Loving Highsmith is a unique look at the life of celebrated American author Patricia Highsmith based on her diaries and notebooks and the intimate reflections of her lovers, friends, and family. Focusing on Highsmith’s quest for love and her troubled identity, the film sheds new light on her life and writing. Most of Highsmith’s novels were adapted for the big screen; the best known of these are Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Carol, a partly autobiographic novel, was the first lesbian story with a happy end in 1950s America. But Highsmith herself was forced to lead a double life and had to hide her vibrant love affairs from her family and the public. Only in her unpublished writings she reflected on “the ever-present subject” for her. Excerpts from these notes voiced by Gwendoline Christie, beautifully interwoven with archive material of her and her most famous novel adaptations, create a vivid, touching portrait of one of the most fascinating female writers of the 20^th century.