Keira Knightley is now forty (40!). Does it matter? No, she’s still as romcommable as love interests get, but -clearly- she and her agent see her life going in different directions. Lately we’ve not seen romance, period drama, or piracy, but we have seen espionage and kickassery. Today, she’s a journalist.
Fresh off an ugly scandal – a source was murdered for speaking to her – which is about a scandalous as you can make a journalism issue without directly blaming the journalist – which feels like cheating, tbh – Laura “Lo” Blacklock (Knightley) takes an “assignment” on the maiden voyage of a luxury yacht. The yacht is owned by zillionaire Richard Bullmer (Guy Pearce) and his ailing wife, Anna (Lisa Loven Kongsli).
Some things of note: Laura is assigned to room 8; she is told there is nobody in the adjacent room, 10, but somebody is clearly in there. Cigarettes don’t smoke themselves. Also, she goes in Room 10 to duck away from a frenemy and the room is clearly being occupied by and meets the occupant, a young woman. Meanwhile, Anna has a separate private chat with Laura. She has leukemia; she is not long for this world and she’s leaving all her zillions to charity. Fuck Richard. Please tell me somebody else knows this besides Laura, right? Right?!
Naturally, Laura becomes the only witness when then the Room 10 occupant seems to go overboard in the dead of night. After that, the film becomes a master class in gaslighting. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “You didn’t see what you saw?” “Where’s the proof?” There’s a serious danger to being a sole witness, especially in a closed space surrounded by hostiles. We’ve seen time and time and time again in the past decade that when a rich and powerful white man wants to alter reality to match his vision, I daresay he can do it. Ask yourself how many sources created a narrative that 
Joe Biden was mentally out-to-lunch in 2024. Now ask yourself how many of those sources are saying the same of Donald Trump – who CLEARLY IS MENTALLY OUT-TO-LUNCH RIGHT NOW. This is the power of misplaced wealth.
I don’t like gaslighting narratives. They’re very frustrating from an audience POV. We know what she saw. We know what we saw. Now we just have to wait for the violence to happen, and hope she escapes it to tell her story. The Woman in Cabin 10 is a C+ mystery but wastes the talents of Pearce, Knightley, Hannah Waddingham, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw on a mystery that devolves into a witch hunt. The film is reasonably entertaining for those who are going to be on their phone for 92 minutes, but I cannot say that’s anything resembling a recommendation.
Also, geez, investigative reporting? Is that still a thing? I’m pretty the oligarchs made sure it isn’t any longer … for obvious reason.
There once was a reporter named Lo
Who took a puffy assignment for show
Yet the luxury boat
Gave a cringe anecdote
When a corpse decided it was time to go
Rated R, 92 Minutes
Director: Simon Stone
Writer: Joe Shrapnel (?? Really?? That sounds like a Vietnam soldier in a graphic novel), Anna Waterhouse, Simon Stone
Genre: Rich people games
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who love a highbrow mystery
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Naviphobes
