The Woman in Cabin 10 has sat in the Netflix Top 10 since its October debut, which is surprising because it’s terrible. I was initially excited when I saw it on my suggested feed. Netflix Originals are hit or miss, and I loved Keira Knightley in The Jacket opposite Adrien Brody. I expected another tense psychological thriller in that lane, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The problem with The Woman in Cabin 10 is that it sets itself up like a murder mystery cruise where anyone could be the culprit. Instead of leaning into a fun whodunit, it becomes an exhausting exercise in gaslighting Knightley’s character, who clearly witnesses something awful, with zero ambiguity, while everyone else brushes it off like she simply imagined it.
The Woman in Cabin 10
If I wanted that kind of treatment, I’d just go to my doctor to be told I’m not actually sick after they already collected my co-pay.
Slick Setup With No Payoff
The first act in The Woman in Cabin 10 suggests depth that never pays off. Keira Knightley plays Lo Blacklock, an investigative journalist traumatized after witnessing a source get murdered on a previous assignment. She boards a luxury superyacht to interview terminally ill billionaire Anne Bullmer (Lisa Loven Kongsli), but uncovers a conspiracy involving, you guessed it, the woman in cabin 10.
Everyone on board is introduced in painstaking detail the second Lo arrives. Her ex, Ben (David Ajala), is conveniently there as the event’s photographer. Anne’s husband, Richard (Guy Pearce), is a transparent gold-digger upset about her estate plans. Anne’s doctor, Robert (Art Malik), pops in and out with suspicious timing. Every other passenger recites their backstory like they’re reading from a press kit.
Naturally, I assumed The Woman in Cabin 10 was building toward a dark, twisted Clue scenario. Why else force-feed us everyone’s biography?
The Alleged Mystery
The alleged mystery in The Woman in Cabin 10 is insultingly direct. Lo hides in cabin 10 to avoid Ben and sees a blonde woman staying there. Later, she hears a struggle and witnesses someone being thrown overboard. She panics, alerts everyone, and is immediately dismissed. The crew insists no one is staying in cabin 10 and suggests she’s mentally unraveling from past trauma.
The glaring problem is this: we see what Lo sees while she’s 100 percent lucid. There’s no hint of an unreliable narrator. There’s no doubt. There’s no tension. There’s just a group of wealthy people telling a journalist that a murder she witnessed didn’t happen. It stops being a mystery and becomes billionaires bullying someone who refuses to play along. I wanted a thriller, not an allegory for everyday media suppression.
I would have much rather watched a more sincere (albeit feigned) search for the body, followed by a tense unraveling of guilt and motive based on the character details we were force-fed. That would actually be fun. This is not.
An Exercise In Wasted Potential
The acting in The Woman in Cabin 10 is solid. Knightley plays Lo with restraint, composure, and steadily rising frustration. She does everything any rational person would do in her situation, but the so-called cover-up is so blatant that the suspense evaporates. The film just limps toward a reveal that is mildly interesting but nowhere near worth the slog.
I wanted to enjoy The Woman in Cabin 10, but the setup and payoff feel like they belong to two entirely different films. The result is tedious, predictable, and frustrating.
The Woman in Cabin 10 is a Netflix Original, available to stream with an active subscription.
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