Pod Insights Pop Culture Happy Hour The Thursday Murder Club About this episode Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club is a cozy British mystery set at a posh retirement community. The movie stars Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, and Ben Kingsley as retirees who have formed a club that researches cold cases to pass the time – until a real murder, and a plucky new member, show up on their incredibly bucolic doorstep.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:19 Speaker 01 Netflix's The Thursday Murder Club is a cozy British mystery on steroids. Or, given the fact that it's set in a posh retirement community, maybe we should say on statins. Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, and Pierce Brosnan play retirees who formed a club that researches cold cases to pass the time until a real murder and a plucky new member show up on their incredibly bucolic doorstep. I'm Glen Weldon, this is NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, and we're talking about The Thursday Murder Club.
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2:16 Speaker 01 Joining me today is my co-host, Linda Holmes. Pip, pip, Lynda. Hello.
2:20 Speaker 03 Hello Glenn.
2:20 Speaker 01 Also here is Christina Tucker. She's the co-host of the podcast Wait, Is This a Date? Cheerio Christina.
2:27 Speaker 03 And a cheerio to you.
2:29 Speaker 01 Also with us is culture writer Margaret H. Willison. How you going Margaret?
2:33 Speaker 04 Top of the morning to you Glenn.
2:34 Speaker 01 There we go. So the Thursday Murder Club is set in the both hoity and toity retirement community of Cooper's Chase, a gorgeous manor nestled snugly in the green British countryside. Three residents have formed a club to solve unsolved murders for fun. There's Ron, a retired union organizer. He's played by silver fox Pierce Brosnan. There's Ibrahim, a retired psychiatrist. He's played by a bald bow-tied Ben Kingsley. And there's Elizabeth, whose past is kept sort of mysterious, but you can figure it out because come on, she's played with a Helen Mirren-like steeliness and reserve by Helen Mirren. As the film opens, they recruit a new arrival named Joyce to the club. She's a retired nurse,
3:16 Speaker 01 played by Celia Emery, just in time too, because folks start turning up dead around the place. The very impressive cast is filled out by Jonathan Price as Elizabeth's husband, and David Tennant as Cooper's Chase's obnoxious landlord. The film is directed by Chris Columbus and is based on the first of a series of bestselling novels by Richard Osman. It is streaming on Netflix now. Linda, kick us off. What'd you think?
3:40 Linda Holmes? I enjoyed this. I feel like this is a film that raises the question, is the fact that something is unabashedly commercial necessarily a reason to believe that it is bad? Because this is unabashedly commercial in the sense that it is based on something that is already a bestselling book by somebody who was already a very popular British TV host before Richard Osman wrote, you know, these books. Also, it has exactly the people you would cast in these parts in your ideal imagined version of this. I don't know whether he was asked about fantasy casting, but to me, based on how these characters present, I will leave it to people who have read the books to explain whether that is more because they back-adjusted
4:24 Linda Holmes? the characters to fit the actors. But these actors feel perfectly suited to who- The characters are, the minute I saw David Tennant, I thought, okay, this thing understands that this is not rocket science and that it is not grim and miserable. This is supposed to be fun. I thought it was fun. Is it pretty on rails? Of course. Is there anything in here that made me go, I can't believe that just happened? No, but I think the creation of this community, which is very important and precious to these people, you know, was something that, you know, as somebody whose parents have spent time in a similar
5:04 Linda Holmes? community, I mean, far less hoity and toity, but you know, I think the community there, as I felt about the show with Ted Danson, The Man on the Inside, I appreciate seeing a community like this represented. This is frothy as heck. And I enjoyed it plenty for that. I paid very little attention to the actual story. This is all atmosphere and feel to me. And in that way, I enjoyed it a lot.
5:32 Speaker 01 Okay. So you liked it as far as it goes. Christina, did you feel the froth? Were you in with the froth?
5:36 Speaker 03 I felt the froth. I was in with the froth. I did read the books, thanks to Margaret, demanding that I in fact read said book. And yes, there are some differences, et cetera, et cetera. It's a new thing, but for the most part, this is a charming little film with some actors I enjoy very much looking at, having a nice little time. Llamas are involved in a way that you might be surprised to hear, but they're there. And am I going to think deeply about this movie for the rest of my time? I am not, but will I be delighted anytime I catch my, likely my parents watching it when I am home? Absolutely. And I think that is important to support.
6:15 Speaker 01 Okay. Margaret, a little budgie, as they say in the UK, tells me, you were done with this.
