Good show, Mr Ripley!

It is through the eyes of a deranged killer that writer-director Anthony Minghella manages to follow up his Oscar-winning adaptation of The English Patient. What’s more, his chilling screen version of Patricia Highsmith’s psychological thriller The Talented Mr Ripley, starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett proves just as seductive. A torturous journey through the beautiful landscape of Italy, the anti-hero of the piece is Tom Ripley (Matt Damon), a young upstart of humble origins who craves gracious living. Whilst in New York he encounters Mr Greenleaf, a rich ship-builder, who in the misguided assumption that Tom was at college with his son Dickie (Jude Law), sends him off on an expenses-paid trip to Italy to retrieve him from a life of hedonism. As the action sweeps insidiously through Rome, Venice and the Mediteranian coast, the heady, pleasure seeking expatriate post war Italy of the fifties is superbly evoked, with scenes capturing an atmosphere akin to that ofFellini’s classic film La Dolce Vita. Once in Italy, Ripley carefully manipulates his way into the home and eventually into the life of Dickie Greenleaf, a flamboyant playboy whose carefree lifestyle and trusting nature end up leading to his own demise. When Dickie tires of Tom and rejects him, Tom kills him and assumes his identity, at last living the high life he always wanted.

The homoerotic undercurrent in the relationship between Tom and Dickie, that remains coded in the novel, here suggests that bi-sexuality might be a necessary condition to being Ripley, for Tom’s floating identity appears as much a puzzle to him as to us. Interestingly, it seems largely due to Minghella’s portrayal of the character of Ripley, alongside a few other minor manipulations, that this film is such a success. It seems to bear testimony to the fact that key to the process of effective adaptation is extracting those elements that emerge as most interesting in the novel and which will also work in terms of the visual. As Minghella put it in an earlier interview: "Part of adaptation is that you’re trying to write your way back to the book, to those things that arrested you in the first place. You have to find your way through the thicket of writing to what’s essential about the story. It’s just like when you retell a joke — you emphasise those elements that move or excite or amuse you. I suppose I wantedto emphasise what’s familiar and human about Tom Ripley."

That the adaptor must be versatile in his rendition is again demonstrated by Minghella’s substitution of music for painting in the movie. "Painting on film isn’t dynamic in any form. It’s literally watching paint dry. Music is such a pungent way of taking you to a particular time and place." Without such necessary alterations, adaptation can fall totally flat.

Onegin, the recent release starring Ralph Fiennes, seems to point to that despite its success, for even though visually it was quite astounding, the story remained somewhat lacking. Without the literary beauty that made the book a classic, one left the cinema empty, feeling that ultimately in terms of narrative, nothing had really happened.

The Talented Mr Ripley on the contrary, leaves one totally satisfied. It’s an intelligent film; not only marvelously adapted but beautifully set (there are some truly unforgettable scenes) and immaculately performed. Indeed, the acting is superb. Damon captures the essence of Tom Ripley with scary precision, his charming looks and innocent appeal helping him carry off the twisted role with ease and near perfection. Jude Law is a natural trustafarian pissing away money and time, and Gwenyth Paltrow’s portrayal of Marge is brilliant — pathetically instinctual.

But The Talented Mr Ripley offers more than just stellar performances and a glamorous landscape; it’s essentially a masterful depiction of life and fear, contained in a haunting and tormenting tale.

— Beatrice Gibson