Jonathan Pryce Archives

Review: ‘The Thursday Murder Club,’ starring Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie

August 25, 2025

by Carla Hay

Celia Imrie, Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan in “The Thursday Murder Club” (Photo by Giles Keyte/Netflix)

Directed by Chris Columbus

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Fairhaven, England, the comedy/drama film “The Thursday Murder Club” (based on the 2020 novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and one person of Middle Eastern heritage) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Four people, who live in an upscale retirement home, find themselves investigating a cold-case murder and multiple recent murders that affect whether or not the retirement home will displace the residents.

Culture Audience: “The Thursday Murder Club” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of movie’s headliners, the book on which the movie is based, and well-acted murder mysteries that have touches of comedy.

Pictured in center: Naomi Ackie and Daniel Mays in “The Thursday Murder Club” (Photo by Giles Keyte/Netflix)

“The Thursday Murder Club” is a charming and enjoyably comedic adaptation of the popular novel about four retirees who like to solve murder mysteries. The talented cast’s performanes overcome some cornball moments. “The Thursday Murder Club” doesn’t reinvent the murder mystery genre, but it’s a welcome addition to the short list of movies where senior citizens are crime-fighting sleuth protagonists.

Directed by Chris Columbus and written by Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote, “The Thursday Murder Club” is adapted from Richard Osman’s best-selling 2020 novel of the same name. “The Thursday Murder Club” takes place in the fictional small city of Fairhaven, England. The movie’s main location of a manor-styled retirement home was actually filmed at Englefield House in Berkshire, England.

“The Thursday Murder Club” begins at Coopers Chase, the retirement home that is at the center of the story. Coopers Chase has its own church and cemetery. The residents of Coopers Chase are kept busy with a variety of activities, including painting and archery.

Three of the Coopers Chase residents, who call themselves the Thursday Murder Club, are having their weekly Thursday meeting to discuss a cold case that they are investigating as amateur sleuths. These unofficial private investigators will also find themselves involved in a current murder case that will affect their residency at Coopers Chase.

The three residents are retired MI6 agent Elizabeth Best (played by Helen Mirren), the self-assured leader of the group; retired work union activist Ron Ritchie (played by Pierce Brosnan), a flirtatious ladies’ man; and retired psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif (played by Ben Kingsley), a thoughtful intellectual. Elizabeth is happily married to retired academic Stephen Best (played by Jonathan Pryce), who has early on-set dementia. Ron is twice-divorced and has an adult son in his 30s. Ibrahim is a “confirmed bachelor” whose past love life is briefly revealed in a scene toward the end of the movie.

The cold case that the Thursday Murder Club members discuss at the beginning of the movie is the murder of Angela Hughes (played by Ellie Keighley), a woman in her 20s who fell from the second-floor window of her apartment at approximately 12:48 a.m. on May 11, 1973. Angela was found with a knife in her abdomen. According to the police report, Angela’s boyfriend—25-year-old mechanic/British Army veteran Peter Mercer (played by Will Stevens)—saw Angela fall to the ground after hearing two voices coming from the open window.

Peter said that he saw a masked man run away from the apartment shortly after Angela fell. Peter told police investigators that he chased after the masked man, but the masked man escaped. Peter was cleared as a suspect. Not long after Angela’s death, Peter disappeared and remained a missing person. Angela’s murder case has been unsolved ever since.

When the Thursday Murder Club members are discussing this case, they use a portable drawing board that has newspaper clippings and other items related to the case, including a gruesome photo of the crime scene. It’s during this meeting that they meet another resident for the first time: Joyce Meadowcroft (played by Celia Imrie), a retired nurse who is a widow. Joyce happens upon the Thursday Murder Club while Joyce is giving her adult daughter Joanna (played by Ingrid Oliver) a tour of Coopers Chase.

The sight of the murder scene photo is jarring to Joanna, but Joyce is intrigued. Joanna—a bachelorette who works as a hedge fund executive—wants Joyce to live in an apartment in London. Joyce refuses because she likes living in Coopers Chase, where she has a better chance of making friends. Joyce doesn’t think she’ll be able to make friends in a neighborhood that has “hipsters and vegan bakeries.”

