The Talented Mr Ripley

At the Phoenix from Friday 25th February 2000

'How far would you go to become someone else?' Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) is a talented, intelligent lavatory attendant, who (to quote Peter Sarstedt), is touched with a burning ambition to escape from his lowly-born tag. Whilst providing piano accompaniment at a social function, in a borrowed Princeton blazer, Ripley is assumed to be an acquaintance of the errant playboy son of a millionaire and is promptly dispatched, with $10,000 in hand, to retrieve the libertine from his pleasurable existence in Italy and return him to the family business. Grateful for the cash and opportunity to travel, Ripley accepts and soon (with the help of a manufactured interest in jazz) ingratiates himself towards his intended target, Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) and his girlfriend Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow, speaking in her native accent for once). Ripley, knowing that he can only live at Dickie's father's expense for a limited time, decides to play at being a double agent and tells Dickie what has been asked of him so they can both enjoy his father's finances. In time, however, Ripley grows very fond of both Dickie and his new-found lavish lifestyle and is prepared to go to any length to live like, and ideally as, Dickie.

It has been over three years since Anthony Minghella's triumphant (if slightly mawkish) English Patient, and the two films compare favourably. The visuals are stunning, particularly in Italy (you keep expecting to see an inept postman delivering to a Cuban poet in the background) and the script does not disappoint. Jude Law's Dickie is superb - mixing just the right balance of idealist, romantic and cad - so it is a real shame that his role, though pivotal, could not have taken up more screen time. I kept finding myself wondering how much more he could have brought to the title role, but I suppose we'll have to be denied such pleasures until he becomes more of a bankable name. While Matt Damon's Ripley is perfectly acceptable, and he plays the 'innocent abroad' well, there is some depth lacking in his performance when more sinister turns occur. His homosexual desires also lack conviction. Gwyneth Paltrow does her considerable best, but is, essentially, miscast. The film is also a little too long, and could have done with a bit more variation in tone; the funny parts could have been funnier, and there is definitely room for making some of Ripley's darker actions (and indeed his whole character) a good deal more menacing. In the novel you are supposed to dislike his actions but basically warm to the character, yet Damon's Ripley lacks the level of amoral charm that would have you routing for him - he's basically just too bland.

Still, these criticisms do not prevent the film from being a good one - it definitely is - but with a few minor alterations it could easily have become the masterpiece it is aspiring to be.

Pam Green

25/02/2000