The Talented Mr. Ripley (film)


The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Anthony Minghella. An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel of the same name, the film stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf, Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge Sherwood, Cate Blanchett as Meredith Logue, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Freddie Miles.
The novel was previously filmed twice. In 1957, a one-hour version was produced for the TV anthology series Studio One, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, though no recording survives. In 1960, a full-length film version was released, entitled Purple Noon and directed by René Clément, starring Alain Delon in his first major role. Claude Chabrol's 1968 film Les biches uses many elements of Highsmith's novel but switches the gender of the main characters.
The Talented Mr. Ripley was a critical and commercial success. It received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Law.

Plot

While working at a party as a pianist, Tom Ripley is approached by shipping magnate Herbert Greenleaf, who believes that Ripley attended Princeton with his son, Dickie, because Ripley is wearing a borrowed Princeton jacket. Greenleaf recruits Ripley for $1,000 to travel to Italy to persuade Dickie to return home. While collecting his luggage in Italy, Ripley pretends to be Dickie and strikes up a friendship with an American socialite, Meredith Logue.
In Mongibello, Ripley befriends Dickie and his girlfriend, Marge Sherwood. Ripley enjoys Dickie's extravagant lifestyle, and becomes obsessed with Dickie himself. Eventually, Dickie tires of him and starts spending time with his friend Freddie Miles, who treats Ripley with contempt. One night, Dickie catches Ripley dressed in his clothes and dancing in front of a mirror, which disturbs him. When Dickie impregnates a local woman, he rejects her and she drowns herself. Only Ripley knows what happened, and he promises to keep it a secret. After Dickie's father cuts off Ripley's travel funds, Dickie cancels a trip to Venice and tells Ripley they should part ways, but offers to take him on a final trip to San Remo. They argue on a small boat, and Dickie says he has had enough of Ripley and is going to marry Marge. Ripley insinuates that Dickie is rejecting him because he is afraid of the feelings they have developed for each other. They struggle, and Ripley kills Dickie with an oar. He takes Dickie's belongings and scuttles the boat.
Realizing that people mistake him for Dickie, Ripley decides to assume his identity. He forges a letter to Marge, convincing her that Dickie has left her to live in Rome. He creates the illusion that Dickie is still alive by checking into one hotel as Dickie and another as himself, creating an exchange of communications between the two. Through forgery, he is able to draw on Dickie's allowance, which allows him to live lavishly. He runs into Meredith, who already believes that Ripley is Dickie. His ruse is threatened when Marge arrives in Rome, so he breaks it off with Meredith to prevent himself from being exposed. Freddie shows up at Ripley's apartment looking for Dickie. When the landlady addresses Ripley as Dickie, Freddie realizes the fraud. Ripley beats him to death and disposes of the body. Ripley is forced to create stories to avoid the police and Marge, who are looking for Dickie. Realizing that the police suspect Dickie of murdering Freddie, Ripley forges a suicide note, with "Dickie" claiming responsibility for Freddie's death. Ripley then travels to Venice, where he meets Marge's friend, Peter Smith-Kingsley, and they become very close.
Dickie's father travels to Italy to meet with the police, bringing along a private detective, Alvin MacCarron. Ripley prepares to kill Marge when she discovers Dickie's rings in his possession and begins to deduce what has been going on, but Peter interrupts them. Greenleaf dismisses Marge's suspicions, and MacCarron reveals to Ripley that the police are convinced that Dickie, who had a history of violence, murdered Freddie before killing himself. MacCarron further indicates that out of appreciation for Ripley's loyalty to Dickie—and to assure Ripley's silence—Greenleaf intends to bequeath Dickie's trust fund to Ripley.
Free and clear of his crimes, Ripley boards a ship to Greece with Peter; it is implied that they are now lovers. Ripley is surprised to encounter Meredith, who knows him as Dickie and also knows Peter socially. He kisses her and promises to talk later. In his cabin, Peter tells Ripley he saw him kiss Meredith. Ripley realizes that he has to kill Peter, as Meredith is traveling with her family and would be missed. Ripley admits that he lied about who he is, and laments that he will always be alone because of what he has done. Sobbing, he strangles Peter and returns to his cabin, alone.

