The Talented Mr. Ripley

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"Why is it that when men play, they always play at killing each other,"
sighs Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), watching her boyfriend, Dickie, wrestle
with his new best pal, Tom.

What looks like a game becomes something much deadlier in "The Talented
Mr. Ripley," writer-director Anthony Minghella's handsome follow-up to
his Oscar-sweeping "The English Patient." Patricia Highsmith's novel of
the same name was the first in a series of books featuring Tom Ripley,
a smart, charming, sexually ambiguous con man determined to live the
high life, even if he has to kill to do it.

In "Ripley," Tom (Matt Damon) gets his chance when New York tycoon
Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn) mistakes him for an old Princeton
classmate of his son Dickie (Jude Law) and sends him on a paid trip to
Italy to bring home the prodigal young man. Once there, glimpsing young
Dickie (and his fine clothes and his yacht), it's obvious that neither
man will be swapping la dolce vita for a ticket back to the States.
Instead, Tom insinuates himself into the wine-buzzed, suntanned ease of
Dickie and Marge's days, eager to make their monied lifestyle — and
even Dickie's identity — his own.

The couple finds him amusing to have around, like an exotic pet. Oozing
his sense of entitlement, Dickie is the kind to exclaim in disbelief,
"Tom can't ski! " He's a reflexive snob, like everyone else in his
social stratum. That includes pal Freddie (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who
derides Tom's corduroy jacket, and the lockjawed heiress, Meredith
(Cate Blanchett), whom Tom meets en route to Italy. "I'm only
comfortable around other people who have it and despise it," she moans
about money.

When he's dealing with class tensions, Minghella's writing is sharp
and perceptive. But when he tries to explain Ripley's psyche, he
oversimplifies. You might not mind, if you've never seen the elegantly
sinister 1960 French film "Purple Noon," a version of the same book
that suggested more by stating less. Minghella's film is more faithful
to the novel's plot, but not to its psychology. He reveals Tom's
determination to steal Dickie's sun-drenched lifestyle too early in
the movie, before the men have even met.

While Highsmith's novel itched with an unspoken homoerotic attraction
between Ripley and Dickie, Minghella puts that front and center,
showing that Tom is as much after Dickie's body as his identity. (Tom
even tries to slip into the bathtub with his new friend.) In the book,
Ripley's unformed sexuality is something he doesn't act on. Foremost,
he's a sociopath who adapts himself to those he's with, so long as it
gets him what he wants. In his film, Minghella suggests that Ripley
acts partly out of repressed longing; he becomes a gay killer. That
might disturb anybody who thinks that movies such as "Basic Instinct"
and "Cruising" have done enough damage in linking gay sexuality and
homicidal instincts.

There's a bigger problem. Damon and Law should have swapped roles.
Law has a sexy, menacing energy that better suits Ripley's charming
amorality. Damon, trying to stretch his good-guy image, doesn't
generate the right amount of danger. When Dickie tells Tom, "You're
so white," he's talking about his pallor, but the words could apply
to Damon's performance: He lacks shading. Even when his Ripley is
threatening someone with a straight razor (cutting himself in the
process, like Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction"), you can feel him
working too hard to convince us.

Still, "Ripley" is an elegant pageant peppered with sharp
performances. Law makes the strongest impression, followed by
Blanchett's amusing, world-weary turn as a deb who falls for Tom-as-
Dickie. Hoffman brings his reliable Ugly American energy to his
handful of scenes as a boorish pal. Paltrow is adequate, but doesn't
come up with any new tricks to make Marge distinct. She's just The
Girl.

As in "The English Patient," Minghella heightens his tale with visual
opulence (the movie was shot in Naples, Rome, Venice and other
Italian cities). He smartly uses the 1950s time frame as an excuse to
literally jazz up the soundtrack. In a way, his attractive filmmaking
is more seductive than the script's mind games. The movie lets us
take as much vicarious pleasure as Ripley does in the Mediterranean
sun and Venetian interiors. It's an Italian feast, spiked with just
enough arsenic to make the flavors interesting and dangerous.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service