The Polish government has weighed in on an ongoing row about the plot of The Thursday Murder Club, a movie adaptation of Richard Osman’s best-selling novel. A plot twist that occurs towards the end of the film has enraged fans and been described as “deeply unfortunate” by an institute run by Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The story follows four senior sleuths – Elizabeth (Dame Helen Mirren), Ron (Pierce Brosnan), Joyce (Celia Imrie), and Ibrahim (Sir Ben Kingsley) – as they band together to try and solve cold murder cases while spending their days at a charming retirement community. But when the body of Tony Curran, played by Geoff Bell, co-owner of the retirement home Coopers Chase, is discovered, the group find themselves on the trail of a murderer much closer to home. Similar to Richard’s bestselling novel, the killer is revealed to be his Polish employee Bogdan, but the events that follow in the film are a far cry from the book.
Now, the Polish Cultural Institute, which is backed by the Polish Foreign Ministry, has accused Netflix bosses of regressing and portraying a negative stereotype of Polish people.
In the novel, Bogdan’s motive for killing his land developer boss is revealed to be to avenge the death of his friend Kaz. Soon after, readers find out that Tony hired a hitman, Turkish Johnny/Gianni, to murder taxi driver Kaz because he had seen the builder shoot someone at a pub during a botched drug deal.
But in the film, Bogdan’s reason for killing Tony is completely different; in this version, taking Tony’s life in an act of self-defence. Tony and his friend, Bobby Tanner, played by Richard E Grant, were smuggling immigrants into the UK and then withholding their passports and essentially enslaving them.
Bodgan, who is one of Tony’s smuggled workers, ends up killing him after he refused to return his passport, meaning he could not visit his mother back home in Kraków, Poland.
Various other elements of the film deviate from Bodgan’s arc in the novel, and some viewers were left with a “sour taste” due to this.
Anna Tryc-Bromley, director of the Polish Cultural Institute, said the ending of the film was “deeply unfortunate”.
She accused the producers of depicting a Polish stereotype, rather than honour the more complex character arc that was written by Osman.
She told the Times: “It is high time to move away from presenting Poles in such a one-dimensional way, especially when the original fictional character was far more complex.”
Tryc-Bromley also criticised the film for not employing a Polish actor in Bogdan’s role.
She added: “To make matters worse, when Helen Mirren is chatting with Bogdan about Polish cuisine, she speaks better Polish than him. For unknown reasons they didn’t even cast a Pole for the role. What a comedy of errors.”
Osman has also weighed in and shared a blog post to fans titled ‘#justiceforbogdan’.
Henry Lloyd-Hughes, who plays Bogdan, responded to criticism after the movie was released.
“Richard Osman is so clever at presenting a world which we easily recognise on the surface and yet, underneath it are more intriguing elements,” he said.
“Bogdan is a complicated character, but I feel he comes from a good place and that enables you to root for him.”
The Thursday Murder Club is currently sitting at the second most-watched film on Netflix, with more than 25 million views.