*** out of ****
Year: 1999 Starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Davenport, James Rebhorn, Sergio Rubini, Philip Baker Hall Screenplay by Anthony Minghella Directed by Anthony Minghella Rated R
Identity is a tricky thing. Many of us would like to think we have a single identity, that it causes us to always act a certain way. But what Anthony Minghella's latest film "The Talented Mr. Ripley," which was based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, seems to explore is how "identity" can be whatever one wants it to be at any particular moment. Its title character, Tom Ripley, is a man of many voices, and a man with the kind of face everyone recognizes, but can't really place. In short, he is a man whose identity may be left open to dispute, and also a mentally unstable person who has few qualms about killing those in his way. But what's disturbing about "The Talented Mr. Ripley" isn't the murder. It's the fact that when seeing it from Tom Ripley's perspective, it all makes a whole lot of sense.
The film opens with Ripley (Matt Damon) playing piano for several wealthy members of the New York social scene. Fooled by his Princeton blazer, Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn), takes a liking to the charming young man, who he believes went to school with his son Dickie. Being a lower-class boy, Tom doesn't know what he's talking about, but decides to play along. Soon, Greenleaf asks Tom to go to Europe, find Dickie, and convince him to come home. When Tom finds Dickie (Jude Law), he is lounging around Italy with his jet-setter girlfriend Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow). Dickie doesn't know Tom, but thinks he might be an old college buddy he's forgotten. When Tom reveals his father's plan, Dickie takes a special liking to the "talented" young man. Soon, however, Dickie becomes bored with Tom's earnestness and wants to get rid of him. Unfortunately, Tom doesn't want to give up the life he's come to love. Thus begins a story in which Tom slowly but surely takes over Dickie's identity, doing whatever necessary, including the occasional murder, to maintain the illusion.
First and foremost, "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is a great-looking film. The Italian locations, including Rome, Venice, and Naples, are filmed by Minghella in sweeping, panoramic shots exhibiting the beauty of the Mediterranean. The scenery is quite breathtaking. Minghella also engages in some delightful Hitchcockian technique, beginning with throwback opening credits that split the screen into shards as Ripley's face is first revealed. More startling visuals can be had in Minghella's creative camera positioning, including some very interesting use of mirrors, and in the way he and his editor move between scenes, with unconventional wipes and fades being the norm. All of this goes toward indicating the film's central idea of Tom Ripley having a confused identity. There are several shots of a mirror placed in front of Tom or Dickie, replacing the other's image. Likewise, Tom is forced to look at himself in the mirror on several occasions-an old trick often used when a character questions his identity or motives, but effective nonetheless.
Minghella's film also boasts an impressive cast, all of which turn in solid performances. Damon manages to put aside his so-called "boyish" charm and turn it into something far more sinister. He smiles constantly, but not with that cute, fleeting half-smile used by so many of today's teen heartthrobs. Instead, Damon breaks out a huge, toothy grin so picture-perfect that when he flashes it for the sixth or seventh time, it starts looking awfully scary. During their screen time together, co-star Jude Law matches Damon easily. His Dickie is a user, one who picks up friends everywhere he goes until he gets bored with them, after which they are promptly forgotten. He represents the most disgusting aspects of the "idle rich," taking material wealth and a ring of friends for granted. Despite all this, it's not hard to see how a man like Ripley could become enamored of a man like Dickie. He lives a life of ease, one in which pleasure seems to find him, rather than the other way around. Likewise, it's not hard to understand when Tom takes a rather violent objection to his eventual "dumping." Gwyneth Paltrow is solid, if unspectacular, in a role that starts off large, but turns up only intermittently in the film's second half. Cate Blanchett shows up in a part created exclusively for the film as an idle rich American girl who meets Tom at the airport, believing him to be Dickie, and Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Dickie's obnoxious friend Freddie, who turns out to be quite a bit smarter than he looks. Both of the supporting actors deliver outstanding performances, with Hoffman offering up some particularly good scene-chewing. As played by this actor, Freddie is a character you can't take your eyes off of, and every one of Hoffman's facial ticks and gestures indicates all we need to know about his motives.
Fine performances, beautiful scenery, and artful direction notwithstanding, there are problems with "The Talented Mr. Ripley" that I find difficult to let pass without mention. First off, many of Minghella's "improvements" over the novel (knowledge of which is gained purely from hearsay; I've never read it) don't seem to help much at all. First of all, Minghella makes quite sure that we all know Tom feels really, really bad about all the horrible things he's done. This may help towards creating a more well-rounded character, but often it's hard to look at Tom and not think, "If he hates it so much, why doesn't he just stop?" I'm willing to hazard a guess that the film would have been far more disturbing with a killer who completely rationalizes all his crimes and feels little remorse afterward. Actively trying to garner sympathy for Tom Ripley doesn't quite work. The addition of Blanchett's character also makes the question of Tom's sexuality a bit muddled, thought I really don't have a problem with that. The real problem with the character is that she, like many of Minghella's changes, helps draw out the film's ending unnecessarily. The movie is just too long. As a general rule, I don't like saying this, because I have no problem with long movies in principle (after all, "Magnolia" was over 3 hours long, and I loved that one). But "Ripley" gets bogged down when Minghella has created more plot threads than he knows what to do with. To put it simply, the first act of the film is enthralling, a superb buildup to the first climax on a boat (you'll know it when you see it), the second act interesting, if only for its machinations on how Tom is going to get out of the mess he's created, while the final half hour just leads us around in circles. I don't know why Tom has to get into trouble by unlikely coincidence so many times (Blanchett's character seems to exist solely for this purpose), only to have another similarly unlikely coincidence get him out. Eventually, I started to wonder if all the setup of Tom being such an accomplished con-man (with his clever wordplay and voice impersonations) went all for naught when these coincidences, and not his own cleverness, started getting him out of jams. Is Mr. Ripley talented, or merely lucky?
Minghella is obviously trying to pay homage to Hitchcock here, and it's a shame that he misses only one thing that Hitch knew: economy. A little judicious snipping here and there would have made "The Talented Mr. Ripley" a tighter film with clearer focus. Still, the issues raised by Minghella's work must not be denied. The identity issue is at the forefront, and it is a pertinent one. Yes, Tom Ripley runs around pretending to be another person for a great deal of this film, and we must all agree that in our minds, this is an unforgivable act. But there is a side of me thinking that Tom's actions are a whole lot more understandable than they might seem at first glance. After all, who among us does not change identity frequently, often several times a day? We go to the office and carry ourselves one way. We go home and carry ourselves another way. Are these not separate identities residing in the same person? The only difference is that Tom Ripley has another name to go along with his separate identity, which is a far more interesting idea to base a movie on.
-reviewed by Shay Casey
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