Whether it is a yacht or an old tug, if being on a boat worries you, imagine one with a murderer on the loose. Quickly reaching No. 1 in Netflix movies globally, “The Woman in Cabin 10,” directed by Simon Stone, follows the classic formula of the whodunit genre, however shakily.
Laura Blacklock, played by Keira Knightley, is an accomplished journalist who’s been invited on a philanthropic billionaire’s yacht. After returning from a traumatizing scoop, the trip does not turn out to be the break that she needs. There is a murderer aboard.
The cinematography successfully alludes to the doppelganger plot without unveiling it too early. The first shot reveals Blacklock’s face from her reflection on an elevator wall. Her trauma recalls a woman drowning, and later Blacklock herself almost drowns. Anne Lyngstad, played by Lisa Loven Kongsli, is hardly distinguishable from her double Carrie, played by Gitte Witt.
The isolation that Blacklock feels on the boat is palpable. Blacklock is perceived by others very differently from how she perceives herself. Because we see her interiority, we empathize with her.
While Blacklock’s character development is solid, the film struggles to stay afloat with other characters. The billionaire guests of Richard Bullmer, played by Guy Pearce, appear gluttonous, arrogant and blasé, but in the end, these characteristics are forgotten.
Though the killer is met with justice, fans of an otherwise typical whodunit may be left wanting more of the message of the board game Clue: No one is fully innocent. This concluding message would have made sense since Blacklock’s editor Rowan, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, says to her at the beginning, “People are capable of appalling things.”
Blacklock’s ex-boyfriend, Ben Morgan, played by David Ajala, is another character lacking development. He is a moral median among the others, neither overtly just nor malicious. Morgan isn’t featured often. But therefore, when Blacklock reminisces about him, we don’t share her rekindled tenderness.
While a group of billionaires lounging away on a yacht implies political commentary, the growth of suspicion around Dr. Robert Mehta, played by Art Malik, may allude to the ethicality of medicine when profit is involved. Mehta is eventually co-opted by one of the billionaire guests into lethally injecting another passenger. The name “Mehta” itself suggests the involvement of a “meta” narrative in the story.
Because Mehta’s screen presence grows alongside suspicion of him, viewers are faced with a question: Why are the other billionaire guests spared so decisively from the question of innocence or guilt in the end, but not the doctor?
“The Woman in Cabin 10” balances these larger political questions with classic whodunit features. As for the villain, they have some of the haughtiness of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” antagonist. Despite its inconsistencies, “The Woman in Cabin 10” is well worth a watch.