The Woman in Cabin 10
In Simon Stone’s loopy if occasionally absorbing mystery thriller, Keira Knightley plays a reporter on board a luxury yacht who suspects she has witnessed a murder.
Completely at sea: Keira Knightley
Photo courtesy of Netflix.
Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gas Light has a lot to answer for. However, it is probably Ingrid Bergman’s Oscar-winning performance in the 1944 film version that has become the trampoline for the phrase “to gaslight”, later typified by the likes of Jodie Foster in Flightplan (2005) and Claire Foy in Unsane (2018). Now Keira Knightley boards that particular ship in a maritime mystery-thriller that has its moments but is no Brian De Palma special. Keira plays Laura Blacklock, a Guardian reporter who witnessed the unsubstantiated murder of a source two years back and seriously needs a break. It’s understandable, then, for her to accept an invitation from the billionaire Anne Bullmer (Lisa Loven Kongsli) for a cruise on the latter’s superyacht to a fundraising gala in Norway. Anne is dying from leukaemia and wants Laura to look over her valedictory speech which is to publicise her donation of billions to charity.
However, as soon as Laura is welcomed aboard the Aurora Borealis, the film immediately shifts into Agatha Christie gear as a variety of colourful guests pitch in to appear suspicious. By this stage it’s already looking a bit clunky, being no match for, say, Triangle of Sadness (2022), being more Death On the Nile (1978/2022). As the first jump scare turns out to be a nightmare (a dreadful cliché), Keira wakes to hear a bit of a rumpus next door, in Cabin 10. She then sees a woman thrown overboard but all her attempts to get anybody to believe her fall on deaf ears. Even an ex-boyfriend (one of her better ‘mistakes’), Ben Morgan (David Ajala), thinks she’s losing it, not to mention Anne’s husband Richard (Guy Pearce) whose hospitality is beginning to show signs of strain. Any evidence that Laura can accrue quickly vanishes, leading Keira to knit her brows in that delightful way she does, as if to question her own sanity. But we know better…
Adapted from the 2016 novel by Ruth Ware, Simon Stone’s film does feel terribly novelettish, until the action kicks in and a degree of old-fashioned suspense is brought to bear. It is hard to second-guess who might be guilty and Ms Ware has delivered a jolly good yarn, but one might have expected more from the director of The Dig (2021). Keira does her best trying to be a Guardian investigator, while her co-stars improvise a veneer of haughty privilege in sketchily written parts. There’s not a lot of surplus humour, although one guest’s excuse for being on the ship – “I’m also rich” – raises a smile. But most of the good actors are wasted here and if this Netflix pot boiler is largely a loopy distraction, it does have its absorbing moments. And the yacht looks nice.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Keira Knightley, Guy Pearce, David Ajala, Art Malik, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Kaya Scodelario, David Morrissey, Daniel Ings, Hannah Waddingham, Gitte Witt, Christopher Rygh, Pippa Bennett-Warner, John Macmillan, Paul Kaye, Amanda Collin, Lisa Loven Kongsli.
Dir Simon Stone, Pro Debra Hayward, Cindy Holland and Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Screenplay Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse and Simon Stone, from the novel by Ruth Ware, Ph Ben Davis, Pro Des Alice Normington, Ed Katie Weiland and Mark Day, Music Benjamin Wallfisch, Costumes Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh, Sound Paul Carter.
Sister-Netflix.
95 mins. UK/USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 10 October 2025. Cert. 15.