Elizabeth notices that Joyce was unfazed by the gruesome crime scene photo and correctly deduces that Joyce must have some type of medical background. She asks Joyce if it’s possible, based on the amount of blood in the photo, if Angela was still alive when she fell to the ground. Joyce says that it depends.

Elizabeth figures that Joyce can be useful to the Thursday Murder, so she invites Joyce to join as a temporary member. Joyce is the replacement for longtime member Penny Gray (played by Susan Kirkby), a Coopers Chase resident who is in a coma from an unnamed illness and isn’t expected to recover. Penny’s loyal husband John Gray (played by Paul Freeman) is the veterinarian for Coopers Chase, which has a pack of llamas.

The Thursday Murder Club’s investigation into the Angela Hughes murder case gets put on hold due to a more pressing matter: The residents of Coopers Chase are outraged that one of the property owners plans to tear down the cemetery and the manor and build luxury apartments and an event space there instead. This owner is the sleazy and callous Ian Ventham (played by David Tennant), who has a disdain for elderly people and doesn’t care that the Coopers Chase residents, many of whom signed lifetime leases, will be displaced because of his plans.

Despite these leases, the property can be sold or converted due to a loophole in the lease contracts. However, Ian won’t get his way so easily. Someone who is very much against converting and selling the property is co-owner Tony Curran (played by Geoff Bell), who made his fortune in questionable ways. Tony is a rough-and-tumble type who has long been affiliated with underground criminal groups, but nothing has been proven in a court of law. Tony’s aunt Maud (played by Ruth Sheen) lives at Coopers Chase, which is one of the reasons why Tony wants Coopers Chase to continue to be retirement home.

Tony and Ian openly argue about this proposed sale in front of some of the residents, including the Thursday Murder Club. Tony promises the residents that he won’t let Coopers Chase be sold. Ian is also going through another battle: He’s embroiled in a bitter and expensive divorce case with his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Ian’s divorce expenses are why he’s so eager to sell the converted Coopers Chase property to the highest bidder.

Meanwhile, Ian secretly makes a deal with Coopers Chase chief handyman named Bogdan (played by Henry Lloyd-Hughes) to oversee digging up the cemetery, where Ian plans to start rebuilding the property into luxury apartments. (Ian wanting to build an apartment complex where a cemetery used to be is an indication of his callousness and how he isn’t as business-savvy as he thinks he is.) Bogdan is a Polish immigrant who needs the job to help pay for his ailing mother in Poland.

While this turmoil is going on, the Fairhaven Police Department has sent a police constable named Donna de Freitas (played by Naomi Ackie) to Coopers Chase to give a speaking appearance/tutorial on home security. Elizabeth think this lecture will be boring and asks questions instead that are related to the Angela Hughes murder. Donna is patient but seems a bit frazzled by the feisty attitude of some of the Coopers Chase residents.

Elizabeth, who is always thinking of ways that people can be useful to the Thursday Murder Club, invites Donna to have lunch with her and the Thursday Murder Club after this lecture. It’s during this lunch that Elizabeth gets Donna to admit that Donna (who used to work for the London Police Department) is bored at the Fairhaven Police Department, where she works in a male-dominated environment and is assigned lightweight administrative duties. The worst crimes that Donna is allowed to deal with are traffic violations. And she has to do subservient things, such as serve tea to her male colleagues, who treat her like secretary.

As Donna is about to leave, Ron’s handsome and friendly son Jason (played by Tom Ellis) arrives. Jason, who visits Tom two or three times a week, is a famous ex-boxing champion whose boxing career ended due to an injury. Jason now makes a living by appearing on celebrity-oriented reality show competitions, such as “Celebrity MasterChef” and “Dancing on Ice.” Donna is star-struck when she meets Jason.

Coopers Chase is rocked to the core when co-owner Tony is found bludgeoned to death in his home. The movie shows in the moments before Tony was murdered in his house’s foyer, he saw the intruder, and he knew this person, who is not seen committing the murder. The Fairview Police Department’s detective chief inspector Chris Hudson (played by Daniel Mays) is the lead investigator in this murder case.

