A first trailer has been released for A Talent for Murder, a psychological thriller starring Helen Mirren as novelist Patricia Highsmith and Alden Ehrenreich as a publisher’s representative. The film fictionalises a late-life encounter with Highsmith, best known for creating Tom Ripley, and explores the increasingly dangerous overlap between storytelling and real violence.

Set in the Swiss Alps, the story follows Edward Ridgeway after a previous emissary from Highsmith’s publishers disappears. He asks her to write another Ripley novel, but she instead challenges him to convincingly play a murderer; the film will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month before reaching cinemas on 23 October. Highsmith’s work includes Strangers on a Train and the Ripley novels, whose central character has been played on screen by actors including Alain Delon, Matt Damon and Andrew Scott.