Trio with Talent

http://www.canoe.ca/JamMoviesReviewsT/talentedmrripley_hobson.html

Friday, December 24, 1999
By LOUIS B. HOBSON
Calgary Sun


A great deal of talent is responsible for the mesmerizing new
thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley.

It all starts with Patricia Highsmith, who wrote the novel in 1955.
It was a landmark mystery novel back then and has lost little of its
shock value in four decades.

The hero of Highsmith's novel is Tom Ripley, a young man so
uncomfortable in his own skin, he is literally willing to kill to
become someone else.

Ripley gets his chance when wealthy San Francisco industrialist
Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn) hires him to fly to Italy and track
down the man's wayward son Dickie (Jude Law).

Dickie is everything Ripley is not.

He's handsome and charismatic to a fault.

Dickie and his girlfriend Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Paltrow) are living
la dolce vita.

Intrigued by Ripley's innocence and naivete, Dickie and Marge invite
him to share their company and their villa. Ripley is the parasite
that eventually destroys its hosts.

Highsmith's novel is subversive because she asks her readers to share
her sympathy for this devil she has created.

Anthony Minghella, who adapted and directed The English Patient for
the screen, demonstrates the same genius in his dual roles on The
Talented Mr. Ripley -- opening in theatres tomorrow.

Emulating the very best of Alfred Hitchcock, Minghella weaves an
uncompromising story of innocence corrupted by longing, envy and
unrequited love.

In Minghella's version of Highsmith's story, Ripley does not plot to
kill his victims. He does so because it is the last resort when his
love is either being spurned, threatened or placed in jeopardy.

It makes Ripley even more complex, and it is to Matt Damon's
inestimable credit that he is able to make Ripley's killing spree
crimes of passion. Damon's performance is so multi-levelled and
nuanced that his Ripley confuses the audience as much as it does
many of the other characters.

Law is every ounce a match for Damon.

Dickie only seems like an uncaring libertine. It's part of his
survival mask as much as duplicity is Ripley's.

Paltrow takes Marge on a dramatic emotional journey as she begins
to suspect Ripley's true nature. Her final three confrontations with
Ripley are intense and emotionally shattering.

Even Cate Blanchett and Jack Davenport are intriguing as two people
who become flies caught in the web of deceit Ripley is spinning.

The Talented Mr. Ripley, which opens Christmas Day, is unquestionably
one of the finest films of the year.

It's is beautifully conceived and even more lovingly realized. It is
an engrossing portrait of a sociopath in the making.

That's not to say The Talented Mr. Ripley is going to appeal to all
viewers. This kind of moral ambivalence could prove as challenging
and disturbing to viewers today as it did with Hitchcock's 1951
screen adaptation of Highsmith's first major novel, Strangers on a
Train.

In both cases author and filmmaker are asking us to get inside the
mind and skin of a killer and see the world from his distorted view.
In the case of The Talented Mr. Ripley, it's quite a view and quite
a movie.

(This film is rated AA)