As a writer Patricia Highsmith deservedly enjoys an exalted reputation; as a person, rather less so. As time went on she became almost as well known for her cantankerous behaviour and misanthropy as for her literary gifts.
But Swiss writer/director Eva Vitija has here created what she calls a “love-biography”, drawing extensively on Highsmith’s diaries and notebooks and on the memories of three lovers in particular: the American writer Marijane Meaker, the French teacher and translator Monique Buffet and the late German actor, director and costume designer Tabea Blumenschein.
Some clips from the film adaptations of Highsmith’s work are included (for a much wider range of these see the talk ‘The Dark Angel on Screen’), but this film is less about these and the books she authored and more about the woman herself, her quest for love and her often elusive identity.