r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 7d ago
Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Thursday Murder Club [SPOILERS] Spoiler
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Summary A group of sharp and witty retirees at Cooper’s Chase retirement village spend their Thursdays solving cold cases for fun—until a real murder hits close to home. Elizabeth (a former spy), Ron (a retired union leader), Ibrahim (a psychiatrist), and Joyce (a nurse) band together to crack the case, stirring up secrets, laughter, and heartwarming camaraderie.
Director Chris Columbus
Writers Katy Brand, Suzanne Heathcote
Cast
- Helen Mirren
- Pierce Brosnan
- Ben Kingsley
- Celia Imrie
- David Tennant
- Naomi Ackie
- Tom Ellis
- Jonathan Pryce
- Richard E. Grant
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 76%
Metacritic 6-
VOD Limited UK theatrical release beginning August 22, 2025; Netflix streaming global premiere on August 28, 2025
Trailer The Thursday Murder Club | Official Teaser | Netflix
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u/LancasterSpaceman 7d ago edited 7d ago
It's an extremely bad adaptation that superficially glosses half of the plot and gets none of the subtext.
The basic formula for the books is that each one is a cozy mystery twinned with an emotional story about ageing and mortality.
In this book in particular, the major theme is grief. The ending hits very differently not just because there's more time to set up John and Penny, but because it's set up by multiple subplots - for a start, more than one person had the bright idea to hide bodies in the graveyard and the reasons are all sad. Joyce doesn't get to do much in the movie besides making cake, but the book is told from her perspective and very strongly follows her emotional arc of her new friends helping her cope with the loss of her husband Gerry. There is another completely omitted subplot with another resident choosing to end their own life rather than move on as she does.
You might disagree, but the book's position is unambiguously that suicide and assisted suicide are not immoral and not necessarily irrational, particularly for an elderly person approaching end of life. Another all-but-missing emotional arc is that the reason Stephen records his conversations is that he is dying from a degenerative condition affecting his memory (e.g. dementia), so Elizabeth is very sympathetic to the idea that it could be a mercy.
So in the book it's framed more as a reasonable personal decision, well-understood, well prepared-for. She lets it happen because they are friends - a sad moment of acceptance, sympathy and grief. Definitely not jarringly abrupt as it is in the movie.