Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: A TALENT FOR MURDER [Toronto International Film Festival - Toronto, Ontario]
Creating a building of narrative within a meta-literary structure can be an intriguing aspect depending how the tone is handled and the actors involved. Helen Mirren is obviously where the film: "A Talent For Murder" [Gala Presentations] builds from as an aging Patricia Highsmith is being rattled by her publisher to write another Ripley novel. What is interesting after one watches it is whether it is built as a film within a film (or one more beyond that) which only becomes clear when one thinks about the first shot and the last shot. It is a subtle but beautiful form of filmmaking and character work based within the details especially involving a character that came before (George Applebee) who is neither heard or seen throughout the entire movie. Alden Ehrenreich plays Edward Ridgely an editor from New York sent to get Highsmith to sign a contract to write a new Ripley novel. She will not do so unless he can help her comes up with a premise and stick the landing. Ehrenreich and Olivia Cooke (as a woman with the same name but likeness within the two stories) really play it well. You think Highsmith is projecting the thoughts of Ridgely on her own but it might be in reverse. As a result, we get a murder mystery set in Italy while everyone still has their real life in Switzerland. The play the film is based on is actually called "Switzerland".
Ehrenreich after "Solo" really hasn’t got to show his real possibility though bits in "Ironheart", "Oppenheimer" and "Brave Nee World" did some interesting things. Here you see the range he can have. Playing the Clark Kent editor he has to dumb it down but when he plays the character within the story he is something else. a would-be character like Ripley needs to have this kind of presence. It is too bad "Solo" didn’t hit as it should because he has that charisma (he had it with Emilia Clarke) and it works with Olivia Cooke as well. On "House Of The Dragon", Cooke has some edge but here, even if at times it is overtly sexual, she shows the character knows what she wants but it also reflects the internal or external monologue of Hjghsmith which is always near. Mirren doesn’t pull the punches and hides a little bit under make up and costumes but that never stops her performances from being fierce. As it comes to its conclusion, there are differing takeaways. Some work. Some don’t. But the epilogue obviously says this is a fictional account so no such things really ever happened with Hjghsmith. But that doesn’t take away from the narrative structure/character study that the film pulls off which is both adept, slick, intense and edgy with three great performances in their own way working on different wavelengths. A-/90%
By Tim Wassberg