6:21 Speaker 04 I really did not like this. I read these books reluctantly. They were popular for a long time before I picked them up because They're described as life-affirming. And what I would say for me and literature is I have my life affirmed by literature all the time. That's a big thing for me. But life-affirming literature, my mileage really varies there. Sometimes, that's actually what it's doing. Most of the time, what I find it to be is sort of mawkish and overly sentimental and twee. And what's great about the books is that they're none of those things. And what I don't like about the movie is that it's all of those things.
6:56 Speaker 01 Okay.
6:57 Speaker 04 And I mean, like, it can only be so tough when it's like, four seniors are indeed solving murders out of their fancy retirement community. Like, that's a steady plot point, that's not going anywhere. But like, the second I heard the score, I honestly wanted to turn the movie off. Because it's like, clunking little strings and it's just-
7:16 Speaker 03 It is very plinky score.
7:18 Speaker 04 And it's just, everything that I like about the books is that they are dry and specific and observant and fun in a way that lots of British writing can be. Really funny, surprisingly funny. And the movie really does seem to be like, these seniors are detecting mysteries, isn't it adorable?
7:38 Speaker 01 See?
7:39 Speaker 04 And I'm like, ugh, is it?
7:44 Speaker 01 Well, Margaret, you've done these books a service because this didn't land with me, for all the reasons you're pointing out. And I was gonna give up on the books. But you are now convincing me that maybe I should check out the books. I mean, because on paper, this is a lot of stuff I love. I kind of like an idealized cozy British setting. I like a whodunit, you know? And when it comes to your great British actors, you had all six of them here, right?
8:07 Speaker 03 All here. There's all here.
8:09 Speaker 01 But I was sitting on the couch and my arms were crossed. And I was like, why are my arms crossed? And it's like, I think it might have something to do with just how idealized and how cozy this setting is. Because when, you know, I'm fine with a bucolic British village with fetched roofs and every citizen is quirky, I get that. I'm fine with that. And I know real village life isn't like that. But I don't know. You know, I'm not willing to just nod and go along with clotted cream and crumpets here, because this is a retirement community that is so distant from any retirement community- That exists in the real world, and I know why people devour these books. But for some reason, I could only kind of vibe with this whenever this thing started to nod
8:52 Speaker 01 at the realities of aging. So, okay, so we meet Jonathan's prize character, who is dealing with dementia.
8:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
8:58 Speaker 01 And we're told he has his good days and his bad days, and we only see him on his very, very good days. And I know, and I, to get to Linda's point, and even to Christina's point, like, you stick to the fantasy, or this could become very depressing. But I really resonate with what you said, Margaret. Something about this seems not kind of harmlessly charming, but it's skirting the shoals of disingenuousness. Like, this movie so much wants me to find these characters plucky and adorable and full of gumption. And that kind of came off as a little condescending to me. That's what I'm picking up, Margaret.
9:32 Speaker 04 Yeah.
9:32 Speaker 01 It's like, you're setting this movie in a hospital without sick people, right? This is aging we're talking about. Maybe it's that it's so circumspect or so cozy, because I want that dryness. I love British humor, Margaret, but I, like, if I'm gonna eat a big plate of fish and chips, you gotta give me some vinegar. And there is no vinegar in this.
9:50 Speaker 03 Yeah. I will say, having both read and watched, I feel like, yes, what I was missing from the books was kind of, there is a sharper sense. I think all of the characters get to be a little more prickly and a little more fully realized in the books than they do in the movie. But I also am kind of like, the book isn't doing that much more. I don't think it is that much of a bastardization of the cozy novel set in a retirement community as a film version.
10:19 Speaker 04 I think if you liked the Chris Columbus Harry Potter movies, your mileage is gonna go well with this, especially if you felt like those are good adaptations, because the casting is exquisite.
10:29 Speaker 01 Shots fired.
10:30 Linda Holmes? I have no opinion about the Chris Columbus Harry Potter movies whatsoever. I have never been in that world. The only thing, way I would push back against what you said, Glenn, and, and I think, you know, everybody is affected by their own experiences with aging and with people that are aging. But what I think is interesting about communities like this, and obviously, in a sense of like, setting and, you know, physical environment and things like that, it's obviously highly idealized, 100%.
