LIKE Agatha Christie before her, Patricia Highsmith repeatedly challenged the moral compass of her readers with disturbing psychological thrillers that nudged her characters to the brink of madness.

In her debut novel, Strangers On A Train, she conceived a seemingly perfect murder for every disgruntled husband, which Hitchcock brilliantly adapted for the big screen.

Almost 50 years later, Anthony Minghella tapped into the disturbing sexual undercurrents of her 1955 novel The Talented Mr Ripley, that netted five Oscar nominations. The Two Faces Of January was published almost a decade after Highsmith unleashed her iconic con artist, Tom Ripley, and this time the vivid backdrop is sun-baked 1960s Athens.

Hossein Amini’s lean script is the characters’ strained relationships and notably the frayed bonds of trust between two men, who must rely on each other to escape a hairy predicament of their own making. American businessman Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) and younger wife Colette (Kirsten Dunst) cut elegant figures on the steps of the citadel. Greek-speaking guide Rydal (Oscar Isaac), who scams unsuspecting tourists, is drawn to the glamorous couple and he gladly accepts their invitation to dinner.

Later, Rydal walks in on Chester moving the seemingly unconscious body of a man (David Warshofsky) into another room. The businessman explains that he was protecting his wife. Blinded by his infatuation with Colette, Rydal pledges his help and the trio head for the coast, with the police giving chase.

Dunst’s role feels slightly undernourished, but she’s pivotal to the on-screen chicanery and the film’s centrepiece sequence in subterranean gloom.