Entertainment

Believe It Or Not, Mr. Ripley Gets Meta in 'A Talent for Murder' Origin | Review

Nairavoice · Nov 3, 2026 · 9 min read

You’re likely much more familiar with Tom Ripley — the sociopathic social climber who murdered his way across high society in a series of novels, films and shows including 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley and Netflix’s recent Ripley — than you are with his creator, cantankerous crime novelist Patricia Highsmith. But in the new meta-thriller A Talent for Murder, director Anton Corbijn and screenwriter Joanna Murray-Smith make a bet that the author herself is just as fascinating and shocking as her most famous character. And they might be right — at least, when Helen Mirren is playing the aggressive, provocative and famously bigoted Highsmith, in a swaggering performance that lets the typically elegant actress cut loose.

Mirren’s Highsmith is the heart of a story that’s one-half eccentric literary biopic, one-half pulpy mystery: what if Highsmith, in her final days, was approached by a mysterious young editor begging her for one final book? The tale that unspools from there never quite becomes the sleek cat-and-mouse thriller it would like to be. But it is a lot of fun, and a risky third act twist transforms the film from a typical mystery into a commentary about the nature of life as an artist — one that will leave viewers either elated or enraged.

What Is ‘A Talent for Murder’ About?

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    Bleecker Street Media / Courtesy Everett Collection</figure>

In early 1995, 74-year-old Patricia Highsmith (Mirren) is living in solitude at her isolated Swiss country home, indulging in her favorite pastimes: guzzling booze, reminiscing on her professional triumphs, terrorizing the townsfolk with her bad temper, and enjoying the company of her large collection of knives, poisons, and guns. Enter Edward Ridgeway (Alden Ehrenreich), a young book editor who has been sent all the way from New York City with a single mission: get Highsmith to sign the contract for a sixth Tom Ripley novel.

Ridgeway is a Highsmith fanatic, and knows that getting her back to work would make his career. But he’s also not quite comfortable with the situation he’s been dropped into — or the mysterious fate of a previous editor, who had also been sent to extract a new book from Highsmith, but soon vanished off the face of the earth. Without an easy way back home, he tries to make his case. Of course, the irascible author tries to send him packing, using colorful language and some threats to his life. But even as the two clash, Highsmith is soon seduced by the idea that there’s still demand for her work, that a final book could cement her literary immortality, and that Ridgeway might be the one to pull her out of the writer’s block that has swallowed her final years.

From there, the story of Highsmith and Ridgeway’s relationship weaves in and out of the fictional tale they spin, as they begin work together on her next Ripley novel. In scenes illustrating their story ideas, Ripley (also played by Ehrenreich) is determined to marry a young American named Clementine (Olivia Cooke) — an heiress who happens to share a name, face, and life story with an actual young woman Ridgeway met on his way to Switzerland. As real and imagined storylines get increasingly tangled, it becomes difficult to tell what’s true and what’s just a story. What is Ridgeway’s real interest in Clementine? What is Ridgeway’s real interest in Highsmith, for that matter? Who’s actually manipulating who? And what’s so damned important about Tom Ripley?

You’ve Never Seen Helen Mirren Quite Like This

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    Bleecker Street Media / Courtesy Everett Collection</figure>

A Talent for Murder‘s greatest shock isn’t any of the crimes that occur on screen — it’s watching Mirren, an actor known for maintaining an air of poise even in her more villainous roles, play a character who is rude, sloppy and purposely indelicate. Sporting a head of barely-brushed hair and a confrontational sneer, Highsmith is delighted by her own crassness, whether she’s holding forth on the mating habits of snails, speculating on Ridgeway’s own sexual prowess, or just casually fondling some items from her firearm collection. Highsmith is a nightmare, but an engrossing one — and through monologues that reveal more than she intends about her past, we learn exactly how she developed such a rough shell, and how those difficult experiences also led her to create her charming criminal mastermind. Mirren is clearly having a ball playing a complete asshole, which makes her antics a joy to watch — and reveals that even at 81, there are still sides we have yet to see of the actress.

