Helen Mirren’s Patricia Highsmith matches wits with a real-life Ripley in A Talent For Murder trailer

In the trailer, Mirren, clearly having a ball as the crotchety, brilliant, chain-smoking mistress of the psychological thriller, quickly susses out that everything is not what it seems, as her reluctant pitches to her mysterious young visitor start to echo the secretly ambitious interloper’s real agenda—and the machinations of her most famous character, amoral con man Tom Ripley.

Recalling the twisty chamber mind games of Deathtrap, Mirren’s Highsmith has a handy wall of decidedly functional murder weapon props in her isolated retreat, as Ehrenreich’s errand boy reveals that his predecessor has disappeared after a panicky phone call from Highsmith’s house mentioning something about a knife. Scored to Space’s archly sinister 1996 hit, “Female of the Species,” the trailer depicts Ehrenreich’s not-what-he-seems visitor switching between the Ripley of Highsmith’s proposed new book and the possible victim (or killer) in the wary Highsmith’s midst. (Naturally, the cagy Highsmith has a bottle of arsenic on hand.)

Directed by Anton Corbijn (A Most Wanted Man, Control), A Talent For Murder also stars House of the Dragon’s Olivia Cooke. The film opens on October 23.