Reel Tastes & Travels – a light dose of entertainment to wake you up

Welcome to Cooper’s Chase, the most amazing retirement community ever. There are archery lessons, painting classes with live models, and even support llamas (or is it alpacas?). Even with just the glimpses of daily life that we see I can totally relate when one character says that it makes her look forward to getting old (however awkward that sentiment might come across when addressed to the retirees themselves). It is also the setting for the Thursday Murder Club. The movie (and book on which it is based) checks all the boxes for a cozy mystery. Charming location? Check! Quirky characters? Amateur sleuths? Check! The eponymous club is composed of four residents of Coopers Chase – the leader, Elizabeth (strongly hinted to be a retired spy), former trade unionist Ron, ex-nurse Joyce and psychiatrist Ibrahim. They may be retired but their mental faculties are as sharp as ever and they put them to work trying to solve old murder cases (hence the club’s name). And when confronted with an actual murder on their doorstep, they rise to the challenge helped along by a somewhat bumbling police force, a few useful connections and of course, a strong sense of humor. Dastardly villains? No less than shady contractors/businessmen with ties to organized crime and looking to tear down Cooper’s Chase. Yet despite the gruesome subject matter, the overall tone remains lighthearted and the film eventually ends happily for all concerned (barring the murderer and victims of course)

Given all this the movie should be perfect for a light, breezy watch. And yet it falls flat. The movie is stacked with an excellent cast, but the writing fails them, constraining them to one-note characters, with a lot of their nuances and personalities lost in the transition from page to screen. We just get throwaway lines about Joyce trying to form new friendships, and Ron’s troubled relationship with his son. But none of that gets developed further. And Ibrahim remains as much of an enigma as ever by the end of the movie. Perhaps as a result, some of the performances also feel familiar, like retreads of past roles rather than fully formed new characters.

The denouement also feels underwhelming. One of the most enjoyable parts of reading/watching a murder mystery is piecing together the clues as you go and trying to guess the murderer. Or failing that, realizing all the clues that you missed on first read/watch and how all the puzzle pieces cleverly fit together at the end. But here once the answer is revealed, there is no aha moment nor a trail of missed clues to go back and look out for. And we spend so little time understanding the various characters and their motivations and relationships that there is no real emotional punch to the ending either.

The movie may still ride the coattails of the cast’s and book’s popularity and perform well. But all in all, I found it to be a bit of a disappointment.

Stray Musings

• One of my favorite easter eggs in the movie is when Elizabeth’s husband comments that she looks like the queen. Of course, Helen Mirren famously won an Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in ‘The Queen’.
• What was the point of the whole sub-plot of Ron’s son being suspected of the murder? It was just a pointless red herring which could have been cut in favor of a greater buildup to the final revelation or greater depth for the main characters.