It should come as no surprise that Chris is an arrogant and sexist buffoon who is no match for the Thursday Murder Club. Through a series of circumstances, Donna becomes involved in the investigation, which goes through a series of twists and turns. And the investigators have more to handle because Tony isn’t the only person who gets murdered.

“The Thursday Murder Club” has a few deliberately clownish moments (such as a scene where Elizabeth and Joyce “infiltrate” the Fairhaven Police Station), but the movie has some pointed and serious observations of ageism, sexism and how people have different perspectives of dying. Joyce is initially thrilled that she’s getting to investigate a current murder case in the Thursday Murder Club until the other members remind her that Tony’s death means that they’ve lost an ally in the fight to prevent Coopers Chase from being turned into an apartment complex.

The movie stays faithful to the book by giving distinct personalities to the main characters, which are enlivened by the cast members’ performances. Elizabeth is a no-nonsense character who shows her softer side when she’s with her husband. Ron is outspoken and passionate and sometimes seems to want to prove that he’s as smart as Elizabeth. Ibrahim is calm, logical and empathetic. Joyce, as a newcomer to the club, is eager to fit in and impress others. A running joke in the story is Joyce likes to make pastries as gifts to people who are interviewed.

The supporting cast members also do well in their less-expansive roles. The standout supporting performances are from Tennant (who is hilarious as a greedy corporate villain, even though the Ian character is a bit cartoonish) and Ackie as Donna, whose self-confidence blossoms as she gets more involved in the investigation. Richard E. Grant has a memorable cameo as a pivotal character named Bobby Tanner.

“The Thursday Murder Club” has a few jokes that are unique to the movie. For example, there’s a scene that references Mirren’s Oscar-winning role as Queen Elizabeth II in 2006’s “The Queen.” (And just by coincidence, her “Thursday Murder Club” character is also named Elizabeth.)

The marvelous production design and excellent cinematography add to the movie’s appeal. “The Thursday Murder Club” does justice to the lengthy book by making it a breezy, easy-to-digest version of the story. “The Thursday Night Murder Club” novel turned into a beloved book series. Based on what the first “Thursday Night Murder Club” movie delivers, it has all the makings of becoming a popular series too.

Netflix will release “The Thursday Murder Club” on Netflix and in select U.S. cinemas on August 28, 2025. The movie was released in U.K. cinemas on August 22, 2025.

Review: ‘The Penguin Lessons,’ starring Steve Coogan, Vivian El Jaber, Björn Gustafsson, David Herrero, Alfonsina Carrocio and Jonathan Pryce

March 30, 2025

by Carla Hay

“The Penguin Lessons”

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1976, the dramatic film “The Penguin Lessons” (based on Tom Michell’s memoir of the same name) features a white and Latin group of people representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A British professor at an elite prep school in Buenos Aires experiences unexpected things after he takes care of a stray penguin.

Culture Audience: “The Penguin Lessons” will appeal primarily to people who like watching inspirational dramas based on true stories of friendships between and humans and animals.

Jonathan Pryce and Steve Coogan in “The Penguin Lessons” (Photo by Lucia Faraig Ferrando/Sony Pictures Classics)

Slightly better than the average “cute pet” movie, “The Penguin Lessons” is a drama with a typical formula of someone who reluctantly takes care of an animal and becomes the animal’s close friend. The “true story” aspects and performances elevate the film. Is some of the film mawkish and contrived? Yes, but these cloying moments are outweighed by the moments that are realistic and relatable.

Directed by Peter Cattaneo and written by Jeff Pope, “The Penguin Lessons” is based on Tom Michell’s 2015 memoir of the same name. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The story takes place in 1976, in Buenos Aires, Aregntina, during a time of political turmoil in the nation.

