Other Titles • The Talented Mr. Ripley • The Mysterious Yearning Secretive Sad Lonely Troubled Confused (1999) • The Strange Mr. Ripley (1997)
Synopses for The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
1.
Set against a luxurious Italian backdrop, Anthony Minghella's suspenseful film follows Tom Ripley (Matt Damon), a young New York men’s room attendant, who is befriended by the father of a spoiled playboy, Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law). Dickie’s father sends Tom to track down his wayward son in Venice and return him to his family in America. Tom, whose talents include forgery and impersonating voices, charms his way into the lives of Dickie and his girlfriend Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), where he experiences first hand how the other half lives. Tom's immediate attraction to Dickie makes apparent his desire to be anyone but himself, and as the friendship develops, his true character begins to emerge. As Dickie grows tired and suspicious of his new acquaintance, Tom sees his new life slipping away. Unwilling to return to his old lifestyle, he takes extreme measures in order to ensure his place in the privileged world that he has grown to love. Establishing an intricate web of lies, Tom himself seems to forget what is real and what is not.
(42 votes)
2.
Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Cate Banchett electrify the screen in the riveting thriller from Oscar – winning director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient). Matt Damon “gives one of the year's most extraordinary performances” (Premiere) as Tom Ripley, a calculating young man who believes it's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody. Opportunity knocks in the form of a wealthy American shipbuilder who hires Tom to travel to Italy to bring back his playboy son, Dickie (Law). Ripley worms his way into the idyllic lives of Dickie and his girlfriend (Paltrow), plunging into a daring scheme of duplicity, lies and murder.
(44 votes)
3.
"I feel like I've been handed a new life", says Tom Ripley at a crucial turning point of this well-cast, stylishly crafted psychological thriller. And indeed he has, because the devious, impoverished Ripley (played with subtle depth by Matt Damon) has just traded his own identity for that of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), the playboy heir to a shipping fortune who has become Ripley's model for a life worth living. Having been sent by Dickie's father to retrieve the errant son from Italy, Ripley has smoothly ingratiated himself with Dickie and his lovely, unsuspecting fiancée, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow). In due course, the sheer evil of Ripley's amoral scheme will be revealed.
Superbly adapted from the acclaimed novel by Patricia Highsmith (also the basis of the acclaimed French version, Purple Noon), The Talented Mr Ripley is writer-director Anthony Minghella's impressive follow-up to his Oscar-winning triumph The English Patient. Recreating late-1950s Italy in exacting detail, the film captures the sensuousness of la dolce vita while developing the fracturing of Ripley's mind as his crimes grow increasingly desperate. And where Hitchcock was necessarily discreet with the homosexual subtext of Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, Minghella brings it out of the closet, increasing the dramatic tension and complexity of Ripley's psychological breakdown. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Cate Blanchett are excellent in pivotal supporting roles, and the film's final image is utterly effective: Ripley's talents have gone too far, and this study of class distinction, obsession and deadly desire reaches a disturbing yet richly appropriate conclusion. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
(43 votes)
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