Richard Osman’s phenomenal bestseller from 2020 was an ingenious, accessible, good-natured book, which helped rebrand the English detective novel as “cosy crime”, started a celeb-copycat publishing trend and, being about four elderly people in a retirement community rising above ageist condescension to solve crimes, spoke eloquently to the shut-in frustrations and escapist yearnings of the Covid age.
Now it has been adapted as a funny and likable, if slightly bland, comedy-drama for Netflix, which as one character amusingly and pre-emptively comments, feels just like a Sunday teatime TV crime drama. There is nothing new about these nostalgist leanings: Agatha Christie has after all been a solid film and TV export for more than half a century. Screenwriters Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote adapt the novel and director Chris Columbus robustly delivers the C-major chords of mainstream entertainment. The result is some undemanding enjoyment, even if the film does appear finally to be saying something rather bold, even controversial, on the subject of assisted dying.
