‘A Talent For Murder’ review: Helen Mirren is spiky author Patricia Highsmith in Anton Corbijn’s underwhelming thriller

Dir: Anton Corbijn. UK/Italy. 2026. 106mins

Alden Ehrenreich has a killer time playing a Tom Ripley-like figure in A Talent For Murder, an impish thriller in which a publishing house editor tries to convince Patricia Highsmith to write one more novel about her most famous creation. Anton Corbijn’s first narrative feature in 11 years luxuriates in the author’s stylish, sinister milieu as his two characters dream up a new book — one in which the editor himself becomes the protagonist. Helen Mirren brings a snippy panache to her portrayal of the misanthropic novelist, but the film’s excessive cleverness ultimately proves tiring rather than page-turning.

Never rises above the level of nifty diversion

Based on Joanna Murray-Smith’s play Switzerland (Murray-Smith also penned the screenplay), A Talent For Murder premieres in Toronto before opening in the US on October 23 before releasing in the UK on November 20. It is likely to cater to adults looking for a classy entertainment, and also features Olivia Cooke as a young woman unwittingly roped into the storyline. The presence of Mirren alongside Solo: A Star Wars Story and Weapons star Ehrenreih may prove a draw, although streaming may be a better fit for this underwhelming picture.

In 1995 in Switzerland, an ageing Patricia Highsmith (Mirren) is visited by Edward (Ehrenreich), a New York editor who has been dispatched by his bosses to plead with her to pen another Tom Ripley book, which is sure to be lucrative. If Edward does not succeed in his mission, he may lose his job – so the stakes could not be higher. On the train to Highsmith;s house, he meets Clementine (Cooke), a fellow New Yorker on the way to see her aunt. The two hit it off, but soon Edward is at Patricia’s door and she is displeased to see this earnest young man she dismisses as a lowly intern.

Shooting on film, cinematographer Robbie Ryan gives the story a moody warmth, especially once Patricia reluctantly begins work on this new novel. Edward is a massive fan of hers and her creation, who was the centerpiece of five books, and starts brainstorming a possible plot, pulling from his own life and his train encounter with Clementine. Soon, A Talent For Murder shifts from snowy Switzerland to romantic Rome, where the novel’s narrative takes place. We see the fictional Edward seduce the rich, beautiful Clementine and charm her Aunt Peggy (Juliet Stevenson) as a ploy to steal the family’s fortune. The novel within the film is impossibly swooning, as Ryan and production designer Dimitri Capuani give us a dreamland of gorgeous shadows, ghostly low light and stunning interiors.

Corbijn (Life, A Most Wanted Man, Control) invites the viewer to have a chuckle at the heightened reality he has constructed both in Switzerland and in the novel’s Italian locales. Cheeky jump scares and consciously melodramatic twists are frequent in the early going, with Edward nervous because an earlier emissary from his publishing house had visited Patricia and was never heard from again. The camera shamelessly lingers over a collection of poisons Patricia just so happens to have lying around. A Talent For Murder does not just pay homage to Highsmith’s work, but also the immense pleasure readers get from her wicked yarns.

Initially, Edward seems to be mild-mannered, but soon Ehrenreich reveals the character’s calculating side. After Edward begins to stand up to Patricia — reminding her that she has not had a hit in years — the fictional Edward emerges as a debonair individual far removed from the unassuming Edward we’ve met. In films like Fair Play, the Tony-winning actor has portrayed wholesome, handsome men who conceal the darker aspects of themselves, and A Talent For Murder makes great use of this duality. As the fictional Edward, Ehrenreich turns his cherubic expression into a chilling soullessness, a flicker of evil evident inside his kind eyes.

Unfortunately, the film never rises above the level of nifty diversion because Corbijn fails to make either storyline gripping. The cat-and-mouse gamesmanship between Patricia and Edward is amusing but glib, while the fictional Edward’s preying on the fictional Clementine has plenty of visual pizzazz but comes across as nothing more than elegant pastiche. As expertly as Ehrenreich embodies the Ripley magnetism and menace, he’s operating in a bit of a vacuum – and when the real Edward later bumps into the real Clementine again in Switzerland, the script’s hall-of-mirrors playfulness seems gimmicky, as opposed to saying something deeper about Ripley’s endless allure.

Murray-Smith’s script gives a snarling Mirren only a few choice putdowns. A Talent For Murder mostly focuses on Edward and his interactions (real or fictional) with Clementine, but when the film eventually comes back to the battle of wills between Patricia and Edward, the payoff disappoints. If this was actually a Highsmith novel, the celebrated author would have come up with something far more crackling.