As many readers' top choice to play mysterious group leader Elizabeth, Dame Helen, 80, admits to thinking the same when she first read the novel. "Embarrassingly, I did. When you read that book, you think immediately this could be a movie and then, if it is, I wonder if they'll ever approach me to play that role, because I'd love to play it. It was sort of a bit of a miracle for me when they did." Imrie, 73, who plays former nurse Joyce, took the opposite approach and did not read the book until they were cast. "Dear friends of mine occasionally said: 'You know, you'd be awfully good for this, but I'm quite superstitious'," Imrie recalls. "I didn't want to spook things. The minute I was cast I ran down to the bookshop." The film has received mixed reviews from critics. In a two-star review, the Telegraph's Robbie Collin called it a "nefariously lazy" adaptation that is little more than a "half-hearted parody of a whodunnit". Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent also awarded two stars, saying the film failed to make the most of its all-star cast and "is so flimsy and digestible, it barely exists" with "each clue presented plainly, legibly, and without even a hint of enigma". There was a more positive review from Kevin Maher of the Times, who agreed that "there is a lot of heavy exposition" but awarded the film four stars, adding: "Camp and quietly sad, a franchise is born". A middling three-star review from The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw said that there was "much to enjoy" and "the club sometimes resembling a kind of senior-citizen X-Men group whose collective superpower is invisibility".