– By Cate Marquis –

A chilling Helen Mirren stars as thriller novelist Patricia Highsmith, author of “Strangers on a Train” and the Tom Ripley novels in A TALENT FOR MURDER, a cat-and-mouse tale of the reclusive, flinty author and a young editor, Edward Ridgeway (Alden Ehrenreich) sent by her New York publisher to the author’s remote home in Switzerland, with the aim to persuade her to write a sixth Ripley novel.

The story, set in 1995, the year that Highsmith died, is invented but is plausible enough to be believable. The invented meeting serves as a frame for battle of wills, wits and nasty tricks, as the pair collaborate on sketching out a novel about the murderous Mr. Ripley and reveal Highsmith’s nasty personality as well as literary brilliance. A TALENT FOR MURDER was adapted from the stage play “Switzerland” by its playwright, Joanna Murray-Smith, and directed by Anton Corbijn, whose previous works include CONTROL, THE AMERICAN with George Clooney, and A MOST WANTED MAN, based on an John LeCarre story and starring the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Director Corbijn creates a wonderfully moody and frightening atmosphere for this tense tale, with warm, rich tones and some creative lighting and camera work by director of photography Robbie Ryan. The Switzerland scenes were shot in Italy, and are beautifully claustrophobic, as well as simply beautiful.

The film is more a thriller, like Highsmith’s novels, but it does offer a little exploration of the complex, controversial author. Patricia Highsmith’s novels were influenced by Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Camus and Freud, and elevated the murder mystery genre to new literary heights, yet the brilliant writer who was also a nasty piece of work, a complex human puzzle known to spout misanthropic, racist and antisemitic views. There is a single line in the film, near the start of the meeting between the author and the young editor, where she voices some of those views but the words linger in the mind after that.

Before he arrives, young Edward Ridgeway has already heard a rumor that Highsmith poisoned a neighbor’s dog for barking too much, and he is uncertain whether to believe that or not. The young editor his boss first sent on this task, Bradley Appleby, has mysteriously vanished. Ridgeway understands that his job is on the line, and if he does not succeed, he need not come back.

On the train to Switzerland, the young Ridgeway meets a young woman, Clementine Balfour (Olivia Cooke), who is also traveling to Switzerland, to visit her wealthy aunt. The two chat and seem to hit it off but part ways when Ridgeway’s train arrives at its station. The meeting as strangers on the train is one of several echoes of Patricia Highsmith’s work scattered throughout the film.

Helen Mirren is brilliant as the difficult, scary aged author, but Alden Ehrenreich holds his own against her, and the scenes between the two of them are delicious fun. Mirren’s Highsmith bluntly tries to turn away Alden Ehrenreich’s Edward Ridgeway at first, but is finally persuaded to let him stay by the gifts he has brought, items she had requested: Brooks Brothers shirts, canned soup, and a large knife for her collection of weapons that she displays on the wall of her study. And by his revelation that he is an orphan, whose parents were killed in a car wreck, a detail that she says makes him interesting. Whether that is true might be something else.

As the two start to plot out the possible story, Ehrenreich’s Ridgeway brings in details of his recent “strangers on a train” meeting with Clementine. As the tale unfolds, Ridgeway reveals that he is an enormous fan of the Tom Ripley stories, and proves it by having the author read a random line from any of the five novels which he can then attribute to the correct one. The stunt softens the prickly author towards him, but only marginally. As the two work together, a Ripley-like side to the mousey Ridgeway emerges, and to underscore that, the director films Ehrenreich so he increasingly resembles Matt Damon in THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, even though the actors do not look much alike, a clever bit of camera and makeup sleight-of-hand.

The acting is first-rate, and the film also features Juliet Stevenson as Clementine’s rich Aunt Peggy. The film is at its best early on but in an effort to open up the stage play, director Corbijn has a sequence where Ridgeway leaves Highsmith’s claustrophobic retreat, and ventures into the village where her encounters Clementine and gets invited to a party at her Aunt Peggy’s mansion. The foray lasts a bit too long, and breaks some of the play’s pressure-cooker tensions between the famous author and her young collaborator. While the author spins out the story she is building with the help of the young editor, we see the characters of that new Ripley tale, with more polished Ehrenreich in that role and Olivia Cooke’s Clementine and her aunt in the story Highsmith is narrating, but after awhile, lines blur and it becomes hard to tell what is the new story from what is Ridgeway’s experience.

The film tends to lose steam with the detour into Ridgeway’s own life, and the ending is not as sharp and startling as it should be. Focusing on the cat-and-mouse tale in the fictional encounter also misses an opportunity to explore the complex, confounding, controversial real author at the film’s center, which would have been an interesting side-trip. Still, it is a good film, well-made and lush that evokes Highsmith’s writing well, as well as being a showcase for the always excellent Helen Mirren and the talented cast behind her.

A TALENT FOR MURDER opens in theaters on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars