THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 (2025)

With The Woman in Cabin 10, Netflix has added a new, entertaining but mindless offering to their in-flight film list. Let’s be honest, that’s what these straight-to-streaming features are, and what they were always meant to be. Every three months or so, one of the big streaming platforms release a mystery psychological thriller that’s middling… but intended to be so.

Streamers aren’t looking to win industry awards or reinvent cinema with movies like Heads of State (2025), Carry On (2024), and, indeed, The Woman in Cabin 10. These are made to keep weary plane passengers awake just long enough to eat dinner in their seats and maybe have a last drink with dessert before the turbulence hits. And, knowing that’s its aim, The Woman in Cabin 10, based on the novel by Ruth Ware, does its job well.

This film finds journalist Laura Blacklock (Keira Knightley) covering the maiden voyage of a superyacht owned by a billionaire philanthropist, Richard Bullmer (Guy Pearce), and his dying wife Anne (Lisa Loven Kongsli), as they transport an assortment of their rich friends to a gala in Norway that will raise funds for Anne’s new cancer research foundation.

Of course, the luxury trip takes a turn when Laura is convinced she saw someone thrown off the boat and into the water. But, as all the crew and guests are accounted for, her fear is dismissed by the rest of the company, leading Laura to investigate the murder to prove that she’s not crazy and that there’s a killer on the loose.

I appreciated how this film doesn’t overstay its welcome. Unlike a lot of streaming mysteries that drag one book’s worth of plot twists into an unnecessary eight-episode series or a two-hour movie, The Woman in Cabin 10 keeps the pacing tight and gives us clues and red herrings only when they are needed.

To those of you who like digging into the traumatic and/or shady past of every possible culprit, as well as the details of their love lives, you’ll be disappointed. But, for those of us who get bored with too much unnecessary detail and like their mysteries taut, you’ll appreciate the pacing as much as I did.

The one area where the film could have given us more space to breathe is in building up Laura Blacklock’s character and her relationship with Ben Morgan (David Ajala), Laura’s ex-boyfriend, who happens to have been hired to photograph the wealthy on the yacht and at the gala afterwards.

Before we meet Ben, Laura gives us a throwaway line explaining to her boss that he was “two disastrous relationships ago”. From that conversation and the way she dodges his calls, we expect there to be some fireworks: a bit of fighting and arguing when they find themselves trapped on a yacht for five days together. None of that happens at all.

There’s awkwardness, and one character suggests their break-up wasn’t amicable. Though Ben later reaffirms the animosity in their split, we don’t see either the animosity that led them to separate or the real chemistry that tells us why they were dating in the first place. It’s one area in the film that is all tell and almost no show.

That’s not to speak ill of either actor’s performance. Knightley and Ajala are both very charismatic. Indeed, Ajala is so charming and likeable that it’s hard to see him being unamicable to anyone. That said, both he and Keira Knightleydo the best they can to give their relationship some weight. But acting alone isn’t enough when the script is thin in the Laura/Ben department and the director seems uninterested in getting the audience to invest in these two characters.

So, what is director Daniel Stone interested in? Lovely yacht shots. The cinematography is straight out of an Instagram filter; highly glossy, but there’s not a lot beneath the surface. Which, again, given what this movie sets out to do, isn’t inappropriate and proves engaging in its own way. After all, there’s a reason we spend hours scrolling through Instagram: prettiness has a place.

While there’s little originality in the filming and cinematography, and scant relationship development between the two main characters, there are some surprises to be had in the mystery plotting. This, in part, is because of the tight timeline the film keeps. It keeps up the suspense well enough that my fellow Agatha Christie-loving sleuths will be desperately trying to work out angles and “who did it” along with our heroine.

Given the trapped nature of the yacht and the über-rich characters, there are enough suspects to keep audiences involved in the core mystery. The most sensitive of whom might catch a few red herrings early on, but the big twist will be harder to work out, as it should be in any good mystery tale.

Although gaslighting has become a bit of a cliché in cinema, it works well here. It is, in fact, the one time that the film asks us, gently and not insistently, to look under the glossy, filtered surface. More than one character mentions to Laura that it’s very dangerous to get on the wrong side of the people who run the world—or at least have lunch dates with people who run the world.

The cattiness, hedonism, and ego of the rich guests are also, surprisingly, not overdone. We’ve seen a lot of films and series create caricatures of the wealthy; some have done it well, some have done it poorly. This film doesn’t caricature at all.

I’ve spent a bit of time grazing the shoulders of the wealthy in my work for non-profits. I can tell you that the surface friendliness, the slight gossiping behind one another’s backs (nothing too distasteful, of course), and the determination to use drinking and sometimes drugs to have a grand time is pretty spot on.

The fact that we don’t find out all of their dirty little secrets is also a welcome relief. We don’t need to know about how the mega-wealthy exploited us to earn their money. We’ve got enough real-life examples that we’re able to make our own conclusions. The last thing we need is to have it shoved down our throats in yet another film.

In the end, while the film doesn’t ask us to think too broadly or deeply, it does offer us a hint of some more profound meaning. At the end of the film, we discover that making a big difference to one person is better than accolades and worldwide acclaim.

The message is, more or less, true. And, while not earth-shattering, it’s a welcome note of hopefulness that will let you drift off to sleep in your aeroplane seat once you’ve finished your nightcap.

USA • UK | 2025 | 95 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Simon Stone.
writers: Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse & Simon Stone (based on the novel by Ruth Ware).
starring: Keira Knightley, Guy Pearce, Art Malik, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Kaya Scodelario, Daniel Ings & Hannah Waddingham.