By Steve Crum

Investigative journalist Laura “Lo” Blacklock (Keira Knightley) decides to mix pleasure with business on board a luxury “super yacht” in The Woman in Cabin 10. The business entails the destination of the 3-day excursion, a fundraising event in Norway. She is going to write a feature covering it. The pleasure is relaxing on a cruise en route, hobnobbing with the rich and famous. 

What could possibly go wrong? Plenty.

Beginning the first night, Lo awakens to a woman’s scream, and immediately begins an investigation: a bloody handprint by Cabin 10 coupled with her witnessing someone fall overboard. Yet the clues lead to a dead end, per se. No one is staying in Cabin 10. No one knows anything about someone falling overboard. The ship’s captain does a headcount of everyone on board. And no one is missing. 

Yet more oddities pop up, only discovered by Lo. Now her safety is seemingly at risk. And what about the wealthy, ill woman Anne Bullmer (Lisa Loven Kongsli)? How does her husband, the millionaire whose yacht has become central to the plot, tie in to the chaos? After all, Richard Ballmer (Guy Pearce) seems supportive of Lo’s seemingly endless revelations. 

Reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Lady on a Train (1945), The Woman in Cabin 10 is loaded with suspicions and danger. However, what director/screenwriter Simon Stone’s Cabin 10 comparatively lacks is pace, credibility, and editing. The first half tends to drag, while the payoff conclusion seems rushed and predictable. 

It is also a negative when late in the story, the point of view shifts from the victim(s), Lo included, to the perpetrators. 

Still, The Woman in Cabin 10 has its moments—nail biting as they are. 

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GRADE on an A-F Scale: B-