11:00 Linda Holmes? But there is a sense in which communities like this are made up of people who are often very close with each other, often very interdependent, and they do live with a constant sort of specter of decline and loss. And I think that although, you know, when you say we only see him on his very good days, I would not agree with that. I think you see a couple of conversations that he completely loses track of in the middle. And you see a couple of times when Jonathan Price's wife, played by Helen Mirren, sort of panics about how vulnerable she knows that he is because of his dementia and because of his decline.
11:43 Linda Holmes? And she feels panicky about that vulnerability. You do see somebody who is in hospice care with a spouse who spends essentially all of their time sitting by the bed. And you see the experience of feeling close to that person and visiting that person, not necessarily knowing what you should be getting out of a visit with that person. And that the emotional ambiguity of how Helen Mirren plays those scenes, I actually did think had a melancholy to it that I thought was very fitting to this place. You know, perhaps the way, one of the ways in which it's idealized is that it really shows these people who care deeply
12:26 Linda Holmes? about this community that they have built. And it is where they live and it is where they want to be with the people that they care about. And they actually are able to exert some power over their future. Because, you know, the whole mystery here turns on kind of who owns it and who's potentially going to sell it or bulldoze it or whatever. And I think the fact that they are given some agency over their future is not necessarily terribly realistic. I would certainly agree with that. But I think emotionally, I do think there are maybe more notes of melancholy for me in this film than there were for Glenn and Margaret.
13:05 Speaker 04 And I think your opinion is so telling, Lynda, because you haven't read the books. And I was Really curious how any of this would hit with someone who hadn't because so many of the plot points are contained here and the characters are really beautifully embodied by the actors. But the emotional relationships between them are not really given any space to develop and bloom. And so I was like, well, what, what meaning would it have to see like Bogdan, the Polish builder, playing chess with, you know, Stephen, the aging professor who's losing his memory, right? Because in the books, those scenes are like extremely affecting again without being cloying. And here, because I felt like you're just jumping
13:48 Speaker 04 to the conclusion point, it comes off as forced and cloying to me. But it is valuable to know that somebody who hadn't had that greater context is able to infer so much from the performances.
13:59 Linda Holmes? I think it's always difficult to know when you're watching something where you've read the book and other people haven't, and I've been on both sides of this, to know like, well, the things in the book, which are, you know, obviously the written word and so forth, that told me how to receive this relationship are not there. And so is this relationship not really going to be able to be received by anybody? And I can only speak for myself, but to me, this is where it is so important that they have stacked this with performers, you know, like Helen Mirren, like Jonathan Pryce. And again, David Tennant, who like, the minute you see him, I think you know exactly who that guy is.
14:42 Speaker 03 That's my boyfriend. Yeah.
14:46 Linda Holmes? So I think it worked for me. Listen, when you take a novel and you put it into a two hour movie and it is heavily reliant on relationships, there are definitely going to be some shorthand and I don't at all disagree that there is always a simplifying of relationships.
15:01 Speaker 03 Yeah, I definitely felt that simplifying, but I think for me, I also was like, this is where these performers really come to really bring their weight because, you know, that relationship between Bogdan and Stephen in the book is so sweet, but it was still, for me, it still works because those two actors really brought it to their, you know, granted shorthand. Or scenes and certainly does Helen Mirren bring a more sexual energy to that relationship with Bogdan than perhaps is in the book? Yeah, but that's why you hire Helen Mirren. That's what fun is for. Come on.
15:33 Speaker 01 We should mention that Bogdan is played by Henry Lloyd Hughes.
15:36 Speaker 04 I think in terms of adaptation that they left a lot of plot out, but I think they included one too many murders to really do any of the murders full justice because I feel like you're not grounded enough in what clues you'd even be looking for to understand what meaning clues have. And there's a very satisfying arc that's sort of subtly developed throughout the thing that gets to be kind of a surprise at the end. And I feel like if we'd trimmed out one of the present day murders and condensed all those plots around that one, the sort of background murder would get to have more of the weighty impact I know it can have in the books. But mostly this is all good news.
16:18 Speaker 04 It's like, if you liked the books a lot and are fine with a journeyman commercial adaptation with great actors, you've got it. It's right here.
16:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:27 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:28 Speaker 01 But Margaret, see like.
16:29 Speaker 04 If you watch this and you find the score intolerable, turn it off. Turn it off and read the book.
