluable.
David Tennant plays a sharp, sleazy villain. Richard E. Grant shows up for a hot minute, brandishing some massive flower shears. Naomi Ackie, a marvelous actress who recently appeared in Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby, but who’s even more sensational in the overlooked 2022 biopic Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, plays a newly minted police officer whose peers refuse to take her seriously, until the Thursday Murder Club crew give her a chance to prove herself.
Best of all is Helen Mirren’s Elizabeth, the group’s ringleader, whose former profession makes her uniquely suited to getting information out of slippery, evasive characters—if you haven’t already read Osman’s book, or any of its several follow-ups, it’s best if you let her backstory unfold onscreen. Mirren takes the proceedings just seriously enough. She approaches the character of Elizabeth with crisp efficiency, and also gets the best wardrobe. At one point, Elizabeth dons a disguise straight out of the movie for which Mirren won an Oscar, Stephen Frears’ 2006 The Queen: seeing her in a stalwart tartan skirt and Hermès headscarf is a welcome whiff of déjà vu, though Elizabeth’s everyday gear, including a glen-plaid blazer worn with smart two-tone loafers, is even better.
The best thing about The Thursday Murder Club is that this isn’t a story about people who “used to be” anything. They may be retired, but their former professions are still alive within them—our life’s work is part of what makes us who we are. The story also makes allowances for those who aren’t as able-bodied, or sound of mind, as our four protagonists are. Elizabeth’s husband is an accomplished historian—played by Jonathan Pryce—who’s slipping into dementia. He has good days and bad days, and Elizabeth rolls with them. If you’re looking for a realistic depiction of what it’s like to live with, and care about, a person with dementia, this movie isn’t it—but it’s not trying to be. Rather, it’s an acknowledgement, albeit a muted one, that aging isn’t for the faint of heart. All the more reason to face every day—and not just Thursday—as an adventure.
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