"In both versions, a journalist named Lo is invited on the maiden voyage of a yacht owned by the megarich Richard and Anne Bullmer, the latter of whom has become a recluse as she's battled cancer. While onboard the Aurora Borealis, Lo becomes convinced that the mysterious woman she met in the cabin next to hers was murdered and thrown overboard. But no one believes her, because everyone on the Aurora Borealis is accounted for."
"it gets fairly complicated and nearly sinks under the weight of all those alterations. It's still an enjoyable enough time on the high seas, but where The Woman in Cabin 10 in book form was comfortable with ambiguity and troublemaking women, The Woman in Cabin 10 in movie form settles for a bland statement of female solidarity that ties everything up a little too neatly."
The Netflix film adapts a 2016 novel but changes characters, motivations, the yacht's size, and especially the ending. The protagonist Lo, a journalist, is aboard the Aurora Borealis and suspects a neighboring cabin's woman was murdered and thrown overboard, yet the ship's manifest shows everyone accounted for. Director Simon Stone and multiple credited writers rearrange plot elements, with the third act diverging heavily and becoming complicated. The film remains entertaining and preserves the novel's core premise, but it foregoes the novel's ambiguity and troublemaking-woman themes in favor of a tidy affirmation of female solidarity.
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