Cast

Casting

The Guardian reported in 2000 that Leonardo DiCaprio declined the offer to play Ripley before Damon was cast in the role. Minghella cast Matt Damon after seeing his performance in Good Will Hunting, because he felt the actor had the right mix of "credibility and warmth and generosity" to engage the audience and help them understand how Ripley "thinks and operates". The character of Meredith Logue, not present in the novel, was added by Minghella with Cate Blanchett in mind. He was "entranced" with Blanchett after meeting with her and surprised that she was actually interested in playing the small part; Minghella went on to write more scenes for the character to expand her role.
Minghella happened to see the dailies from a film his wife Caroline Choa was producing at the time, The Wisdom of Crocodiles, starring Jude Law. The director was impressed with Law's performance and offered him the role of Dickie; in his "insane arrogance", as Law put it, he initially refused, because he did not wish to play a "pretty boy". After learning of the cast Minghella was assembling and coming to understand that he would be "in safe hands" with the director, Law later accepted the part.

Production

Apart from the beginning scenes filmed in New York City, the movie was shot entirely on location in Italy. The cliffside resort town of Positano and various villages on the islands of Ischia and Procida, near Naples, were used to represent the fictional town of "Mongibello". Frequent and unpredictable rain hampered the production, with Minghella stating that "we had to deliver this gorgeous Mediterranean world, this beautiful world of Southern Italy, and we could never get Italy to turn beautiful...We would divide the scenes up, often into words, and go out and get two or three words and then it would start to rain and we'd have to go back in again." The scenes taking place in San Remo were actually filmed in Anzio, a resort town near Rome. Famous locations included the Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps and Piazza di Spagna in Rome, and the Caffè Florian in the Piazza San Marco, Venice.
To prepare for the role of Ripley, Damon lost 30 pounds and learned to play the piano. Jude Law gained weight and learned to play the saxophone for his character; he also broke a rib when he fell backward while filming the murder scene in the boat.

Music

Reception

Critical response

The Talented Mr. Ripley received generally positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 83%, based on reviews from 132 critics, with an average rating of 7.33/10. The consensus reads, "With Matt Damon's unsettling performance offering a darkly twisted counterpoint to Anthony Minghella's glossy direction, The Talented Mr. Ripley is a suspense thriller that lingers." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 76/100 based on reviews from 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a "C+" grade.
Roger Ebert gave the film four-out-of-four stars, calling it "an intelligent thriller" that is "insidious in the way it leads us to identify with Tom Ripley... He's a monster, but we want him to get away with it". In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin praised Law's performance: "This is a star-making role for the preternaturally talented English actor Jude Law. Beyond being devastatingly good-looking, Mr. Law gives Dickie the manic, teasing powers of manipulation that make him ardently courted by every man or woman he knows". Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A-" rating, and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote: "Damon is at once an obvious choice for the part and a hard sell to audiences soothed by his amiable boyishness... the facade works surprisingly well when Damon holds that gleaming smile just a few seconds too long, his Eagle Scout eyes fixed just a blink more than the calm gaze of any non-murdering young man. And in that opacity we see horror".
Charlotte O'Sullivan of Sight & Sound wrote, "A tense, troubling thriller, marred only by problems of pacing and some implausible characterisation, it's full of vivid, miserable life". Time named it one of the ten best films of the year and called it a "devious twist on the Patricia Highsmith crime novel". James Berardinelli gave the film two and a half stars out of four, calling it "a solid adaptation" that "will hold a viewer's attention", but criticized "Damon's weak performance" and "a running time that's about 15 minutes too long." Berardinelli compared the film unfavorably with the previous adaptation, Purple Noon, which he gave four stars. He wrote, "The remake went back to the source material, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley. The result, while arguably truer to the events of Highsmith's book, is vastly inferior. To say it suffers by comparison to Purple Noon is an understatement. Almost every aspect of René Clément's 1960 motion picture is superior to that of Minghella's 1999 version, from the cinematography to the acting to the screenplay. Matt Damon might make a credible Tom Ripley, but only for those who never experienced Alain Delon's portrayal."
In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "On balance, The Talented Mr. Ripley is worth seeing more for its undeniably delightful journey than its final destination. Perhaps wall-to-wall amorality and triumphant evil leave too sour an aftertaste even for the most sophisticated anti-Hollywood palate". In his review for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw wrote, "The Talented Mr. Ripley begins as an ingenious exposition of the great truth about charming people having something to hide: namely, their utter reliance on others. It ends up as a dismayingly unthrilling thriller and bafflingly unconvincing character study". In her review for The Village Voice, Amy Taubin criticized Minghella as a "would-be art film director who never takes his eye off the box office, doesn't allow himself to become embroiled in such complexity. He turns The Talented Mr. Ripley into a splashy tourist trap of a movie. The effect is rather like reading the National Enquirer in a café overlooking the Adriatic".
Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has cited The Talented Mr. Ripley as one of his favorite films of all time. He hired its composer, Gabriel Yared, to write a theme for his own film, The Lives of Others, and its cinematographer, John Seale, to work on his second feature, The Tourist.

Accolades

YearAwardCategoryNomineeResult
1999Academy AwardsBest Actor in a Supporting RoleJude Law
1999Academy AwardsBest Adapted ScreenplayAnthony Minghella
1999Academy AwardsBest Art DirectionRoy Walker
Bruno Cesari
1999Academy AwardsBest Costume DesignAnn Roth
Gary Jones
1999Academy AwardsBest Original ScoreGabriel Yared
2000BAFTA AwardsBest Actor in a Supporting RoleJude Law
2000BAFTA AwardsBest Actress in a Supporting RoleCate Blanchett
2000BAFTA AwardsBest Adapted ScreenplayAnthony Minghella
2000BAFTA AwardsBest CinematographyJohn Seale
2000BAFTA AwardsBest DirectionAnthony Minghella
2000BAFTA AwardsBest FilmWilliam Horberg
Tom Sternberg
2000BAFTA AwardsBest Film MusicGabriel Yared
2000Berlin International Film FestivalGolden BearAnthony Minghella
2000Broadcast Film Critics Association AwardsBest ComposerGabriel Yared
2000Broadcast Film Critics Association AwardsBest FilmThe Talented Mr. Ripley
2000Chicago Film Critics Association AwardsBest CinematographyJohn Seale
2001Empire AwardsBest British ActorJude Law
2000Golden Globe AwardsBest Actor – Motion Picture DramaMatt Damon
2000Golden Globe AwardsBest DirectorAnthony Minghella
2000Golden Globe AwardsBest Motion Picture – DramaThe Talented Mr. Ripley
2000Golden Globe AwardsBest Original ScoreGabriel Yared
2000Golden Globe AwardsBest Supporting Actor – Motion PictureJude Law
2000Las Vegas Film Critics Society AwardsBest ActorMatt Damon
2000Las Vegas Film Critics Society AwardsBest DirectorAnthony Minghella
2000Las Vegas Film Critics Society AwardsBest CinematographyJohn Seale
2000Las Vegas Film Critics Society AwardsBest FilmThe Talented Mr. Ripley
2000Las Vegas Film Critics Society AwardsBest ScoreGabriel Yared
2000Las Vegas Film Critics Society AwardsBest ScreenplayAnthony Minghella
2000London Film Critics Circle AwardsBritish Screenwriter of the YearAnthony Minghella
2000London Film Critics Circle AwardsBritish Supporting Actor of the YearJude Law
2000MTV Movie AwardsBest Musical SequenceMatt Damon
Rosario Fiorello
Jude Law
2000MTV Movie AwardsBest VillainMatt Damon
2000National Board of Review AwardsBest DirectorAnthony Minghella
2000National Board of Review AwardsBest Supporting ActorPhilip Seymour Hoffman
2000National Board of Review AwardsThe Talented Mr. Ripley
2000Online Film Critics Society AwardsBest Adapted ScreenplayAnthony Minghella
1999Satellite AwardsBest Adapted ScreenplayAnthony Minghella
1999Satellite AwardsBest CinematographyJohn Seale
1999Satellite AwardsBest DirectorAnthony Minghella
1999Satellite AwardsBest EditingWalter Murch
1999Satellite AwardsBest FilmThe Talented Mr. Ripley
1999Satellite AwardsBest Supporting Actor – Motion Picture DramaJude Law
2000Teen Choice AwardsChoice Movie: ActorMatt Damon
2000Teen Choice AwardsChoice Movie: Breakout StarJude Law
2000Teen Choice AwardsChoice Movie: DramaThe Talented Mr. Ripley
2000Teen Choice AwardsChoice Movie: LiarMatt Damon
2000Writers Guild of America AwardsBest Adapted ScreenplayAnthony Minghella