Loving Highsmith

On the face of it, other than being successful writers, Stephen King and Patricia Highsmith wouldn’t appear to have too much in common. I only mention (and it’s my observation) King because like Highsmith almost all his books have been turned into films. That fact about Highsmith is interesting but not a major element of Loving Highsmith which concerns itself primarily with Highsmith’s private life as told through her journals and diary.

Punctuated by Highsmith’s moves to Europe and the countries therein writer and director Eva Vitija builds a picture of a woman who was obsessed with writing, which was shared with a passion for her social life and lovers, taking full advantage of the various clubs and bars that she frequented.

Before that she had an unconventional childhood, virtually abandoned at birth in 1921, she lived with her grandmother in Texas until she was six. Her mother then brought her to New York to live with her and step-father, only to be returned to grandmother at twelve.

What emerges too is that despite her mother’s almost completed disdain for her, Highsmith was trying to build a relationship. Her diaries detail her confusion, almost despair at this, virtual rejection of daughter and work. Her close friends and film contributors have harsher words for mother Highsmith.

The documentary although chronological doesn’t get bogged down with dates and places, rather that Highsmith spent time in what could be described as some of the most exciting cities of that period New York, Berlin, Paris and London. But then happy to retire to a rural idyll to write and spend time with her lovers.

The latter is most intriguing as there are excellent contributions from her surviving lovers, yet despite knowing the name of who could have been the love of her life in England, Vitija doesn’t reveal it. ‘Caroline’ was/is married and from Highsmith’s writings they were deeply in love. But because of ‘Carolines’ domestic situation, it couldn’t last and they split. Moving to France she is forced to leave for tax reasons. Then to Switzerland where she stayed for the rest of her life.

There’s also the what could be seen as her coming to accept her lesbianism by writing an explicitly lesbian book under her own name in her later years. This might seem odd for someone who didn’t appear to have to hide in her later successful years. This was not the case early in her career and when her book Carol was released in the 1950’s it was under a pseudonym, though writer and lover Marijane Meaker states this was for commercial reasons.

A fairly open and sympathetic documentary, with excerpts from Highsmith’s notes voiced by Gwendoline Christie, it’s an interesting introduction to Highsmith’s personal life, rather than a critique of her work. That said Vitija doesn’t shy away from criticism when in her later years her diary entries became shorter, dogged with prejudice and racism.

Loving Highsmith will be released in UK cinemas on 14 April 2023.