Brief Story line
Laura Blacklock (Kiera Knightley - Black Doves TV series, Pirates of the Caribbean movies etc) was a famous investigative journalist who was invited to a private cruise initiated by wealthy couple Richard Bullmer (Guy Pearce - Memory, The Brutalist etc) and his terminally ill wife Anne (Lisa Loven Kongsli - Force Majeure, The Orheim Company etc) to celebrate the forming of cancer foundation. During the short cruise, Laura met with other invitees that included the rich and powerful people such as Heidi (Hannah Waddingham - Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, The Fall Guy etc) and her husband Thomas (David Morrissey - The Walking Dead TV series, State of Play etc), Adam (Daniel Ings - The Gentlemen TV series, The Gold min series etc) and several others.
Unexpectedly, there was also Laura's ex boyfriend, photographer Ben Morgan (David Ajala - Star Trek: Discovery TV series, Italian Studies etc) which made situation a bit awkward for her. But what started as a nice change for Laura turned complicated when she heard someone dropped to the sea from cabin 10, the room next to hers. However, there was no proof and she was thought to be imagining things.
So what actually happened? And how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
When I began watching this film, the first thing that I felt was how British it was as it had people conversed in English with strong accent. It was definitely understandable cause I believed it was British production and afterall it was based on novel of the same title written by pretty successful British author Ruth Ware whose several works are going to be produced into movies/series. Anyway the film did not take too long to go straight to the cruise where we were introduced to the characters and subsequently the main plot.
As the story progressed though, I found that the clues were available clearly if you pay attention. That's why I was not too shocked when the truth was revealed with a predictable motive. To my surprise though, the revealing was not done towards the end which made me realized that this is not a whodunit film but rather a mystery drama kind. After a bit of excitement, the movie ended in a rather standard way without any twist that made me viewed it as just so so. I am not too sure if it deviate from the novel but it is possible that reading the book would have been more impressive.
The cast actually did a pretty good job with Keira Knightley provided a quite convincing performance. Guy Pearce provided his usual "charm" while David Ajala's chemistry with Knightley pretty nice. In addition to those names, there were also appearances of Art Malik (Disclaimer mini series etc) as Doctor Robert Mehta who was taking care of Anne, Kaya Scodelario (Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City etc) as one of the guests Grace, Gugu Mbatha-raw (Loki TV series etc) as Laura's editor Rowan and few others. The film itself was directed by Simon Stone (The Dig, The Daughter etc) who also wrote the screenplay together with Joe Shrapnel and Anne Waterhouse. From what I read though, critics did not highly view this movie but it is quite popular for audience as it managed to make it to the top of Netflix chart globally.
Overall this was an OK enough mystery drama film with an easy to guess plot and pretty standard ending. The revealing of what actually happened way before the final third might have contributed to the lack of excitement for me towards the end as usually it was the most enjoyable part. Despite its interesting premise and the pleasure of listening to the people conversing in British accent & looking at the beautiful yacht (made me want to experience another cruise trip with my wife), I did not feel this to be a memorable film. So if you are interested in watching a mystery movie with those attributes, then you can give it a try. But do not expect it to be extraordinary or amazingly done type. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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