Helen Mirren to Play Patricia Highsmith in A Talent for Murder, Based on Joanna Murray-Smith’s Play Switzerland

Bleecker Street and LD Entertainment will release A Talent for Murder, a new thriller starring Academy Award winner Helen Mirren as celebrated author Patricia Highsmith, in cinemas on October 23.

The film, is inspired by Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith’s acclaimed play Switzerland, which had its American premiere at the Geffen Playhouse in 2014.

Directed by Anton Corbijn, A Talent for Murder features Mirren alongside Tony Award winner Alden Ehrenreich (Becky Shaw) and Olivia Cooke (House of the Dragon).

The film follows a young literary agent from New York, played by Ehrenreich, who travels to Switzerland with a specific mission: persuade the notoriously reclusive Highsmith to write one final installment in her celebrated Tom Ripley series. What begins as an assignment soon becomes a twisting psychological drama.

A Talent for Murder takes place in the home of legendary author Patricia Highsmith (Mirren). The chain-smoking, alcoholic grande dame of crime literature lives out her reclusive existence in Switzerland, where her permanent sense of rage and injustice contrasts with the neutrality of her surroundings. One morning, Edward (Ehrenreich), an attractive young emissary from her New York publishing house arrives at her door, tasked with persuading the intimidating genius to write the next anticipated addition to her sinister Mr. Ripley series.