THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: This is an old-fashioned murder
story. There is little real violence, no chases;
it is just one very ingenious, very unscrupulous
person trying to get away with what he can. But
the show is really how he does it and the suspense
of wondering how long he can keep it up. This is a
fairly intelligent thriller with a villain that one
almost has to admire. The warm 1950s Southern
Italy setting works for the film also. Though he
occasionally stretches credulity, this is a fun
film to go along with. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), low +2
(-4 to +4)
For me one of Alfred Hitchcock's best films is DIAL M FOR MURDER. It is a stage play barely adapted for film, but it is a very good stage play. We have in it a murderer who is a formidable force. His talent is not that he strong or fast. He does not come popping out at anybody. He does not outrun anyone. His skill is that he thinks very well on his feet. You can actually just see him thinking out possibilities and almost unerringly find the right one. Once he makes a decision he stays with it. He never seems troubled by uncertainty. THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY is about a very similar sort of criminal genius. Quite a bit younger, but no less mentally agile is Tom Ripley (played by Matt Damon).
It is 1958. Tom Ripley is, to use his words, "a real nobody," a bathroom attendant and sometime piano player. But he is good a mimicry and at forging signatures. He decides that it is better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody. When he comes in contact with the Greenleaf family, wealthy from shipping, he passes himself off as a friend from Princeton of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), currently in Italy. He is treated like one of the family for a while, and Dickie's father Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn) has a proposition for Tom. He will pay Tom $1000 to go to Italy and convince Dickie to give up his playboy ways and return home. Tom goes, meeting Meredith Logue (Cate Blanchett) along the way. In Italy Tom arranges a meeting and befriends Dickie and his fiance Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Paltrow). All the while he is putting together plans to kill Dickie and, where necessary for his plan, take his place. Director Anthony Minghella's screenplay begins with this setup and brings the characters together and then lets them simmer together in the warm Italian sun for nearly an hour, choosing the leisurely pace of a good Agatha Christie film. The tempo is slow and thrills are cerebral, but we do get to meet and understand the characters and it pays off in the second half of the film. We see that in more than one sense that Ripley is expert in playing people. His one failure is to fool the unctuous Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an old friend of Dickie. Freddie takes an immediate dislike to Tom, complicating the plan. Eventually there is a murder and Ripley has to be both himself and Dickie Greenleaf for a while. He is walking a tightrope and must remember with each person what version of reality he is trying to project. And as the film progresses his step must become ever more careful.
The roles must have seemed like a little bit of dj vu for the two male leads. Damon played the genius of lower class origins in GOOD WILL HUNTING. Jude Law played the aristocrat whose very identity is borrowed by someone else in GATTACA. In any case Law seems very much at home in his roll as the young jazz-loving jet setter. Damon seems sufficiently controlled. Paltrow is regal. Special mention should be made of one of the bit parts.
One of the ever more familiar faces showing up in films is Philip Baker Hall who in here has a small but important roll as an American lawyer. Hall, in his late 60s, is able to project an absolute authenticity of authority and at the same time a magnetism of a person in a position of power. Anyone who has seen the film HARD EIGHT was mesmerized by his performance from the very first scene. He has been in films since the early 1970s, but probably because of his performance in HARD EIGHT he is showing up in a lot of major films.
The plot of THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY does not take a whole lot of thought before contrivances become apparent. But under the influence of the warm Italian sun, the audience is lulled into going along with it and even being thrilled as Ripley gets himself into and out of minor scrapes in his amoral attempts to steal a life. I give the film a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 2000 Mark R. Leeper
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