The Talented Mr Ripley ****½ (1999, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, James Rebhorn, Jack Davenport) – Classic Movie Review 41

With more subtlety, more noir, and an entirely different ending, the 1999 film The Talented Mr Ripley would be 100% brilliant. As it is, it’s still quite entrancing and mesmerising, with a dazzling cast pitch perfect for Highsmith’s spell-binding story. Overall 95% brilliant.

Writer-director Anthony Mingella’s 1999 psychological crime suspense thriller The Talented Mr Ripley is a triumph, nominated for five Oscars and five Golden Globes. Jude Law won the 2000 BAFTA Film Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.

In a career-best performance, a dazzling Jude Law almost steals the show from under Matt Damon’s nose as Dickie Greenleaf, an over-indulged, rich, young American ex-patriate living the high life in Mongibello, Italy, in the late 1950s.

The psychotic, possibly schizophrenic, perhaps homosexual, certainly talented Mr Tom Ripley (Damon) is sent by Greenleaf’s wealthy, conservative shipping magnate dad Herbert (James Rebhorn) to bring the prodigal son Dickie back to America to join the family business.

But Dickie is entirely happy with his carefree dolce vita existence in Italy, with his jazz, his women and his over-devoted girlfriend Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Paltrow). Happy, that is, at least until Ripley comes along. Ripley adores Dickie’s lifestyle and person so much that he actually wants to have it for himself and actually be him.

For his scenes in the film, Law is stunning, but his role is a sprint and the Ripley part is a marathon. And Damon is very, very good indeed, excellently mousy at the start and a creepy charmer later. Rebhorn, Cate Blanchett’s amorously-inclined American socialite Meredith Logue and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dickie’s revolting buddy Freddie Miles, fat and sweaty and dangerously inquisitive, are all also spot on in support.

Writer-director Anthony Mingella tried to suggest that his screenplay is totally faithful to Patricia Highsmith’s source novel, but it isn’t, though it is entirely satisfactory in its own right. Mingella understandably moves the setting of the contemporary 1955 novel along a couple of years or so to relish the dolce vita period mood and atmosphere. Unlike the 1960 first film version of the novel, Plein Soleil, it largely keeps the faith with Highsmith’s ending.

However, changing the nature of Ripley is infuriating, and the reason for the introduction of a couple of new main characters is baffling, producing a much longer film than necessary or desirable. The English gay character played by Jack Davenport, and Ripley’s relationship with him, are particularly annoying, betraying Highsmith at the end.

This film takes the same dip that afflicts Plein Soleil when Dickie Greenleaf disappears from the story. Curiously, that was never a problem in the novel, but you can see how that would work when a charismatic actor takes on the role. But, after a little hiccup and pause for breath, Damon gets it sparked up again. He is quite mesmerising. It is a brilliant role to play and he plays it brilliantly.

it is shot entirely on location in Italy, apart from the beginning scenes filmed in New York City. It is beautifully filmed by cinematographer John Seale on location in Rome, Naples, Palermo, Procida, Ischia, Anzio, Porto Ercole, Venice and New York City, though this does slightly turn the movie into a gorgeous travelogue and alluring advert for the Italian Tourist Board.

The cliffside resort town of Positano and villages on the islands of Ischia and Procida, near Naples, stand in for the fictional town of Mongibello. The San Remo scenes were filmed in Anzio, near Rome. Famous locations include the Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps and Piazza di Spagna in Rome, and the Caffè Florian in the Piazza San Marco in Venice.

Rain regularly stopped play. Minghella recalled: ‘We had to deliver this gorgeous Mediterranean world and we could never get Italy to turn beautiful. We would divide the scenes up, 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.’

Sequel: Ripley’s Game in 2002 with John Malkovich as Ripley. Malkovich is great, but it is a real pity Damon didn’t do a couple of sequels. It’s still not too late.

Cate Blanchett went on star in another Patricia Highsmith adaptation: Carol (2015)

The Talented Mr Ripley was nominated for five Oscars: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Jude Law), Best Adapted Screenplay (Anthony Minghella), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Roy Walker art director, Bruno Cesari set decorator), Best Costume Design (Ann Roth, Gary Jones), and Best Original Score (Gabriel Yared). It was also nominated for five Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, without any wins. It was also nominated for seven Bafta film awards, and won one: Jude Law for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

Minghella cast Damon after seeing him in Good Will Hunting and thinking had the right mix of ‘credibility and warmth and generosity’ to engage the audience in how Ripley thinks and operates. The new character of Meredith Logue was added by Minghella specially for Cate Blanchett and the role later expanded.

Minghella was impressed with Law’s performance in The Wisdom of Crocodiles that his wife Caroline Choa was producing and offered him the role of Dickie. Law initially refused because he didn’t want to play ‘a pretty boy’, but changed his mind when told about the rest of the cast.

The cast are Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge Sherwood, Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf, Cate Blanchett as Meredith Logue, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Freddie Miles, Jack Davenport as Peter Smith-Kingsley, James Rebhorn as Herbert Greenleaf, Lisa Eichhorn as Emily Greenleaf, Sergio Rubini as Inspector Roverini, Philip Baker Hall as Alvin MacCarron, Celia Weston as Aunt Joan, Rosario Fiorello as Fausto, Stefania Rocca as Silvana, Ivano Marescotti as Colonnello Verrecchia, and Silvana Bosi as Ermelinda.

On a fairly large budget of $40 million, it was a hit, taking $128.8 million at the box office.

Strangers on a Train (1951).

Film adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s novels: Strangers on a Train (1951), Plein Soleil [Purple Noon] (1960), Le Meurtrier [Enough Rope] (1963), The American Friend (1977), This Sweet Sickness (1977), A Dog’s Ransom (1978), The Glass Cell (1978), The Cry of the Owl (1987), The Story Teller (1989), The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), Ripley’s Game (2002), Ripley Under Ground (2005), The Cry of the Owl (2009), The Two Faces of January (2014), Carol (2015), A Kind of Murder (2016), and Deep Water (2022).

Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley series of novels: The Talented Mr Ripley (1955), Ripley Under Ground (1970), Ripley’s Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980), and Ripley Under Water (1991).

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