Loving Highsmith

This biography was both fascinating and, at times, provoked a bit of personal, age-related anxiety. I was delighted to discover that Patricia Highsmith is the author behind several of my favorite films adapted from her novels, including *Carol*, *The Talented Mr. Ripley*, and *Strangers on a Train*.

Although unfamiliar with her previously, I enjoyed learning about her interesting and often fulfilling life. It was also apparent that she experienced significant hardship, loss, and compromise. I suppose that this is true of many writers - probably lots of non-writers too.

Reading about Ms. Highsmith's life and her often daring decisions inevitably led me to reflect on my own choices, prompting some personal regrets. I flashed back over my own life and several moments of major indecision - "Should I do this or that?" I realized I frequently opted for less challenging, more conventional paths, yet I've always been proud of the brave.

While I wondered why I couldn't have been as bold as she was, my feeling isn't one of personal regret or envy. Instead, I felt admiration, particularly when considering the time and circumstances of her upbringing and the demands of a family that seemed so unlike her own. Something she might have recognized and come to terms with almost from the start.

This film certainly piqued my interest in Patricia Highsmith, so much so that I might watch it again. I've already queued up "Ripley" and "Carol," and I'll definitely look for more information about her. My main criticism concerns the musical score, which I found exceptionally poor. It felt entirely disconnected from the film's subject matter, discordant, and distracting. The jarring music even evoked unpleasant physical sensations, like sharp needles in sensitive areas. In contrast, the brief moments featuring natural ambient sounds were perfect.

At age 75, I found the film's focus on end-of-life issues both deeply contemplative and rather saddening. But it also strengthened my determination to spend my remaining time fulfilling my own desires and free from regrets.

Poorly made. Texas theme is used over and over without any artistic or emotional reason as a visual copout. The contemporary shots of New York City were edited in as an easy way out, in a very student film-like manner. The interviews with Highsmith's relatives from Texas, which were not insightful at all and irrelevant, made a film about this great author even more trivial and cheap. The other interviews had the quality of superficiality and talked about Highsmith's profound dilemmas they had no way of knowing anything about. The pseudo-Americana/Texas wanna-be music just adds insult to the wound. It is a very superficial film about a profound, complex person.

I love Patricia Highsmith's work so much. It's almost criminal to think that, at least when I was growing up, she wasn't taught at all in school. Always read the Highsmith book before seeing the movie based on it. As highly regarded as Strangers on a Train and Carol are, neither has one-tenth the extraordinary complexity and moral ambiguity of Highsmith's writing (nor, with the exception of Blanchett's Carol, do any of its characters).

Thus any documentary about this magnificent author is going to be of some interest. But by focusing so relentlessly on Highsmith's relationships with women, the film conveys little of why we should care about Highsmith at all. There is little about her professional life -- relationships with editors, failures, sales volumes, etc., let alone any serious examination of her work.

So for the devoted Highsmith fan the movie is worth watching but nevertheless a disappointment.

The movie starts off with the filmmaker saying "I started reading her diaries and fell in love with her."

I'm currently reading her diaries and it really doesn't feel like the filmmaker read them. The docu portrays her as a man-hating lesbian. That's not true. Her diaries show that, while she preferred women, she certainly slept with men. On purpose. And even enjoyed it sometimes.

The relationship with her mother, too, was much more complicated than the filmmaker lets on. She and her mother actually talked about her lesbianism with her mother sometimes commenting about her current girl friend. Both of her parents read her work and, as Highsmith tells it, were helpful and supportive.

The oddest choice was continuing the Texas theme throughout the whole movie. Highsmith left Texas when she was 6. To see the movie, you'd think that Texas was all she thought of. That's just not the case, at least from her diaries.

I suppose I went into this expecting this to blow me away since the diaries are so powerful. The interviews were interesting...except when the white subtitles blended into the white background. Why is this still a thing??

She's a fascinating woman and deserved a better tribute to her.

As a Highsmith fan boy, I highly recommend this doc! Wow, she was a messy writer, that's for sure. Brilliant. Loved the fact that she published an edition of The Price of Salt under her real name in her final years. Quite poignant.

It's great that the filmmakers managed to track down former lovers of the author; their stories are really intriguing and shed new light on this often mysterious figure.

The filmmakers also make great use of clips from various films based on Highsmith's works, including Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley. I think the film could have used an interview with some of the cast of the latter film to discuss the complexity of playing one of her characters. But that's a minor point.

Really well done.