The Woman in Cabin 10 Throws Its Source Material Overboard

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This explanation contains spoilers for both the Netflix movie *The Woman in Cabin 10*, released on October 10th, and the original novel by Ruth Ware.

Orcas, watch out – the new thriller *The Woman in Cabin 10* seems determined to challenge the world of luxury yachts! This adaptation of Ruth Ware’s 2016 novel significantly departs from the original story, altering the ending, characters, and their reasons for acting. Even the yacht, the *Aurora Borealis*, is different in size. With multiple credited writers, including the director Simon Stone, the film feels overstuffed with changes.

Even as a movie, *The Woman in Cabin 10* is generally enjoyable, as the central idea is clever. The story follows Lo, a journalist invited on the first trip of a luxury yacht owned by the wealthy Richard and Anne Bullmer, who has been hiding from the public while fighting cancer. While on board the *Aurora Borealis*, Lo becomes certain that a woman she briefly met was murdered and thrown overboard. However, no one believes her because all passengers appear to be present and accounted for. The mystery lies in who this woman was, what happened to her, and how far the other passengers will go to keep Lo from finding out the truth.

As a big fan of the book, I recently watched the movie adaptation of *The Woman in Cabin 10*, and while it mostly follows the original story, the ending really threw me. It gets pretty tangled up in a lot of changes, almost to the point where it feels like it’s struggling under the weight of them. Honestly, it’s still a fun watch, but the book was so good at leaving things a little mysterious and having complex female characters. The movie, though, feels like it just wants to deliver a simple message about women supporting each other and wraps everything up a bit *too* perfectly. I want to break down the five biggest differences from the book and how those changes ultimately lead to that new, tidier ending.

Lo’s trustworthiness

Keira Knightley plays Lo in the film, bringing a tense, focused energy similar to her role in the Netflix thriller *Black Doves*. Knightley consistently delivers a strong, direct performance, and she portrays Lo with that same bold and uncompromising style, resulting in a unique take on the character.

In R.W. Ware’s novel, Lo is at a low point: she’s unhappy with her job at a travel magazine, recently ended a relationship, is struggling with alcohol, and was even the victim of a burglary. A trip to see the Northern Lights on a luxury yacht offers a chance to finally advance her career after ten years of stagnation. However, after a drunken first night, her claims that she heard someone fall overboard from cabin 10 are dismissed as the ramblings of an exhausted and paranoid woman. No one else remembers the woman Lo met when she boarded, and they insist the cabin was empty. This creates intense tension as Lo realizes her career is on the line—especially when she discovers the woman she met was actually Richard’s mistress, Carrie, who was pretending to be someone else named Anne. The real Anne had left the yacht after only one night.

The film portrays Lo as a seasoned investigative journalist haunted by the tragic death of a past source, a young woman who was deliberately drowned before her eyes. Lo isn’t seeking out this new assignment, taking it on more as a whim. Instead of focusing on the pressures of her profession, the movie increases her unease by placing her amongst the boorish and affluent friends of the Bullmer family, who replace the characters from the novel’s media scene. While some of these wealthy passengers are amusingly portrayed – Hannah Waddingham shines as the overindulgent Heidi – most remain forgettable. Despite their snobbish attitude towards Lo, played by Keira Knightley, we never question her perceptions. The film doesn’t suggest she’s experiencing hallucinations, and she’s clear-headed when she meets Carrie, lending credibility to Carrie’s existence. The novel creates suspense through Lo’s unreliable narration, but the movie doesn’t achieve the same intensity, particularly towards the end – we’ll discuss that later.

The inciting incident

In Ruth Ware’s novel, Lo encounters a strange woman in cabin 10 who knocks three times and asks to borrow Lo’s Maybelline mascara. This knocking pattern was a secret signal between Carrie and her husband, Richard. Carrie is surprised to find Lo instead, but she lets her in anyway – after all, a mascara problem is a real crisis!

The movie makes a strange choice: there’s no knock on the cabin door. Keira Knightley’s character, Lo, simply finds Carrie (Gitte Witt) already inside cabin 10 because the door is unlocked. This feels like a major mistake for Richard (Guy Pearce), especially since the movie portrays Carrie as a look-alike hired to pose as Anne, not his lover. He hired her for a secret task, hid her away, and *didn’t* lock the door? Plus, what kind of security does this yacht have if doors don’t automatically lock? For $8,000 a night, you’d expect better! It’s the weakest change from the book in *The Woman in Cabin 10*, and it seems unlikely it was just to avoid paying for Maybelline product placement – Netflix, you can clearly afford it.

