The Woman in Cabin 10 review: Keira Knightley’s Netflix cruise thriller drifts in shallow waters

There’s a Taylor Swift song for every time you’re…well, out of words. In this case, I think I’ve seen this film before. And I didn’t like the ending.

Except, she intended it for heartbreak. I’m borrowing it for films like The Woman in Cabin 10, starring Keira Knightley — the kind that promises to disturb you on a psychological level, much like Ruth Ware’s novel did. Yet, it does so, half-heartedly that you think it’s best if you just call it quits, halfway through.

The film is the classic ‘You’re just imagining things’, while more nefarious factors are at play of course. A woman has witnessed something dangerous, but is gaslit constantly and told that she is deluded, stressed and traumatised. It’s a thorny plotline, precisely because it feels so visceral and primal. However, it requires a frantic sense of urgency, exhaustion and desperation that the Netflix film lacked.

Set on a cruise — that old metaphor for isolation and buried secrets — The Woman in Cabin 10 still manages to feel oddly shallow.

The premise: Knightley plays award-winning journalist Lo Blacklock, who has just returned to work after witnessing the brutal killing of a woman she was interviewing for an exposé on NGO embezzlement. Hoping to help her recover, her editor assigns her to cover a luxury yacht cruise owned by Richard Bullmer (Guy Pearce). Richard, the husband of shipping heiress Anne Lyngstad (Lisa Loven Kongsli), who is battling stage-four leukemia, is hosting a three-day voyage culminating in a gala in Norway to launch a cancer foundation in Anne’s name. He invites Lo to document the event and help raise awareness. Worn down yet eager to believe there’s still some goodness left in the world, Lo reluctantly accepts.

Of course, there isn’t — as Lo quickly realises. The moment she boards, she’s surrounded by every stock cliché you’d expect in a mystery thriller. There’s the well-meaning ex-boyfriend Ben (David Ajala), with whom things ended badly — as revealed through a few perfunctory phone exchanges. There’s the too-slick doctor treating Anne, suspicious from the start. And then the usual suspects: the rich couple, the influencer, and the zen hippie. At first, there’s a flicker of humour when Lo is mocked for showing up in jeans; but don’t worry, she soon slips into the requisite glittery gown. Journalists, apparently, never travel without one.

Tension is afoot after she meets a rather secretive woman, coming from Cabin 10. Later that night, she hears a splash, a scuffle and figures someone has been thrown overboard. There’s a bloodied handprint on the glass too. Lo instantly calls for a Mayday, with officers searching the ship, only to learn that there never was a woman in Cabin 10. There never has been a woman there, *Gasp*.

Lo unravels in panic, as everyone around her seems to be convinced that she is losing the plot. She knows what she has seen. Worse, someone’s after her and scrawling messages across doors, ‘Stop’.

No, really, stop.

With a renewed sense of urgency, Lo begins digging into the ship’s secrets — despite steely, subtitled warnings to back off. Her persistence earns her little more than irritation from fellow passengers, who accuse her of ruining the mood. Soon, she’s dismissed as unstable, her paranoia written off as stress — especially after a near-death encounter in the ship’s pool.

As the mystery unravels, the film slips into the familiar rhythms of an easy-to-digest streaming thriller — predictable, slick, and emotionally hollow. There are flashes of strength, particularly from Knightley, but the story leans heavily on contrivances and never quite captures the claustrophobic tension it promises. This could have been a descent into gaslighting and psychological dread, but ends up feeling more like a mild inconvenience at sea. The supporting characters fade into background noise, and by the end, even Knightley seems to have lost interest in the voyage.

The Woman in Cabin 10 sails smoothly enough for a weekend watch, but it mistakes seriousness for depth — and ends up stranded somewhere in between.