By Mashable | Created at 2026-08-28 21:11:58 | Updated at 2026-09-05 07:33:06
1 week ago
"I'll give you one night to show me you can inhabit the mind of a killer."
By
Shannon Connellan
Senior Editor
Shannon Connellan is Mashable's Senior Editor, General Assignments, based in London. She has been Mashable's UK Editor (and still manages the illustrious UK team) and Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives searching for Exit 8. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror, and loves to nerd out with movie stars, filmmakers, and TV creators.
on August 28, 2026
Helen Mirren stars as legendary novelist Patricia Highsmith in A Talent for Murder, and we're dangerously seduced by the trailer out today.
Directed by Anton Corbijn and written by Joanna Murray-Smith, the film sees Alden Ehrenreich (Weapons, Solo) as Edward Ridgeway, a man sent by his New York publisher to Switzerland to convince the Talented Mr Ripley author to pen one last masterpiece in her all-important Ripley series. The thing is, someone from the publisher has already been sent on the mission and nobody's heard from him since. And there are an awful lot of guns and knives around Highsmith's home, as you can see in the trailer above.
But Highsmith intends to give Ridgeway one night to show her he can "inhabit the mind of a killer," before she puts anything down in print. And so, the pair play Highsmith-style crime writing 101. First up? They'll need to find their mark, a dazzling female lead with a dazzling female name — Clementine Harriet Balfour (House of the Dragon's Olivia Cooke) — who's "destined for money" from her great aunt.
But the longer Ridgeway plays the Ripley game with Highsmith, the darkness of her literature threatens to get very real.
A Talent for Murder hits cinemas Oct. 23.
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Shannon Connellan is Mashable's Senior Editor, General Assignments, based in London. She has been Mashable's UK Editor (and still manages the illustrious UK team) and Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives searching for Exit 8. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror, and loves to nerd out with movie stars, filmmakers, and TV creators.
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