A Talent for Murder
by Hope Madden
It’s fun to romanticize writers, especially when what they write is so ghastly. And if they’re odd ducks to begin with? All the better! Why do you think Poe shows up so often as a character in a film?
So, why not Patricia Highsmith? The lesbian icon who wrote Strangers on a Train before tackling the Tom Ripley novels casts a fascinatingly bent and curious shadow. In director Anton Corbijn’s latest, Helen Mirren plays the cantankerous, chain smoking, misanthrope playing cat-and-mouse with her youthful editor, Edward Ridgeway (Alden Ehrenreich).
At first, A Talent for Murder follows the wholesome Edward to Europe, where he is tasked with convincing the terrifying author to sign a contract for one more Ripley novel. On the train to Switzerland, Edward meets the beguiling Clementine Balfour (Olivia Cooke), headed the same direction to try to convince her wealthy aunt to untie those purse strings.
Were Edward a little more suave, more dangerous, the scene would almost feel like a page from a Highsmith novel.
That’s the fun of this story within a story. As Highsmith slowly warms to Edward, he agrees to bounce ideas around with her for this possible 6th novel. Soon imagination and reality blur as Edward imagines himself as Tom Ripley, then maybe even begins to live a life a bit more like Tom’s. Or is he?
Joanna Murray-Smith’s script is sharp and witty, and Mirren’s delivery is masterful. Her Highsmith is hateful and playful as a cat and Ehrenreich flavors Edward with the perfect blend of vulnerability, ambition, and insecurity. Their banter is an acerbic treat.
Naturally, the film takes us to glamorous European locals as the potential novel plot develops. Then, in a twisty overlapping story, Edward leaves Highsmith’s home to venture out for his own adventures. The three threads—Highsmith’s home, Ripley’s adventure, Edward’s outings—braid to form a twisty, amorphous thriller.
But Corbijn loses the claustrophobic chamber piece feel once his tale leaves the confines of Highsmith’s Swiss home. Murray-Smith’s twists sometimes threaten to be too clever for their own good. The film blurs the line between fact and fiction perhaps once too often, thereby removing the fun of a mystery: finding out what really happened.
It’s a gorgeous film boasting fun turns from great actors. A Talent for Murder is just maybe more of a mash note to thrillers than a thriller itself.