The movie begins by showing English professor Tom Michell (played by Steve Coogan), who’s a Brit, arriving for his first day at St. George’s, an elite boarding school for boys who are between the ages of 12 and 13. Almost every student comes from a wealthy and powerful family. The school’s headmaster is Timothy Buckle (played by Jonathan Pryce), a fellow Brit who is pompous and demanding.

Headmaster Buckle warns Tom: “Argentina is in chaos. A military coup is imminent.” He tells Tom that the school’s faculty members need to keep their political opinions to themselves. Tom is annoyed when he finds out that he’s required to teach rugby at the school, even though he knows nothing about rugby.

Tom is a bachelor loner who doesn’t make friends easily. He has a prickly personality and has a tendency to be selfish. He’s also very stubborn and likes to have his own way. Predictably, Tom will clash with Headmaster Buckle.

Tom has a past family tragedy that is revealed in the movie to explain why he has a hard time opening up to people. “The Penguin Lessons” is the second movie in two years to have this type of scenario as the underlying reason for why a loner man befriends a penguin. “My Penguin Friend” is the other movie. Both movies take place in South America and are based on true stories. “The Penguin Lessons” is a better movie overall.

The school’s physics teacher Tapio (played by Björn Gustafsson) is originally from Finland. Tapio is socially awkward and tries to start a friendship with Tom, who mostly tries to ignore Tapio. However, Tapio doesn’t give up easily. Tapio tells Tom that he’s recently separated from his wife, who left Tapio for Tapio’s rich best friend Alexei.

Tapio convinces Tom to take a short getaway trip with him to Uruguay. They go out to a nightclub to meet women. Tom and a woman named Carina (played by Micaela “Mica” Breque) meet and have an instant attraction to each other.

Tom and Carina are walking on a nearby beach when they see a stray male penguin that is covered in oil because he’s the victim of an oil slick. Carina immediately takes pity on the penguin and says they need to rescue it. Tom and Carina sneak the penguin into Tom’s hotel room to wash the oil off of the penguin in the bathtub.

Tom doesn’t really care about this animal. He’s only showing this act of kindness to impress Carina because he wants to have sex with her. Carina is impressed, and they start to kiss. But she stops to tell Tom that she can’t go any further with him because she’s married. Tom is disappointed, but he and Carina part ways amicably.

It’s early in the morning when Tom brings the penguin back to the beach and nudges the penguin to go in the ocean. But the penguin keeps following Tom everywhere he goes. A flustered Tom ends up taking the penguin with him to the airport for Tom’s plane ride back to Argentina. An airport customs officer (played by Osvaldo Ayre) in Uruguay sees the penguin and takes Tom into a back office. However, the officer doesn’t want to deal with keeping the penguin at the customs office, which is why Tom is allowed to smuggle the penguin on the airplane.

The penguin is eventually named Juan Salvador. (In real life, Juan Salvador was played by two penguins named Baba and Richard.) And you can easily predict the rest: Juan Salvador becomes popular on campus, even though Headmaster Buckle isn’t keen on having this animal be a distraction to the students.

Speaking of the school’s students, the movie doesn’t do much to show depth to the students’ personalities. There’s a cliché arrogant bully named Ernesto (played by Aimar Miranda), who picks on a shy and intelligent student named Diego (played by David Herrero). It should come as no surprise which student ends up being Tom’s favorite student.

“The Penguin Lessons” also has a subplot about the school’s friendly maid Maria (played by Vivian El Jaber) going through a crisis when her young adult granddaughter Sofia (played by Alfonsina Carrocio) disappears after Tom witnessed her being abducted by men on a street. Sofia also works as a maid at the school. It’s presumed that Sofia’s political activities resisting government oppression have something to do with her disappearance. Tom is sympathetic to Maria’s plight and tries to help as much as he can. Maria joins the Mothers of the Plaza 25 de Mayo, an activist group advocating for people who disappeared during during Argentina’s military dictatorship.

“The Penguin Lessons” has fairly good touches of comedy in this drama that mixes the gritty subject matter of political turmoil with the sentimental subject matter of Tom developing a meaningful bond with Juan Salvador. Some scenarios definitely look fabricated for the movie. Even though Coogan and Pryce have played versions of their respective characters’ personalities in many other films, the solid performances from the main cast members should keep viewers engaged and possibly get emotional during the tearjerking moments. At the very least, “The Penguin Lessons” might inspire people to read the book to find out more of the story that wasn’t in the movie.

