He narrates an incident from their childhood that had happened shortly after her mother's suicide. To learn more about Alicia, Theo contacts her cousin. In it, she describes being watched in her home by a masked man in the weeks before the murder. Although she remains mute during their therapy sessions, Alicia gives Theo her diary. At his request, he is placed in charge of Alicia, who has not spoken since the day of the murder. Theo Faber, a forensic psychotherapist with a keen interest in the Berenson case, successfully applies for a position at the Grove. Due to a plea of diminished responsibility, she is admitted to a secure forensic unit called the Grove. Plot Īlicia Berenson, a famous painter, is held guilty for the murder of her husband, photographer Gabriel Berenson. Michaelides decided to set his novel in a psychiatric unit as he had worked at a secure psychiatric facility for teenagers while he was a psychotherapy student. The Athenian tragedy Alcestis, by Euripides, served as an inspiration for the plot, while its narrative structure was influenced by Agatha Christie's writing. I kept seeing scripts being mangled in the production and this sense of frustration made me decide to sit down and finally write a novel." He rewrote the draft around 50 times before finalizing it. And great.On writing his debut novel, author Michaelides, who is also a screenwriter, said, "I was feeling very disillusioned as a screenwriter. It’s such a sad, desperate moment a moment of impossible longing.
There is a moment in the movie when Scottie, having dressed Judy as Madeline, his dead love, kisses her. I think the most brilliant scene, from a construction point of view, is how the cross-cutting of scenes leads us to believe that the FBI is about to arrive at Buffalo Bill’s house when, in fact, Clarice is entirely alone.įrom the French novel, D’entre les morts by Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud, Hitchcock’s masterpiece about obsession, lost love, and betrayal has had a bigger effect on me than any other film I’ve seen-its themes are the same ones that now preoccupy me in my writing. It has to be one of the most influential thrillers ever made.
Jonathan Demme’s version of Thomas Harris’s book is, in my opinion, even better than the novel. And the Mediterranean is such a beautiful backdrop to Dickie’s murder. It’s another stunning exercise in glamour, nostalgia, and psychopathy. Tom’s longing for love and his inability to connect, much as he wants to, is dramatized so powerfully and showed me a dark and troubled antihero could be as relatable as a more traditional hero. It was the first time I saw a film enter the mind of a murderer with such empathy.
The Anthony Minghella film, adapted from the book by Patricia Highsmith, had a massive effect on me as a teenager. Regardless of whether or not you’ve read this classic, you need to see the film. The final monologue by Finney, when he reveals the identity of the murderer, is a bravura performance. It’s one of my favorite films to curl up with-I love every scene so much. The original 1974 Sidney Lumet movie, starring Albert Finney as detective Hercule Poirot, elevates Agatha Christie’s classic mystery into a meditation on nostalgia and glamour. I think the most powerful scene in most thrillers is often the murder itself, and in this film, the moment the family is shot in their living room while watching an opera is brutal and shocking. I think these five book-to-screen adaptations are among the best ever made.ĭirected by Claude Chabrol, this adaptation of Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell, about an illiterate housekeeper who kills her employers “because she could not read” is as unsettling and haunting as the book. I’ve been reading mystery writers like Agatha Christie since my childhood and I’ve always been a little obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock, so needless to say, I enjoy reading and watching intelligent thrillers that have some kind of emotional depth. I studied English Literature and was a screenwriter before writing my first novel, The Silent Patient-a psychological thriller about a woman who shoots her husband five times and then never speaks again.
I love the combination of cinema and literature.