The Woman in Cabin 10

Grey November weather, here we are. Welcome back everyone, it’s great to launch another episode especially this month since it’s such a transitory period. Halloween is done and we are not quite entering into the Christmas spirit. November always appears in my head as a dark and grey blurry month. So to embody this feeling, I decided to review The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware because it really inspires that same vibe.

It was originally published in June of 2016 and has now launched as a Netflix movie about 3 weeks ago with Keira Knightley. I have much to say about the book and the movie, but let’s get the ball rolling first with the plot line.

British journalist Laura Blacklock is tasked to report on a small Scandinavian luxury cruise ship. She boards the launch trip and while navigating the complicated relationships with the other characters, she sees a passenger drown off the boat. Given everyone is accounted for, Laura must fight herself and the other passengers to convince them of the woman’s existence and her bizarre death.

Great, so now that we are all familiar with the story, I will be strictly speaking of the book for now and later take on the film.

As always, we are starting with characterization. Laura’s was very well executed. From the beginning she is portrayed as unreliable given her trauma from a home break-in and her use of anti-depressants mixed with alcohol. However, the author did a great job to not show her as being negatively unreliable. We still sympathize with her and her unreliably is not really her fault. Despite this immense challenge, Lo still believes in what she saw and never abandons the idea that the mysterious woman actually existed. I think that shows true moral strength and persistence. She could have easily given up and let herself be influenced by the other passengers that what she saw was all a hallucination. She would have a great blameless escape for giving up. It also shows a great feminine solidarity that will later be return in an unexpected way. Regarding the other characters, I believe they are also well done. Each is embodied well by their social status and societal expectations. For example, Richard Bullmer, the millionaire who launched the cruise experience is described as being confident, unreadable, and charismatic. This all fits well with how you would describe a rich businessman and his unreadableness makes us wonder if he actually believes Laura’s experience or not. The plot and the main idea behind it I find very interesting and plausible. I think it really adds an originality to mystery novels which are typically murder mysteries. The focus of this novel seems to be to identify the woman in cabin 10 and her existence. Finding her murderer, if there is one to be found, is a second priority. Another element I appreciated was the author’s writing style. It gives the impression of being on a really suffocating boat with no room to breathe. This descriptive setting vocabulary truly gives off a claustrophobic atmosphere. The way the boat is described with all its secret doors and winding hallways leads me to assume the setting here is being embodied as a character. This literary trick is quite impressive and I find it very appropriate for the situation. Laura evidently clashes with the boat, she does not feel comfortable at all with the closed quarters, dubious locks, dark atmosphere, and the isolation of being at sea.

I think it really adds an originality to mystery novels which are typically murder mysteries.

It’s a great novel, I can see why it was adapted into a movie. The only reproaches I have are minimal and are mostly aimed at some poor decisions Laura takes. Of course, I acknowledge they are intentional and have a significance for the plot like discrediting Laura more in the eyes of the other passengers.

Moving on to the film. It felt short of my expectations. I realize not every element can be directly added as it appears in the novel. But I noticed a lot of things were omitted or changed for no apparent reason. The main difference I disliked was that Laura was not on medication and had not drank as much as she did in the novel. When she appears unreliable in the novel, it makes sense. Even we start doubting if the woman is actually real. But movie Laura had 2-3 drinks and was not medicated when she saw the woman being thrown overboard. I find her credible 100% even after we realize everyone is accounted for. Next, given the speed at which the plot progresses in the movie, we don’t have time to see the true interactions between Laura and the other passengers. So we can’t really know who Laura is suspecting of being the killer. A character also randomly leaves during the movie. He says it’s all becoming too much and he doesn’t want to be associated with a scandal. That defeats the whole purpose of being in a “huis clos”, in a setting separated from the rest of the world with no one being able to come and go. I don’t want to give too much away so the last things I’ll mention that are important differences are:

This descriptive setting vocabulary truly gives off a claustrophobic atmosphere.

1. In the novel, Laura takes her boss’ place on the boat, she was not actually invited by M. Bullmer on the expedition. In the movie, Mrs. Bullmer personally invited her so Lo can write a piece on the foundation being set up. I think the motive of Laura being on the boat is important and the producers would not have lost movie time in sticking to the original reason for Laura’s presence. The fact that Laura is taking her boss’ place puts more pressure on her to perform well and write an amazing article so she can prove her worth and move up the “corporate ladder” as they say. In the movie, she doesn’t have this pressure because she’s already a well respected journalist at The Guardian. The presence of the performance pressure plays a role in Lo’s decision-making regarding whether to pursue the chase after this mystery woman or not. It’s a shame it could not be presented this way in the film because we don’t get to see how strong minded Laura is. It takes incredible will-power to fight off so many external opinions that you are hallucinating all while being sleep-deprived, drunk, and medicated.

2. In both cases, Laura will end up locked up. In the book, she stays like this for about 4-5 days. In the movie it happens for a couple of hours. It all plays out like this because in the movie, we have to see them get off the boat and conclude the story and you can’t have Laura locked up for half the movie. However, I wanted to say that being locked up for a longer period of time makes the interactions with her captor much more plausible and realistic.

Well that’s it everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in, I hope you found the episode informative and that The Woman in Cabin 10 will be next on your TBR. For the month of December I will be reviewing Warcross by Marie Lu. It’s a sci-fi novel that’s giving off Ready Player One vibes. I know it’s not screaming Christmas but I cannot deal with a cheesy Hallmark plot-inspired novel. And you don’t need me to review those to know to form your opinion.

Until next time, keep exploring those pages!