16:34 Speaker 01 You mentioned, if we trimmed it out, like this is the thing. Why is this thing, which is engineered to be a diverting concoction, a cozy who done it? Why is it two hours long? Also, I totally understand what you're saying, Linda, about those scenes between Mirren and Price. As I said, those are the parts where I feel like this is getting at something. This is touching something. At the same time, I felt you got Mirren, you got Brosnan, you got Price and Kingsley, and you're, you're still only using them to a fraction of their abilities. You got these Maseratis up on blocks in your driveway. You know what I mean? It just felt like.
17:09 Speaker 04 Sure.
17:10 Speaker 01 It felt like you gotta take them out in the open road a bit, which is why I want to ask the folks who read the books, like, are these other characters gonna get their moments to have like something like that Mirren Price resonance we see here in, in future books? Because, you know, as we record this, this movie has not yet dropped on Netflix, but I'm sure it's gonna be a hit and I'm sure those feature books are gonna get adapted if this is successful and.
17:30 Speaker 04 They're gonna come back to this well again and again.
17:32 Speaker 01 And they're gonna sink a lot of that Netflix money into this incredibly gorgeous, well-appointed bucolic well.
17:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, I think you get to do more with the other characters in future books. I think Helen Mirren's character still grounds, like the dynamic she has with Steven, her husband, is especially, that's one of the more emotional dynamics you're seeing on screen. But the others get to come out and do their things. And I'm excited to see that, maybe.
18:01 Speaker 03 Maybe. I love, gotta hedge your bets there.
18:03 Linda Holmes? And I don't want to come across like I am, you know, nominating this movie for Academy Awards.
18:08 Speaker 03 Agree. Yeah, I wanna be, I wanna say that too.
18:11 Linda Holmes? It's not that. I'm not, I'm not here to tell you that it is amazing. I am here to tell you that I, in many ways, would rather watch something like this that is, I mean, listen, it's one thing to decide you're gonna do a heavily commercial adaptation of a heavily commercial book. It's another to hire Chris Columbus, right? They went so down the middle with this, so down the middle. In some ways, I would rather do that than some of the kind of, ooh, look at me, my project is so edgy. And then you watch it and it's so kind of self-satisfied and dull. Netflix makes, also puts out movies like that.
18:52 Linda Holmes? And in some ways, I would rather just everybody do what you're good at. This is not a great mystery. This is a film where, for me, the actual plot elements had a lot of what I would consider blah, blah, blah material. And that is absolutely a mark against them. And it sounds like that is less true of the book and the actual putting together of the mystery is more satisfying, as I feel about something like Knives Out, which I find a very satisfying mystery with all the pieces that go click, click, click, click, click, click. This doesn't have that. I'm not here to tell you how awesome it is. I'm just here to tell you I found it pleasurable and I think. Think that, you know, listen, if you look at this and you think, well, that seems
19:37 Linda Holmes? like something that maybe I'll turn on on a Sunday afternoon, it'll probably treat you fine.
19:42 Speaker 01 Christina, last word.
19:43 Speaker 03 That is exactly how I feel. If you're going to turn this on, if you have, you know, an afternoon with the fam that you need, you know, entertainment for all ages, this is your golden ticket right here. I think this is going to bring a smile to everyone's face, though I would like to say this is a criminal waste of Joseph Marcel. Uh, I'd like to get him on the screen more. Why was he there for one second? I never got to see any more of him.
20:03 Speaker 01 Who does he play? Sorry.
20:04 Speaker 03 He plays the priest.
20:06 Speaker 01 Okay.
20:07 Speaker 03 Just briefly, just a gorgeous glimpse of him and then he took, he was taken away. That's all.
20:11 Speaker 01 All right. Good to know. Well, listeners, you will arrange yourself along the spectrum. One of our takes is going to resonate with you. Tell us what you think about the Thursday Murder Club. And speaking of retirees, we're still on Facebook. Maybe you are too. Find us there. We're also on Letterboxd with the young people stealing their essence to keep us young and beautiful and hip and with it. Skibidi toilet. Mewing. Give me a third thing, folks. What's the third thing?
20:37 Speaker 03 Riz. I don't know.
20:38 Speaker 01 Riz. There you go. And that brings us to the end of our show. Christina Tucker, Margaret H. Willis and Linda Holmes, thank you so much for being here.
20:45 Speaker 04 It was a pleasure, Glenn.
20:46 Speaker 03 Thank you.
20:47 Linda Holmes? Thank you, bud.
20:48 Speaker 01 And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor free, so please go find out more at plus.npr.org/happyhour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Janaye Morris and Mike Katsevin, edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy, and Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glen Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.
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