The Talented Mr. Ripley

http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio/reviews/1999/talented.htm

Top 10 of 1999: #9
Release Date: December 25, 1999
Starring: Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett,
          James Rebhorn, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
MPAA Rating: R (violence, language, brief nudity)


The author John Steinbeck wrote frequently of the American dream,
which in the Great Depression was achieving a level of financial
prosperity that would allow an individual to work only for himself.
But shortly after the Great Depression ended, the pendulum that is
modern society began to swing toward a more humanistic end; suddenly,
the coveted dream was that of the all-American entrepreneur who
sought to make his first million. The culture of the rich and idle
expanded to allow the upper crust of the middle class in with the
Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, and by the end of the 1950s, the
gap between the upper and lower classes had increased exponentially.
It is this gap that Academy Award-winner Anthony Minghella critically
examines from a psychological standpoint in his quasi-noir thriller
The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Like earlier-this-year's Fight Club, Mr. Minghella's film is told
almost entirely in flashback. Though it is more implicit (the
audience never gets to the present day, save but a few lines of
narration at the film's beginning), the nature of the retrospective
is more intriguing. The title character Ripley's words stick with
the viewer throughout the entire film, and inspire great thought on
the ramifications of his complicated, perverse disposition in life.

Ripley (Matt Damon) is a young man living in dignified poverty in
New York City in the late 1950s. He plays piano at the various
cocktail party social gatherings of the wealthy, and, as the
audience soon learns, he also idolizes their lifestyle. Ripley is
unwittingly allowed access to this heretofore inaccessible society
when Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn) spots the young man in a
borrowed Princeton sport jacket and mistakenly believes Ripley to
have attended his alma mater. Herbert offers Ripley one thousand
dollars to travel to Italy and convince his wayward son Dickie
(Jude Law) to return home; Ripley does as such, but after meeting
up with Dickie and his girlfriend Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), becomes
enamored with the free-spending ways of the young heirs on perpetual
vacation. Ripley plots to kill Dickie and assume his life, having
vowed never to return to living in squalor again.

This is all possible because some of Ripley's many talents include
forging signatures, telling lies, and impersonating voices. The
young Matt Damon, nominated for an Academy Award for his performance
in Good Will Hunting, portrays Ripley in excellent fashion. In Mr.
Damon's hands, the character becomes a tormented soul, wrought with
anxiety and grief but addicted to money and high society. It also
seems that Ripley's confused nature leads him to have occasional
homosexual thoughts, but the film's reluctance to embrace this
subplot ruins the theme and the possible characterization that
might've resulted. However, it is only a minor bump in the roller
coaster ride that Mr. Damon takes us on as Ripley falls into and out
of favor with various young and beautiful people whiling away their
parents' fortune on the sun-drenched beaches of Italy.

Mr. Damon is surrounded by several capable supporting actors.
Gwyneth Paltrow, a Best Actress winner for her role in 1998's
Shakespeare in Love, continues her streak of solid performances as
Dickie's girlfriend Marge. She is also the object of Ripley's
affection, and although her benevolent personality disguises her
intentions, the audience and Ripley become increasingly aware that
she, too, despises the ways of the lesser rich. Ultimately she is
the one obstacle that Ripley cannot con his way around. Further
adding to the tension are Jude Law, well cast as the spoiled playboy
Dickie, and Academy Award-nominee Cate Blanchett as Meredith, a
young woman whose affections for Ripley continually ruin his plans
while simultaneously drawing him in.

Also in fine form is director Anthony Minghella, who directed the
1996 Best Picture winner The English Patient. He is able to foster
a very palpable atmosphere of style, class, and panache for the
midcentury Italian setting, and he also coaxes the actors into
conflict and dispute, forcing the audience to take sides on the
issue of the talented Mr. Ripley. Unfortunately both his directorial
efforts and his script (adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel)
are lacking in the movie's final half-hour. Mr. Ripley runs close to
140 minutes in length, and of the last thirty to forty minutes, only
the final five have any sort of poignancy. It is during the final
take that Minghella asks the audience to remember Ripley's words
from over two hours ago, and when they do, startling revelations
occur.

But many of the scenes in the last third are insufferable, perhaps
essential to the development of supporting characters but
deliberately filmed and poorly executed. The Talented Mr. Ripley
could have been much better had it not chosen to take such a
circuitous route to its kicker of an ending, but it does, and
Minghella may feel the heat from holiday crowds as well as Academy
voters. Nevertheless, certainly a film with as much class and
panache as the lifestyle of the rich and idle, and an intriguing
look into the habits of a talented -- but troubled -- young man.

all contents c 1999 Craig Roush