‘A Talent for Murder’ Trailer: Helen Mirren Is Patricia Highsmith Opposite Alden Ehrenreich in Anton Corbijn’s Literary Thriller

From the cult of “Carol” to Netflix’s gripping black-and-white “Ridley,” the ghost of Patricia Highsmith lives on well into the 21st century. The latest spin on her legacy, “A Talent for Murder,” comes from director Anton Corbijn (“Control,” “A Most Wanted Man”) and stars the inimitable Helen Mirren as the “Talented Mr. Ripley” author. Recent Tony winner Alden Ehrenreich co-stars.

The movie will world-premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival ahead of a fall awards-season release. Watch the trailer below.

Here’s the synopsis: The film “follows a mysterious young man from a New York publisher (Alden Ehrenreich) who is sent to Switzerland to persuade the renowned writer Patricia Highsmith (Helen Mirren) to write one final installment of the Ripley anthology.”

Per IndieWire’s Kate Erbland in our forthcoming fall festival preview, there’s so much to recommend about the latest from “Control” filmmaker Anton Corbijn, which offers up a whodunit (and who doesn’t love those these days?) wrapped in some speculative fiction (what if the film was about “The Talented Mr. Ripley” author Patricia Highsmith, kinda?) with a heck of a pedigree to match (Highsmith is played by no less than Dame Helen Mirren).

But the real draw here is a daring, multifaceted performance by recent Tony winner Ehrenreich. If you’ve been rooting for him forever — like this writer, loud and proud — Corbijn’s film is very much for you, setting the actor as a striving young editor sent to Switzerland to extract one more Ripley novel from the very prickly Highsmith. Things don’t go according to plan, cleverly so.

Bleecker Street opens “A Talent for Murder” in theaters starting Friday, October 23. Check out the film’s first trailer below.