It is always fun to watch an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery unfold in a mansion where there is one murdered man and seven women, who all have a reason to kill him. The possibilities are delightful, and in the right hands, with just a 90-minute runtime, the unfolding of the whodunit can be taut, clever, and intriguing. However, the narrative of Netflix’s 7 Women and a Murder, is as plain as its title.
Cast: Margherita Buy, Diana del Bufalo, Sabrina Impacciatore, Luisa Ranieri
Director: Alessandro Genovesi
Streaming on: Netflix
Language: Italian
Seven women are brought together under the same roof, and one of them discovers that the family patriarch (Marcello) is murdered. Among the seven women, are the patriarch’s wife (Margherita), their two daughters (Susanna and Caterina), his mother-in-law (Rachele), his sister-in-law (Agostina), his paramour (Veronica), and the house-keeper (Maria). As the narrative of 7 Women and a Murder unfolds, one can’t help but notice the tardiness of it all. A sense of urgency is missing, and even the period setting of the film, and the various obstacles that come their way in the form of a raging blizzard, disconnected phone lines, locked gates, and even missing dogs, don’t really help hasten the proceedings.
7 Women and a Murder is largely reliant on conversations, and it is never about anything else except unravelling each women’s hidden secrets. Not sure why every dark secret isn’t really a secret, and neither is it too dark. Somehow, someone else knows someone else’s secret and reveals them at the right time to move the story forward. It isn’t even like all the women are asked to stand around a table in the living room and someone unmasks the real killer. The whodunit unfolds in the most contrived of manners. Also, we don’t really feel much about the secrets that tumble down one after the other because they don’t really carry any emotional heft. Some are just archaic even for the period that 7 Women and a Murder is set in.
One might argue that the plain title is a clever move of hiding secrets in plain sight, but the writing doesn’t corroborate this line of thought at all. So all we are left with is a rather dull whodunit, which is made briefly engaging by the actors who give it their all in quite underwritten roles. Although the reveal is underwhelming, 7 Women and a Murder has a neat little epilogue featuring one more conversation among the women. Those final minutes are filled with so much sardonic wit, acerbic humour, and straight-faced dark comedy that one can’t help but be flabbergasted as to feel sorry for what happened in the preceding 89 minutes. Well, with such a talented cast, it is clear that there wasn’t just one murder that happened in the 7 Women and a Murder.
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