The Talented Mr. Ripley
Caveat: I’ve not read the novel by Patricia Highsmith from which The Talented Mr. Ripley is drawn, nor have I seen Purple Noon, a 1960 film based on the same novel. But you probably haven’t either, so we’re square.
This belated review seemed appropriate given the Oscar muttering which surrounds the film; now having seen it, its obvious that director Anthony Minghella (of The English Patient and the little-seen but superb Truly, Madly, Deeply) has continued his winning streak with this psycho-thriller, which is as creepy and intimate as The English Patient was passionate and epic. Minghella is completely in command from frame one, opening the film with a short scene that, with very little dialogue, immediately establishes Ripley as a desperate, lower-class opportunist. Though a chance misunderstanding, Ripley is charged with the task of bringing one Dickie Greenleaf back to New York and away from his hedonist life in Italy; but in seeing Dickie’s life, Ripley wants it - him - for his own.
As Ripley, Matt Damon gives a revelatory performance. His cheerful frat-boy good looks are turned inside-out, his bright smile pinched and forced - as he strives to ingratiate himself with the wildly charismatic Dickey, his face seems to be hiding behind itself, his intentions and identity crouching behind low hair and broad glasses. With what in retrospect seems a shocking lack of dialogue, Damon is left only with his eyes to communicate the predatory intelligence and stunted emotion of a man who sees everything but understands only enough to feel that his intense crush on Dickie and all that he represents will not be returned, that his is a world that Ripley can’t bluff his way into.
Jude Law is absolutely convincing as the carefree Adonis who inspires Ripley’s obsession, and it’s a credit to Damon that at first, it’s understandable that the two become friends. But we see Ripley’s attitude toward Dickie grow dangerously possessive; the undercurrent of eroticism that shades his feelings seems merely a natural outgrowth of his fixation, a way to own Dickie completely. With any love story, misplaced affection can turn to self-loathing and outright rage when a triangle is formed, but here Ripley competes for Dickie both with his girlfriend (Gweneth Paltrow, effortlessly lovely) and his bloated playboy friend (the amazing Philip Seymour Hoffman, perfectly cast).
Minghella and Damon’s insidious coup comes in making you sympathize with Ripley even after he traps himself through his pathological amorality. While not finally a sympathetic character, Damon makes Ripley’s desperate struggle understandable - you wait for the hammer to fall on him, the karmic wheel to grind him, the gods to pay him back, and even though you know he deserves it, you still tense up when it looks as though he might be caught. Minghella sets up intriguing devices to deliver emotional punch, as when Ripley sings a nakedly flirtatious “My Funny Valentine” at a jazz club, or when the two men shout intimate secrets at each other over the racket of a 10-piece band. And though the film begins to draw out slightly after the two-hour mark, I can think of no edits that wouldn’t have compromised the story. An intelligent and knowing thriller, The Talented Mr. Ripley feels as emotionally dense and as rich in narrative as a novel, and slowly unfolds as such. That’s a compliment.
- Jared O'Connor
MOVIES
All Content © 1997, 1998, 1999 Jared O'Connor and Michael Baker