Helen Mirren’s Dark Turn in A Talent for Murder: Review

There’s a quiet cruelty to A Talent for Murder. It creeps up, not with the bang of a twist revealed, but with the slow tightening of a knot. Helen Mirren walks into frame like a weathered queen of noir and the screen bends to her will.

Anton Corbijn, returning to narrative cinema after a long gap, adapts Joanna Murray-Smith’s stage play Switzerland into a psychological crime drama that looks and feels deliberate. The setup is simple: a young man arrives in Switzerland intent on persuading a celebrated crime novelist to write another installment of her famous series. What follows is equal parts seduction and sabotage, a game of wits in which admiration blurs into obsession and narrative bleeds into life.

The cast carries the film. Mirren is magnetic — cool, barbed and at times deliciously vicious. Opposite her, Alden Ehrenreich brings a pliant, nervy energy that makes his character’s motives both sympathetic and unsettling. Olivia Cooke adds an extra layer of texture, grounding scenes that might otherwise float on atmosphere alone. Together they form a trio that keeps you watching, even when the story withholds answers.

Visually, Corbijn leans into a controlled aesthetic: elegant interiors, pale alpine light, a kind of civilized menace. The frame composition often feels surgical. This is a film that trusts silence and small gestures. Pacing is patient. Not everyone will call that a virtue. Some critics praise the film’s slow-burn tension and visual polish. Others note that its restraint sometimes borders on cool detachment — beautiful, but withholding.

Critics’ reactions have skewed positive but mixed on specifics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 85% critics score from 20 reviews, a sign that most reviewers found value in the piece. Metacritic’s weighted average sits at 67 out of 100 across 13 reviews, reflecting more tempered praise and some sharper reservations.

The Playlist (83/100) applauds Corbijn for crafting a first-rate mystery that keeps the audience guessing until the end. The Hollywood Reporter (80/100) highlights the film’s visual flair and its slow, absorbing rhythm, suggesting the movie raises questions about identity, storytelling and human darkness: do we all hide the capacity for violence?

Next Best Picture (80/100) points to uniformly strong performances and a screenplay that balances glossier flourishes with an undercurrent of emotional drama. IndieWire (75/100) finds particular joy in the on-screen clash between Ehrenreich and Mirren, arguing that the film refuses tidy answers — and that refusal is part of its pleasure.

Other outlets are less forgiving. Variety (70/100) argues that the narrative threads never weave together as intricately as a true homage to Patricia Highsmith might demand, even while praising Mirren’s chilly, witty turn and Corbijn’s stylish control. Screen Rant and The Guardian (both 60/100) contend the film often substitutes mood for momentum: there are plenty of knives and poisoned drinks, but not the visceral bite one expects from a thriller.

Screen Daily (60/100) admires Corbijn’s return to feature filmmaking and Mirren’s acerbic portrait, but suggests the movie’s intelligence can tip into abrasion — a cleverness that tires rather than intensifies suspense. RogerEbert.com (50/100) goes further, saying the picture never fully commits to the claustrophobic tension its premise promises, leaving a sense that an earlier, leaner cut might have landed harder.

Ultimately, A Talent for Murder is a film that rewards patience and attention. It’s not a smash of shocks. It’s a performance-driven, character-first investigation into how stories can feed obsession and how admiration can curdle into threat. If you come for slow-burn psychological games, crisp cinematography and a towering role from Mirren, you’ll find much to admire. If you want an all-out, pulse-pounding thriller, this one might tease you more than it satisfies.

Either way, Corbijn’s film puts the art of the crime story under a microscope — and that scrutiny is its most compelling gamble.