★★★★☆
Every now and then, you come across an artist whose work speaks to something primal in you — whose way of understanding the world around them is so similar to your own, you feel you’ve found a long lost kindred spirit. Director and writer Eva Vitija found this connection with author Patricia Highsmith.
“Like many other writers, I was immediately drawn to Patricia Highsmith’s writing,” announces Vitija towards the beginning of her new documentary, Loving Highsmith. “Almost all of her books were made into films. But when I started reading her unpublished diaries, I fell in love with Patricia Highsmith herself.”
The film that follows traces Highsmith’s life and career, but ultimately focuses more on her interiority and emotional life as Vitija makes an attempt to reveal the essence of the famously guarded person whose books and whose thoughts she fell in love with.
Credit: Met Film Distribution
The Texan-born Highsmith had an impressive writing career and was known for writing high octane psychological thrillers. As Vitija noted, most film fans recognize the crime author because of the cult films her work inspired — Strangers on a Train, Carol, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Deep Water to name a few.
Growing up in a Texan rodeo family with a largely absent, uncaring mother, Highsmith’s early years were plagued by feelings of abandonment. As a homosexual woman, Highsmith continued to struggle with her identity. In a time when the line between masculinity and femininity was thought to be clear cut, Highsmith had a more fluid interpretation of gender, which, Vitija suggests, was expressed in the character of Ripley.
READ MORE: Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie gets a rousing first trailer
Highsmith had a number of relationships, but each ended quickly because of the author’s alcoholism and, sometimes, the social stigma associated with being a lesbian at the time. “My life is a chronicle of unbelievable mistakes,” comes a diary voiceover towards the end of the film. “Things I should have done and vice versa.”
Vitija’s method of storytelling flits between interviews, home videos of Highsmith, and diary entries in voiceover form from a reflective and lyrical Gwendoline Christie. There is also a (perhaps slightly overused) recurring motif of a Texan rodeo underscored with a very hokey banjo track. Her conservative Texan rodeo upbringing, Vitija suggests, haunted Highsmith throughout her life.
As for Pat the writer, she was a dreamer, often taking long breaks throughout the day to daydream and, more often than not, turning fantasies that sprung from her real life into her stories. She famously wrote Carol after daydreaming about a sophisticated woman she saw while working at a department store, for instance.
However, when it comes to Highsmith’s writing, Vitija focuses primarily on what they can reveal about the person who wrote them. As Highsmith herself puts it, “Good stories are made from writers’ emotions alone. Even if a suspense book is entirely calculated, there will be scenes which the writer has very likely known himself.” As such, Vitija includes a number of clips from films of Highsmith’s novels in which the characters and their stories reflect a moment in Highsmith’s own life. It’s a suitably literary technique that will help fans of Highsmith connect her work and her life on a more emotional level.
The documentary is a slow and deeply personal examination of someone who is famously difficult to grasp. In fact, the film is so personal to its director, it has more of an intellectual impact than an emotional one. And while Vitija’s dive into Highsmith’s diaries uncovers much of what went on inside Highsmith’s head, the final impression is ultimately still quite a hazy one.
Loving Highsmith is in cinemas 14 April.
