Book vs. Movie Review: The Thursday Murder Club (2025)
With our favorite retirees, several murder mysteries rolled into one, and a comedic spin on the genre, check out my full review for The Thursday Murder Club (2025) from Netflix (with a book vs movie breakdown) below.
Movie Blurb
Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), Ron (Pierce Brosnan), Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley), and Joyce (Celia Imrie) are all retirees who make up The Thursday Murder Club. In their club, they solve cold cases long forgotten by the police. However, when a murder shows up at their retirement home, they begin to investigate real-time with the police and it turns into a comedic murder mystery with some very stubborn older people that will make you wonder if you were ever as on your toes as they are in retirement.
Movie Review | Heidi Dischler
I knew as soon as I saw the fact that The Thursday Murder Club novel would be turned into a movie that I’d be reviewing both the book and the movie. I love the vibes of both the book and the movie!! A bunch of retirees who basically bulldoze their way into solving murders? Sign me up. Not to mention, I really believe the movie brought this story to life in such an awesome way.
As far as the story goes, this movie follows the book very well. I’ll sum up the biggest differences from the book vs. movie below, but as a whole, the movie had a plot that made sense, wrapped up well, and only made me a tad bit sad for certain characters. You’re basically following the murders of Tony Curran and another character who gets murdered further on in the movie. You have The Thursday Murder Club, Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim, as they work together to solve these murders. The pacing felt a little slow in the beginning but really ramped up after the first forty ish minutes of the movie.
With the acting, I didn’t exactly imagine Helen Mirren as Elizabeth, but man did she kill it. Celia Imrie as Joyce was by far my favorite and I felt like Ron (Pierce Brosnan) and Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley) were played perfectly. I couldn’t have asked for a better group to play these lovable characters. With other sider characters, the only one who was even a tad memorable was Donna (Naomi Ackie). Her character’s personality didn’t shine enough, though, for her to really be memorable.
Overall, this was honestly such a good movie even if you’ve never read the book. I’d dare to say that I liked the movie adaptation more than the book (I found the POVs in the book hard to follow at first). Definitely give it a go if you love comedic murder mysteries or cozy mysteries!
Book vs. Movie (The Differences)
Here comes major spoilers so don’t go any further if you still need to read the book or watch the movie!!!
Personally, I didn’t see a ton of huge structural changes. Many side characters got cut along with side plots. I’ll list all the ones I can remember below.
Differences:
- Father (not Father) Mackie only got mentioned once or twice in the movie while in the book he had a whole sordid love affair with a nun who eventually committed suicide due to shame.
- Tony Curran was dealing drugs from what I remember in the book (not passports and workers).
- Jason was helping with the drugs and actually didn’t get arrested for Ian Venthem’s murder.
- Bernard only gets mentioned in passing when his backstory in the book was actually downright depressing. He was a love interest for Joyce in the books.
- You lost a LOT of side characters and side plots that sent the gang on a bunch of different adventures. Mostly for time reasons I assume.
- Bogdan didn’t get arrested in the books.
That’s all I can remember and honestly, the differences weren’t that huge (although I was sad about Bogdan getting arrested in the movie). I think this adaptation stayed largely true to its source material and ended up being really great movie because of it.
Overall, this is such a fun murder mystery and if you liked this movie or the book, you should definitely check out Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto.
