By Dan Skip Allen

One of my favorite films of 1999 was “The Talented Mr. Ripley”.The movie is based on the Patricia Highsmith novel. It has a great protagonist, Tom Ripley, who is proficient in forging signatures, counterfeiting things, and lying about who he really is. It’s a great film starring Matt Damon as the titular Mr. Ripley. It also has an amazing ensemble cast besides him. It was directed by Anthony Minghella.  It was one of five Ripley novels Highsmith wrote. None of the novels get to the bottom of who this woman was as a real person. “A Talent For Murder” does, though. It gives you an inside look into this woman’s mind.

The story starts in Switzerland in 1995. A man named Edward Ridgeway (Alden Ehrenreich) is sent to the home of Patricia Highsmith (Helen Mirren), winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for portraying Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen”. She is a crotchety old lady who puts this young man who came to her house in the countryside unannounced to task. The last man ended up missing. He tells her he’s there to get her to sign a contract to write another Ripley novel. She says that she’s done with Ripley, though, until he says he has some things for her. Notebooks, some soup, some new shirts, and most importantly, of all another knife for her collection she displays on the wall. She lets him explain further about his motivations for coming there. This piques her interest, and she gives him one night to help her come up with a new idea for a new Tom Ripley novel. Little do they both know they are both playing a game of cat & mouse against one another.

On the way to the cottage of Patricia Highsmith, the young man in question, played by Ehrenreich, meets a beautiful heiress named Clementine Harriet Balfour (Olivia Cooke) on a train. She’s there to visit her aunt and grandfather, who she hopes to inherit their fortune. In the meantime, she visits Italy. Her and Ehrenreich‘s characters become friends and bump into each other from time to time on their respective trips to Switzerland and Italy. Cooke’s character seems to enjoy Ehrenreich‘s character’s company, and they become close.They are of similar ages and have connections in the region. That’s enough for them both to get more romantically entangled. 

This film, directed by Anton Corbijn, is based on the 2014 play called “Switzerland “ by Joanna Murray-Smith. The narrative features more than just a three-hander, though. It has a framing device that helps the viewers who are watching the movie put themselves in the shoes of Patricia Highsmith and Ehrenreich‘s characters’ minds. This framing device changes the whole dynamic of the movie. The audience sees what motivations the Ripley character would be interested in once the outline is discussed by the pair. They write similar things that the Ripley character would do, and the viewers get to see these enacted in the film. It’s a nice creative idea that adds a twist and another level to what otherwise would be a straightforward story structure.

Mirren plays this character in a grumpy and sneaky way. She pops up and hides at night and does things like put a cut on the Ehrenreich characters’ neck while he’s sleeping. She’s that kind of woman. Is this who she really is? I don’t know, but it makes for a better character in the film if she really was crazy. I could understand why she would be able to come up with all the ideas in her books. Mirren, though, as an actress, has done it all in her career. She’s been a classical actress in older, period piece films, and she’s been in action franchises. She’s played leaders of countries and done horror films. She’s truly done it all in her long and illustrious career. I don’t think I’ve seen her enjoy playing a woman more than this one. She’s eating up the scenery opposite Ehrenreich. That’s why I come to the movies to see her because she makes every character her own. Including an old bat of an author.

Ehrenreich and Cooke are two actors who have chosen their projects very carefully.  Ehrenreich, most famous for playing a younger Han Solo in “Solo” and Cooke most famous for playing Alicent Hightower in “The House of the Dragon” Series, the spinoff of “Game of Thrones”, on HBO Max. They’ve both had decent careers besides those two notable roles. Ehrenreich was in the funny satire “Heil, Caesar,” and Cooke has been in the horror film “Quiji”. Besides these films and television series, these two have done a myriad of different performances. Similarly to Mirren, they seem to be enjoying themselves as these characters. Especially how they are used in the framing device. Which is a very fun aspect to this story. Hopefully, I’ll get to see them both again as Han Solo and Alicent Hightower. They are both great in those roles.

There are some cool things that this movie has taken from other Ripley novels and murder mystery films in general. One being the Ehrenreich character stumbles upon some bottles of poison after he heard a rumor of Highsmith murdering her neighbor’s dog because it was too loud. Another is that a smaller character snuffs out the Ehrenreich character after the Cooke character lies about their relationship. You could see it in her eyes she knew they weren’t telling the truth. She didn’t believe they’d be a couple because of their differences and the makeshift suit and shoes he was wearing to a special high society party. The third is that some of the items left around were very obvious things characters could use for potential murders. All of the little clues left around in the movie are great examples of why the Highsmith Ripley novels are so great.

“A Talent For Murder” is a fun take on a murder mystery using an established author, Patricia Highsmith, and a pair of young lovers. The director mixes a three hander with a framing device to create a fascinating narrative. The cat and mouse game that Mirren and Ehrenreich‘s characters play against each other gives the film a fun vibe. The three main actors are all fine in the movie. Using the Tom Ribley books as a backdrop for the film was a great idea. Creativity is hard to come by these days in storytelling. Audiences need to give movies that are different and go for a swing like this one did, a chance. This won’t be for everybody, but the performances and interesting narrative structure are worth watching on the big screen.

🌟 🌟 🌟 ½ stars