The Bullmers’ collapsing marriage

In the novel, Anne is a wealthy woman who lives primarily in Norway. Richard, on the other hand, is a relatively unimportant nobleman, a businessman, and enjoys a lively social life. Lo is disturbed to discover that Carrie is having an affair with Richard, especially because Carrie bears a striking resemblance to a younger, more vibrant Anne.

The movie portrays a strained relationship between the Bullmers, but their problems center around finances rather than cheating, and Anne has a much stronger role. On the first night of the trip, the real Anne tells Lo she’s stopped cancer treatment and intends to leave her fortune to a cancer research foundation, not her husband, Richard. That same night, Lo hears someone fall overboard, and flashbacks reveal Anne discovered Richard kissing Carrie – through an unlocked door, again! – and realized he was planning to replace her. They argued, Anne hit her head and fell, and Richard threw her overboard, all while Carrie witnessed everything. Lo figures out Richard killed Anne for personal reasons and now wants to eliminate Carrie and Lo as well, fearing they’ll go to the police or reveal Anne’s plans for her foundation. Giving Anne a stronger personality is a good move for the film, but it seems odd that such a charitable person would allow her husband to use a luxury yacht for fundraising – why not just donate stocks?

Carrie’s motivation

The biggest and least successful change in this adaptation is how Carrie’s character is portrayed. In the film, she feels underdeveloped – simply a woman living somewhere in Eastern Europe when Richard unexpectedly contacts her. He finds her using facial recognition software a friend provided, and she’s a perfect look-alike for Anne. Richard hires Carrie to pretend to be Anne on a yacht trip and during a meeting with a lawyer, hoping she’ll sign over Anne’s fortune to him. Carrie accepts the job because she’s a single mother struggling in a country affected by war, and she’s vulnerable when she arrives. Richard pressures her to convincingly portray a relationship through kissing and intimacy, and she’s forced to comply. She then becomes a horrified witness when Richard murders the real Anne.

The story works to establish Richard as a villain, but the film simplifies Carrie’s character, reducing her to just a victim. In the book, Carrie is much more complex – sometimes selfish, sometimes courageous. When the book’s Lo learns Richard attacked Anne, stuffed her into a suitcase, and had Carrie throw her overboard, she’s horrified by Carrie’s involvement. However, Carrie sees it as part of Richard’s elaborate plan to eventually reveal their relationship. The book shows Carrie believing Richard’s unbelievable story about Anne surviving at sea as a result of his intense affection for Carrie, but it’s actually implied he intended to kill Anne and replace her with Carrie. (It’s a classic, sinister plot.) Book-Carrie initially blames Lo for interfering and willingly helps Richard hold her captive. She only rescues Lo after Lo makes her realize Richard is also a threat to her. In contrast, the movie has Lo rescuing Carrie, resulting in a predictable and less compelling storyline where a successful reporter saves a helpless woman. By portraying Carrie as simply downtrodden instead of independent and conflicted, the movie’s ending feels too neat and tidy.

The final confrontation

So, how does Lo escape? Honestly, both accounts of what happened are pretty tangled. In the book, Carrie initially holds Lo prisoner, but then decides to let her go. Lo jumps off the yacht and swims to shore, avoiding security hired by Richard and eventually returning home to London. Two bodies are found in the water: Anne, who escaped her confinement but drowned, and Richard, who appeared to have shot himself. However, an autopsy reveals Richard couldn’t have inflicted the wound himself. Lo then receives a large sum of money from an anonymous source she believes to be Carrie, suggesting Carrie killed Richard, took some of his money, and began a new life.

Much of this drama happens behind the scenes, unlike the movie which explains everything very directly. Carrie-Anne does free Lo and updates her will to include Richard, but that night, Lo disrupts a fancy fundraising dinner for the Bullmers. There, she exposes Richard’s lies and reveals that the woman everyone believes is Anne is actually Carrie. In the chaos, Richard holds Carrie hostage with a knife, leading to a chase with Lo and Sigrid (Amanda Collin), his head of security, who quickly realizes he’s a terrible person. As Richard attempts to kill Carrie, Sigrid shoots him in the shoulder and Lo hits him with a boat part. The three women stand over his body, and Lo later publishes a revealing article, becoming friends with Carrie, who sends her videos of her daughter. The story is straightforwardly feminist, but it lacks the novel’s complexity. The book portrays everyone on the yacht – men and women – as untrustworthy, with conflicts stemming from more than just gender differences.

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2025-10-10 22:56