Each week, Netflix drops a list of the top 10 films and TV shows dominating the platform. Last week, the top film on the platform was the original thriller The Woman in Cabin 10, starring Keira Knightley as a journalist who witnesses a woman being thrown overboard on a luxury yacht.
In the film based on the novel by Ruth Ware, Knightley's character, Lo, is invited aboard a mega yacht to write a story about a wealthy couple, Richard and Anne Bullmer (Guy Pearce and Lisa Loven Kongsli), and their charitable deeds. Anne specifically requested Lo's presence because she admires her work. When Lo meets her, Anne confides in Lo that she plans to donate her billions of dollars to charity after her death.
Warning: There are nothing but spoilers ahead, so if you haven't seen the movie, do not read any further.
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On the first night of the voyage, Lo hears a scuffle in the room next door -- cabin 10! There's a splash, and she realizes someone has gone overboard. She panics and notifies the crew because she saw a woman in that very room earlier, but everyone on the ship is accounted for. She's even told that no one ever stayed in that room, so she's gaslighted into thinking that what she thought she heard was all in her head.
Lo basically becomes the world's worst party guest because she's supposed to be a fly on the wall during this excursion, observing the Bullmers and their wealthy guests; however, the entire trip eventually becomes an interrogation as she tries to get to the bottom of what she saw. "You are a bit of a downer, Lo. It's kind of toxic," one guest, Grace, tells her after someone actually tries to kill Lo and no one believes her.
Both Lo and the audience are on the same side in this instance. We aren't meant to think she's imagined things, and we want Lo to figure out exactly what happened because she's an investigative journalist; this is what she does. A little more than halfway through the movie, we learn that the woman thrown overboard was Anne.
Richard killed her, and the woman that Lo saw in cabin 10 was an Anne lookalike that he hired, named Carrie (played by a different actor named Gitte Witt), so that she could impersonate Anne and eventually sign over her life savings to Richard in her will. For the rest of the trip, any time Anne graces the guests with her presence, it's actually Carrie in disguise, with Richard keeping her alive just long enough for her to sign over her fortune to him.
It's explained that Richard used facial recognition technology to scan social media so he could hire a woman who looks exactly like Anne. Every time Anne appears on screen after her initial meeting with Lo, it's actually Carrie, who has shaved her head and is wearing sickly makeup to resemble the ailing Anne. But I'm supposed to believe that this group that's assembled on board, a group of some of Anne's closest friends -- don't realize that it's not actually Anne? She may look similar, but her voice and build are different, and we're not questioning it? Are these the same people who can't realize that Clark Kent is also Superman? I haven't read the book, and perhaps it provides a little more detail about the deceptive identity theft that's required for this entire ruse to work, but once the big twist is revealed, I was waiting for the moment when someone in the film finally realized this. It never came.
The film is expertly paced, an easily digestible 90-minute thrill ride that's enjoyable, assuming this detail doesn't bother you. (Maybe you'll find other aspects of the film that stoke your outrage.) While it's heavy on drama, there are moments of lightness thanks to actors like Hannah Waddingham, Paul Kaye, and Kaya Scodelario, who ham it up as wealthy, obnoxious guests on the yacht, adding a little Knives Out flair to the ensemble. The film may have its flaws, but it'll do as a placeholder while we wait for a new season of Knightley's great crime thriller Black Doves.