Corbijn and company have crafted an engaging, surprisingly funny examination of how fiction allows you to experience the life or death (or sex, for that matter) you think you deserve….
Tom Ripley has become so ingrained in the cultural consciousness that even someone who has never read Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley or seen any of its (many) filmic adaptations—from René Clément’s Purple Noon (1960) to Steven Zaillian’s Netflix miniseries Ripley (2024)—can probably still give you a decent description of the character: a conman and murderer with a chameleonic ability to assume any number of identities. I doubt the guy would continue to pop up in a new movie every few decades, however, if he were nothing more than a ruthless killer. Like Hannibal Lecter or Dexter Morgan, he oozes an undeniable charm: a cool cunning most of us could only dream of exhibiting.
A Talent for Murder (2026), the latest thriller from director Anton Corbijn, understands this enduring appeal….
Read the full piece at Film International Online.
Thomas M. Puhr lives in Chicago, where he teaches English and language arts. A regular contributor to Bright Lights Film Journal, he has published Fate in Film: A Deterministic Approach to Cinema with Wallflower Press. His study of Robert Siodmak’s The Killers is forthcoming from Channel Academic Publishing.
