The Thursday Murder Club

Chris Columbus is probably eclipsed only by Steven Spielberg (on producing duty here) as the unassuming master of the Millennial childhood classic. Having written Gremlins and The Goonies, he went on to direct Adventures In Babysitting, Home Alone and its sequel, Mrs. Doubtfire and, of course, the first two Harry Potter films. Though he recently traded in family fare for producing Robert Eggers’ films, he’s back in the director’s chair with Netflix’s glossy adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club. If it’s been a while since you set foot in an airport bookshop, this is TV presenter Richard Osman’s phenomenally popular cosy crime-book series. And it’s easy to see why Columbus got the gig; although its protagonists are pensioners, palatial retirement home Coopers Chase resembles a certain magic boarding school and the film’s chocolate box-y vision of England is almost as fantastical.

Joyce (Celia Imrie), a ditsy retired nurse, has just arrived at Coopers Chase and stumbles on the titular club analysing grisly evidence from cold cases instead of picking through jigsaw-puzzle pieces. Former MI6 boss Elizabeth (Helen Mirren) is impressed by Joyce’s high tolerance for gore and brings her in, joining socialist Ron (Pierce Brosnan) and psychiatrist Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley), with a bit of help from actual police officer PC De Freitas (Naomi Ackie). But we soon learn that Coopers Chase is under threat from sleazy owner Ian Ventham (a dastardly David Tennant) who wants to bulldoze it in favour of luxury flats, and when Ventham’s business rival is bludgeoned to death, the club finds itself with a much hotter case to crack.

The humour is very weak, a shame given it boasts a stacked cast.

Perhaps needless to say, your mileage may vary when it comes to this level of twee, with endless slices of cake and a syrupy score when things get a bit sad. The dialogue seems purely expositional and the humour is very weak, a shame given it boasts a stacked cast of brilliant actors. Only Jonathan Pryce makes much of an impression in an understated turn as Elizabeth’s husband Stephen, who lives with dementia.

The murder plot itself gets the job done, but a bigger mystery is how some of these characters can afford to live in such an unbelievably luxurious retirement home. The story asks us to be outraged that Coopers Chase could be replaced by high-end flats when that’s essentially exactly what it consists of already. Suspension of disbelief is all well and good, but it’s difficult to sympathise with the residents’ plight when they clearly have money coming out of their ears.