FESTIVAL REVIEW
Every year, TIFF seems to give one of Britain’s acting legends a role with plenty of opportunities for hungry scenery-chewing, portraying an aging, difficult cultural figure while paired with a younger but equally formidable screen partner. For the previous two years, Ian McKellen filled that slot, first opposite Gemma Arterton in The Critic and then Michaela Coel in The Christophers. Maybe he was too busy filming Avengers: Doomsday, and this year the assignment moved to Helen Mirren in A Talent for Murder, with Alden Ehrenreich stepping in as a young representative from Highsmith’s publisher who both annoys and fascinates the literary legend.
Their meeting takes place in 1995, near the end of Highsmith’s life, when Edward arrives at her secluded home in Switzerland with one goal: to convince her to write one more Tom Ripley novel. Highsmith had introduced the charming murderer and con artist in The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1955 and eventually wrote five novels with the charismatic homosexual con man, the last arriving in 1991. Edward’s visit, however, is entirely fictional, taken from Joanna Murray Smith’s 2014 play Switzerland.
It is a perfect role for Mirren, whose Highsmith treats Edward’s arrival as both a hilariously annoying inconvenience and a juicy opportunity to have some fun making someone deeply uncomfortable. She insults his intelligence, mocks him and his demeanor, and gives him an increasingly hard time while dismissing the idea of returning to Ripley. She expects him to eventually grow tired of the abuse and leave, but Edward refuses to do so, and Highsmith eventually offers him a challenge: help her devise the perfect murder, and perhaps she will write the book. The film follows this strange collaboration between the two while periodically dramatizing the novel they are creating, using Ehrenreich again as a smoother and more dangerous Ripley-like figure opposite a wealthy young woman played by Olivia Cooke.
While the fictional murder they construct is perfectly serviceable, and Olivia Cooke is always a welcome presence, the film is far more engaging when we are watching Mirren and Ehrenreich talk about the story than when we are watching it play out. Mirren squeezes every line and stretches every insult, looking at Edward with disgust, making sexual jokes, or maliciously laughing in his face. She eventually grows surprised by the young man’s resilience, and soon we start questioning who is actually the predator and who is the victim.
Anton Corbijn brings a lot of style to the proceedings, never letting the film feel stagey. A Talent for Murder is his first narrative feature since Life in 2015, and he had worked with Mirren before in the fantastic and underappreciated A Most Wanted Man. Working here with cinematographer Robbie Ryan, he repeatedly captures Highsmith almost as a horror figure. Mirren suddenly appears behind windows, behind Edward, or in a dark corner, as if she were a ghost haunting her own home. Corbijn also brings some Hitchcockian flair to the film, which feels appropriate given that Highsmith’s first novel, Strangers on a Train, became one of Hitchcock’s most famous films.
For all its style, the screenplay isn’t the best, and unlike the best Ripley novels, it centers on a twist that is far too easy to predict. The conclusion is still very effective, but that has more to do with Mirren and Ehrenreich’s performances, with both clearly having a blast with the material. If nothing else, the film proves Ehrenreich has what it takes to be a fantastic Ripley, and he alone would be enough reason to adapt those novels again.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A Talent for Murder never becomes the fiendishly clever thriller it sets out to be, with the conversations between Mirren’s Highsmith and Ehrenreich’s Edward proving far more compelling than the fictional novel they create together. Yet Corbijn gives the material plenty of style, Mirren has an absolute blast playing Highsmith at her most poisonous, and Ehrenreich proves more than capable of matching her. The destination becomes obvious well before the film reaches it, but the two make getting there highly entertaining.
- Where to watch
- Coming soon
- Where to watch
- Coming soonOct 22, 2026
Play trailer
- Original title
- A Talent for Murder
- Director
- Anton Corbijn
- Cast
- Olivia Cooke, Helen Mirren, Alden Ehrenreich, Juliet Stevenson, James Faulkner, Brid Brennan, Maddalena Vallecchi Williams, Nikolai Selikovsky
- Rated
- R
- Screenwriter
- Joanna Murray-Smith
- Cinematography
- Robbie Ryan
- Editor
- Andrew Hulme
- Country
- Language
- English
- Distributor (CA)
- VVS Films