The latest film by director Anton Corbijn (A Most Wanted Man) is not a literary biopic of American crime novelist Patricia Highsmith in the conventional sense, though it profiles the writer at the end of her life. Adapted by Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith from her play Switzerland, it is, instead, a two-handed psychological thriller consisting of a series of cinematic Russian nesting dolls, stories within stories.

A Talent for Murder opens in Switzerland in 1995. Highsmith (a fierce Helen Mirren) sits in her gloomy study, smoking and staring at the Alps, with an occasional glance at her typewriter. She is blocked. At the Zurich train station, nerdy junior editor Edward Ridgeway (Alden Ehrenreich) anxiously calls his New York boss to check up on the status of his predecessor, who had a breakdown and mysteriously disappeared after he had visited Highsmith. Both men had come to Switzerland to convince her to write one more book centered on her most famous literary creation, the sociopathic con artist Tom Ripley. On the train, Edward meets a lovely dark-haired stranger, fellow American Clementine Harriet Balfour (Olivia Cooke) on her way to visit her wealthy aunt, before disembarking and catching a taxi to Highsmith’s isolated house.

Not surprisingly, the notoriously antisocial and alcoholic Highsmith is not particularly welcoming. She is contemptuous and condescending to the young man who has arrived on her doorstep. “You dress like an intern,” she snarls. Highsmith is only slightly mollified by the gifts he has brought her: crisp white shirts from Brooks Brothers, Campbell’s Soup (“Only six cans?” she asks incredulously), and an exquisite hunting knife whose blade gleams ominously as she holds it up. “Who wouldn’t want to slice something with that?”

What follows is a twisty cat-and-mouse game as Edward seeks to win over Highsmith. When Edward tells the writer that her most recent work has been “inconsistent,” he knows he has touched a raw nerve. After an uneasy night in her guest room, where he discovers a snail on his bed (Highsmith raises them) and his predecessor’s clothes hanging in the closet, Edward finds Highsmith has made him breakfast. Having seen the shelf of poisons in the kitchen, he hesitates before eating as Highsmith watches him closely: “I wouldn’t murder a little nobody from New York City, would I?”

Eventually, Highsmith tests Edward by pitching a new Ripley plot. The young editor eagerly joins in the brainstorming. At this point, the film leaves Highsmith’s house and shifts to Rome as the scenes the duo creates in their imaginations are performed. Ehrenreich now plays Ripley, targeting his prey: a young American heiress (Cooke) whose grandfather and great-aunt (Juliet Stevenson) stand between him and the money and social prestige he craves. The movie switches back and forth from fantasy to reality, with Highsmith challenging Edward to kill off a character. If he can do so to her satisfaction, she will sign a new contract.

Mirren has the showier, scenery-chewing part and attacks it with gusto. But Ehrenreich skillfully tackles the more difficult challenge of switching subtly from awkward innocent to calculating manipulator, smoothly transitioning between roles until, at one point, the viewer (and Highsmith) can’t tell which persona is real.

Aiding Ehrenreich’s creepy performance are cinematographer Robbie Ryan’s chilly visuals that capture a Swiss winter light reflecting off Edward’s glasses and obscuring his eyes (the windows to his soul). Bathed in Ryan’s moody blue and green tones, Rome has never looked lovelier or more sinister. Production designer Dimitri Capuani evokes the dark claustrophobia of Highsmith’s isolated chalet with wood paneling and a cluttered, confined interior. Dickon Hinchliffe’s jittery score ratchets up the anxiety and tension.

There are plenty of red herrings to delight the most ardent psychological thriller fan, and while the Ripley sections are suspenseful, at the heart of Corbijn’s stylish film is the unsettling duel between two actors at the top of their game.