A towering figure in the world of American literature, novelist Patricia Highsmith is perhaps best known for penning chilling tales of murder, manipulation, and betrayal. In books like Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley, the author peered into the dark heart of humankind. Yet those closest to her knew Highsmith as something of a romantic, evidenced by another of her most enduring works, the lesbian romance The Price of Salt (better known by its republished title Carol), a rarity among stories written in the 1950s in that the sapphic love affair at its center actually has a happy ending.

That contradiction lies at the center of Swiss filmmaker Eva Vitija's documentary Loving Highsmith, which sets Patricia Highsmith’s vulnerability centerfold to trace the supple and travel-worn thread of the lesbian author’s life and career. This film is of Americana, from the south, where the modern-day Highsmith family still frequent Texan calf roping rodeos, to the north, where the protagonist’s legacy has helped prop open those less-oft dark doors of Manhattan. 

The film is rewarding in its simple approach, keeping the viewer in check with moments of silence, forays along country roadsides, and remembrances of daydreaming: all good makings for a novelist’s success. Its viewing is a calling to go out and write. 

The light, folky score contains dissonant notes that accentuate the secrets Patricia Highsmith kept sequestered in her library of private diaries. Beyond opening up these secrets, Loving Highsmith fixes Highsmith on the mantel of American culture and history by modeling her victories and losses as a writer and a human being within a family that praised success and adherence to tradition. She was a woman in control during an era when women were only judged on their relation to men. Loving Highsmith is a confidently vibrant homage to the tomboy, sex scoundrel, and hermit author who we can consider an elite, a poet.

~ Robert Bonfiglio

Official Selection: Outfest LA LGBTQ Film Festival

Official Selection: Provincetown International Film Festival

Official Selection: Frameline SF LGBTQ+ International Film Festival