Ehrenreich doesn’t undergo quite as big a transformation, but viewers who are only familiar with him from his time as Han Solo will be shocked by his turn as the nebbishy Ridgeway, who swings between playing the innocent and revealing hints of a more threatening core. While he isn’t always compelling on his own, he and Mirren fight beautifully; his seemingly inexpert attempts to manipulate her and her over-the-top diatribes about him bring to mind a platonic version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Their blackly comedic attempts to take each other down allow Murray-Smith to slip in grand statements about art, creativity, and the nature of good and evil in a way that’s genuinely entertaining — you’ll be so tickled watching Mirren suggest that she poisoned Ehrenreich’s eggs, you won’t even notice when the conversation pivots to the value of art or the greater meaning of a painful childhood.

You keep the energy up and the plan loose, and people have a much better evening because of
it.
Three different endings were sent to different cinemas in 1985, so the answer depended on
which screen you walked into.
It flopped completely, found its audience on video, and went back into cinemas for its
fortieth anniversary with the endings randomised again.
Your flaw is that chaos is excellent company and a terrible plan.

You are quietly the most observant person in your circle and you notice changes before
anybody mentions them.
The courtyard was one of the largest sets ever built at Paramount, with thirty-one
apartments and working plumbing.
It was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Director and is still taught as the
cleanest thriller ever constructed.
Your risk is that watching and doing something about it are not the same, and you know it.

You are the one who keeps going after everybody else has accepted it cannot be solved.
New Line wanted a different ending and Brad Pitt reportedly refused to make the film without
the one they shot.
It turned Fincher from the director who had a bad time on Alien 3 into the defining thriller
director of his generation.
Your weakness is that carrying something this long does real damage, and you are usually the
last to notice.

You work things out sideways, and explaining the route takes longer than the answer did.
It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing in 2002 and won neither,
which still annoys people.
It cost around nine million dollars, made over five times that, and built the career that
led to everything after.
Your flaw is trusting your own version of events slightly more than the evidence supports.

Ehrenreich’s scenes as Ripley, which mostly feature narration from Highsmith and Ridgeway in place of dialogue, see the actor take the killer to a lighter, campier place than Matt Damon, Andrew Scott, or others who have tackled the role; he glories in the character’s external sleaze but skips the inner torment, a decision that makes these sections pure fun. This is especially true when he plays off Cooke, who makes her character such a wide-eyed cartoon of naïveté that you don’t really feel much sorrow over her constant misfortune; instead, you just get caught up in the enjoyable nastiness of Ripley’s scheming.

However, as A Talent for Murder enters its final act, you may begin to wonder why exactly you’re watching these two plot threads play out. It’s lovely to be out there getting up to no good in the snow-covered Alps or sunny Roman piazzas (which are captured in luscious cinematography by Robbie Ryan), but what is all this plotting and stalking and mysterious phone call-making adding up to?? A few moments of confusion towards the film’s end culminate in an audacious climax that viewers will either love or hate — a reaction that honestly feels much more in line with Highsmith’s legacy as a person and writer than any traditional mystery movie denouement. The film’s decision to make a big statement on the nature of art and artists feels slightly out of left field when it arrives, but it’s also far more meaningful than any possible whodunnit reveal. You’ll likely be thinking about it days later — though whether that’s because you loved it or because you want your money back is impossible to predict.

‘A Talent for Murder’ Isn’t Perfect, But It is Unique

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    Bleecker Street Media / Courtesy Everett Collection</figure>

A Talent for Murder began as a stage play (also written by Murray-Smith), a pedigree that’s fairly obvious in the way it plays out — there are rarely more than two characters on screen at any given time, and they are prone to occasionally making grand philosophical declarations in the way only theater characters seem to.

Its beginnings as a play are also clear in the way the film values character over plot. Though some of the twists and turns don’t quite work out, the emotional battle between the protagonists always feels right. Highsmith and Ridgeway’s fights are funny, frightening, and strange, but more than anything, they reveal that the things we scorn and the things we need are often more similar than we’d like to admit. Of course, noting that there’s a thin line between love and hate isn’t exactly a revolutionary idea. But I can almost guarantee, you’ve never seen anyone illustrate it the way A Talent for Murder does.

An unconventional biopic that isn’t afraid to go to strange places.