A Talent for Murder is a bit of a "what if" movie, it postulates a fictitious scenario mapped on to the life of a real person, in this case, the somewhat problematic Patricia Highsmith, author of the Tom Ripley novels as well as others such as The Price of Salt and Strangers on a Train. Known for her cleverly constructed murder plots and making a devilishly charismatic murdered the protagonist of her most famous novels, Highsmith is seen as one of the 20th century's greatest novelists mixing an intellectuality with an appetite for suspense and drama.
A Talent for Murder posits her meeting a young man in the last year of her life who attempts to convince her to write one more Ripley novel. She is resistant and despite her proud gruffness, exposes a perhaps unsettled dealing with her inevitable death. This is a completely made up scenario yet it is intriguing as the more the young man begins to merge with her creation, Tom, more and more as they interact. Together they concoct a satisfyingly Riplian murder story which perhaps gives her a bit of life again near the end.
Mirren and Ehrenreich play off each other in a very satisfying way. She embraces Highsmith as a highly misanthropic and somewhat unpleasant women staring death in the face. There is a reckoning happening here for a writer who made her career exploring death in tantalizing ways, now coming to her own end in a way she cannot control (she died of lung cancer). The film even has her fantasize that Ripley kills her. Ehrenreich has the even more impressive job of playing a man who also beings to see himself through the lens of a fictional character and attempting to live, or imagine living, as that figure. I love what he did here, playing such a well crafted balance of contradictions such as timidity and confidence mixed together.
I think fans of the Ripley stories will get a lot of satisfaction. The film is itself a fantasia wishing into existence another Ripley book we never get to read. But the film is more than that, a fascinating character study of two disparate people which a pulpy and sultry murder story in the middle.
A Talent for Murder
Starring: Helen Mirren, Alden Ehrenreich, Olivia Cooke
Director: Anton Corbijn
Writer: Joanna Murray-Smith
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