Ripley Under Ground ** (2005, Barry Pepper, Willem Dafoe, Alan Cumming, Tom Wilkinson) – Classic Movie Review 11,834

Roger Spottiswoode’s 2005 crime thriller film Ripley Under Ground stars Barry Pepper as Tom Ripley in a semi-black comedy version of Patricia Highsmith’s second Ripley novel.

Director Roger Spottiswoode’s 2005 British/ German/ French crime thriller film Ripley Under Ground stars Barry Pepper as Tom Ripley in a semi-black comedy version of Patricia Highsmith’s second Ripley novel, published in June 1970.

It’s hard enough to bring this idea off, and some of the cynical comedy is misjudged badly, but it also likes to take its thriller material seriously too, in places, and a couple of the deaths and their aftermaths are really very well done, speaking of a better movie. Ripley Under Ground is all over the place, but some of it is good, especially later on when the thriller kicks in properly. It has a severe tone problem, but not a pace problem. Highsmith’s novel is very busy and Spottiswoode’s film is very pacey over its 101 minutes.

Barry Pepper stars as the murderous con artist Tom Ripley, a supremely cool and devious opportunist, a master of impersonation, disguise and fraud, an ever-changing blank. He is conscience and guilt free, an intelligent monster. Highsmith characterises Ripley as ‘suave, agreeable and utterly amoral’. She obviously likes him, even admires him, encourages us to, and therefore so do we. That is just plain bad.

Now Barry Pepper is a good, attractive actor, but he does not own Tom Ripley. He does not quite own the film either, but he is agreeable company Thank goodness then for Willem Dafoe as the rich and canny American art buyer Neil Murchison and Tom Wilkinson as the British police inspector John Webster doggedly trying the bring Ripley down. When they arrive on the scene, the film is in good, safe hands. Wilkinson’s sly, supercilious, sarcy turn is just right, the film’s best performance.

Highsmith’s second Ripley novel Ripley Under Ground (1970) is nowhere near as good as her first, The Talented Mr Ripley, though it is still excellent on the page. The trouble is, the material is very difficult to film. Was Highsmith getting her revenge on Hitchcock by pinching ideas from his The Trouble with Harry film? The body of Harry keeps getting dug up and showing up in rigor mortis at awkward moments. and that’s what happens in Ripley Under Ground too. Hitchcock would know what to do with Ripley Under Ground, and who to cast. Also Chabrol. It needs a master’s touch, Spottiswoode is good, but not quite at home with the material.

The film eroticises Ripley, entertainingly, making him sexy like Alain Delon in Plein Soleil, but that doesn’t seem the point of the character at all. In fact the script doesn’t seem in touch with Ripley at all, and that is a problem for Pepper. In The Talented Mr Ripley, Tom is obsessed with Dickie Greenleaf, and jealous of Dickie’s girlfriend Marge Sherwood. It is implied that he has an attraction towards men. Highsmith stated: ‘I don’t think Ripley is gay. He appreciates good looks in other men, that’s true. But he’s married in later books. I’m not saying he’s very strong in the sex department. But he makes it in bed with his wife.’ Barry Pepper’s Ripley is totally, unambivalently straight. This helps to make the character way less interesting or multi-layered. It needs complexity and ambivalence, but it doesn’t get them.

The screenplay by W Blake Herron and Donald E Westlake needs more subtlety, more dimensions. More wit in the dialogue would be better too, more sparkle, and also more spark and style in the direction. The acting is very variable, with some weak or misjudged performances. Ian Hart as the forgery artist Bernard Sayles has a lot to do and none of it is much good. It is not Hart’s fault, his character is an unsympathetic idiot, kind of played for laughs. Alan Cumming as Jeff Constant and Claire Forlani as Cynthia seem to be in different films from everyone else, a campy art business satire. It fails to integrate into the crime thriller element, the film’s important business.

Douglas Henshall as successful young artist Philip Derwatt, Jacinda Barrett as Ripley’s love interest Héloïse Plisson and François Marthouret as her grouchy, Ripley-hating father Antoine Plisson are all low profile enough to be smooth and unremarkable.

There is a lot of plot, some of it taking liberties with the novel. After the artist Derwatt is killed in a car accident, Ripley hides his body in a freezer and gets Bernard Sayles to forge his paintings, on their way to making a fortune, until art collector Neil Murchison complains that a painting he bought from Jeff Constant’s gallery is a fake. Ripley finds an ally in the enigmatic Héloïse.

Jeff Danna’s score is okay as far as it goes, but we keep hearing the same phrase over and over. Couldn’t have been encouraged to write some more music? Paul Sarossy’s cinematography is pretty slick.

Unlike the forged Derwatt painting, the film is no masterpiece but nor does it deserve its oblivion.

The cast are Barry Pepper as Tom Ripley, Willem Dafoe as Neil Murchison, Alan Cumming as Jeff Constant, Tom Wilkinson as John Webster, Jacinda Barrett as Héloïse Plisson, Claire Forlani as Cynthia, Ian Hart as Bernard Sayles, Douglas Henshall as Philip Derwatt, François Marthouret as Antoine Plisson and Simon Callow.

The five novels in which Tom Ripley appears – The Talented Mr Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley’s Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, and Ripley Under Water – were published between 1955 and 1991.

Highsmith’s first three Ripley novels have been filmed. The Talented Mr Ripley was filmed as Plein Soleil in 1960, starring Alain Delon as Ripley, as The Talented Mr Ripley in 1999, starring Matt Damon, and as Ripley (2024) with Andrew Scott. Ripley Under Ground was filmed in 2005. Ripley’s Game was filmed in 1977 as The American Friend, starring Dennis Hopper, and as Ripley’s Game in 2002, starring John Malkovich.

In the book of Ripley Under Ground, set six years after The Talented Mr Ripley, Ripley has settled down into a life of leisure in Belle Ombre, an estate on the outskirts of the fictional village of Villeperce-sur-Seine in France. Ripley has added to his fortunes by marrying Héloïse Plisson, an heiress who has suspicions about how he makes his money. He still finds himself involved in criminal enterprises, often aided by small-time fence Reeves Minot. Ripley’s criminal exploits include a long-running art forgery scam, introduced in Ripley Under Ground.

In the film of Ripley Under Ground, Ripley is a dodgy actor in London, fired by theatre manager Callow for his devious dealings. The same night he falls in with his art crowd friends going to a gallery opening, stopping to steal the cash he finds in a handbag in a parked car, where he is surprised by the sleeping heroine Héloïse in the back seat.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,834

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Alain Delon stars in Plein Soleil.

Matt Damon stars in The Talented Mr Ripley.