The Thursday Murder Club
Director: Chris Columbus
Writer: Katy Brand, Suzanne Heathcote
Based on: Richard Osman‘s novel
Cast: Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Tom Ellis, Jonathan Pryce, David Tennant, Geoff Bell, Paul Freeman, Richard E. Grant, Ingrid Oliver
Seen on: 14.6.2026

Content Note: ableism, human trafficking

Plot:
Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), Ron (Pierce Brosnan) and Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley) are all residents in a luxurious senior home, Cooper’s Chase. Each Thursday, they meet to go over cold cases, hoping to find new clues in old documents. When Joyce (Celia Imrie) comes to live in their residence, they quickly realize that she has medical knowledge and recruit her to the cause. Soon, though, the four find themselves faced with an actual murder to investigate as Cooper’s Chase comes under threat for real estate development.

Even though I am not much of a murder mystery fan, The Thursday Murder Club looked like just the thing for a lazy Sunday, and that stellar cast was too intriguing to pass up. But I found myself actually pretty ticked off by the film, despite the cozy vibes it sends out.

[SPOILERS follow]

The Thursday Murder Club is a glossy film with pretty spectacular sets (how anybody could afford Cooper’s Chase, nobody really knows) that are only rivaled by the cast. The entire atmosphere of the film feels a bit like a summer camp for seniors with less sex than death, and I can imagine that it felt that way on set, too, I don’t know. In any case, everybody and everything is relaxed, it appears. Maybe even too much so. Except for the murders – and the morality that we are confronted with at the end.

The longer the story lasts, the more uncomfortable I became. For a movie that is so light, it almost floats away, the film hits us with quite a few whoppers in the end. There is the story of handyman Bogdan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), a victim of human trafficking who is revealed to be the murderer of the current case: he tried to get his passport back to visit his dying mother and accidentally killed his trafficker. Despite building up a lot of sympathy for Bogdan, once he is arrested for it, the film doesn’t care anymore about any of the circumstances or what happens to him because justice is apparently served when he goes to jail.

Of course, the fearsome foursome also solves the cold case which leads to Elizabeth’s best friend Penny, a former police officer who is so ill, she is barely conscious anymore, and definitely not oriented. Her husband John (Paul Freeman) confesses the murder for her, basically, then kills her and himself. This is framed as some great relief because then Penny doesn’t have to go through being prosecuted in her state. I was honestly appalled. Usually when caretakers kill their charges, it is because they can’t do it anymore and/or they want to spare the people they take care of further pain, and here this ableist narrative that is already rather widely accepted, gets total legitimation. I might be completely amoral for suggesting it, but how about just not telling the police about Penny’s decade old murder, at least until after she died from natural causes? I absolutely hated the movie for this ending.

In addition, there were a couple of details that just didn’t work for me (like the entire motivation of Ron’s son (Tom Ellis) or that Elizabeth sneaks her husband his medication) which I probably wouldn’t have minded as much if the film had otherwise not enraged me like that. But as is, I can’t say that I liked The Thursday Murder Club, despite the great cast.

Summarizing: argh.