Sony Pictures Classics released “The Penguin Lessons” in U.S. cinemas on March 28, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on March 17, 2025.

2019 DOC NYC movie review: ‘He Dreams of Giants’

November 18, 2019

by Carla Hay

“He Dreams of Giants”

Directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe

World premiere at DOC NYC in New York City on November 10, 2019.

For nearly 30 years, director Terry Gilliam tried to get a movie made based on the novel “Don Quixote,” but he experienced the kind of bad luck and setbacks that you might see in a movie. This interesting but not outstanding documentary shows how difficult the journey was for Gilliam to make the adventure comedy “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” which had its world premiere at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, and finally had a U.S. release through Fathom Events in April 2019, in a select number of theaters for one night only. The movie is now available on home video, and can be streamed for free on Crackle. “He Dreams of Giants” directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe previously did another documentary—2002’s “Lost in La Mancha”—that covered the same topic, so “He Dreams of Giants” is really an update of that documentary.

Gilliam’s production problems for “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” included cast members (such as Johnny Depp, Vanessa Paradis, Ewan McGregor, John Hurt and Gilliam’s former “Monty Python” castmate Michael Palin) who dropped out of the film and moved on to other projects. (“He Dreams of Giants” shows early footage of Depp filming the movie in 2000.) The movie was also plagued by bad weather and other mishaps. And the biggest obstacle of all was the financing, which Gilliam lost several times and struggled to keep, even when the movie began filming. The documentary shows that even while making the movie during this final phase, Gilliam and other filmmakers on the project (including his producer daughter, Amy Gilliam) were bracing themselves for something to go wrong.

Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce were the actors who ended up being the two main stars of “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.” Driver played an ad executive who goes back and revisits a student film he made called “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” in which he had cast an actor (played by Pryce) as Don Quixote. The documentary shows Driver, Pryce and other cast members getting acquainted over table reads of the script. The documentary also has plenty of scenes of Gilliam directing the film and sometimes getting frustrated when things don’t go as planned. He acknowledges that having a quick temper is one of his flaws. For all the years that it took to get the film made, “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” ended up being filmed in just 55 days.

Even though the cast members in the leading roles changed over the years, some members of the crew stayed with the film during its entire turbulent journey, including costume designer Lena Mossum, cinematographer Nicola Pecorini. A few of the actors playing supporting roles as giants also stayed with the movie throughout all of its ups and downs. The documentary shows Gilliam getting teary-eyed and emotional when Mossum shows how she kept all the original costumes preserved and intact for decades, and he’s elated when he finds out that Pryce fits into the Don Quixote costume. Early on in the documentary, Gilliam gives credit to the illustrations of Gustave Doré, who illustrated the 1868 edition of the “Don Quixote” book, as an inspiration for how he wanted his movie to look.

Much like a book, “He Dreams of Giants” is divided into chapters, with titles such as “Momentum,” “I Can’t Sleep,” “The Madness” and “The Will to Survive.” There’s some archival footage of Gilliam discussing the movie over the years in TV interviews. And there’s new, somewhat pretentious-looking footage of Gilliam looking thoughtful or a pacing around in completely white backdrop, as if to show he’s a “serious artist,” alone in his thoughts.

Even with all the artistic ambitions of “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” Gilliam is smart enough to know that the movie has limitations in box-office appeal, and he doesn’t have the clout he used to have in the 1980s, because his last several movies have all been flops. “The marketplace has no faith in this movie,” he says with a tinge of sadness. “I’m no longer an A-list director.” As for what people can learn from all the ups and downs he went through to get the movie made, Gilliam sums it up best when he says, “Life is hard. The idea that it should be fun—who the fuck invented that story?”

UPDATE: Bohemia Media will release “He Dreams of Giants” on digital and VOD on August 9, 2022.