Taglines: Everybody should have one talent… what’s yours?
The Talented Mr. Ripley movie storyline. The 1950s. Manhattan lavatory attendant, Tom Ripley, borrows a Princeton jacket to play piano at a garden party. When the wealthy father of a recent Princeton grad chats Tom up, Tom pretends to know the son and is soon offered $1,000 to go to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf to return home.
In Italy, Tom attaches himself to Dickie and to Marge, Dickie’s cultured fiancée, pretending to love jazz and harboring homoerotic hopes as he soaks in luxury. Besides lying, Tom’s talents include impressions and forgery, so when the handsome and confident Dickie tires of Tom, dismissing him as a bore, Tom goes to extreme lengths to make Greenleaf’s privileges his own.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella. An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel of the same name, the film stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf, Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge Sherwood and Cate Blanchett as Meredith Logue. The novel was previously filmed as Plein Soleil in 1960.
About the Story
Tom Ripley is a young man struggling to make a living in 1950s New York City. While working at a recital, he is approached by the wealthy shipbuilder Herbert Greenleaf, who develops the impression that Ripley attended Princeton with and knew his son, Dickie. Greenleaf recruits Ripley, for $1,000, to travel to Italy to use his influence to persuade Dickie to return home to the United States.
In Mongi, Italy, Ripley insinuates himself into the lives of Dickie and his fiancée, Marge Sherwood, especially as he gives the impression that he is an admirer of jazz. Dickie introduces Ripley to his friend Freddie Miles, who treats Ripley with contempt.
A local woman is impregnated by Dickie, he refuses to help her financially and she drowns herself. Ripley knows about the two. Dickie begins to tire of Ripley as a moocher although Ripley is increasingly growing infatuated with Dickie and his lifestyle. They are soon to separate and decide to sail to San Remo. While out on the water they argue. Dickie gets physically threatening and Ripley batters Dickie with an oar. Dickie is killed. Ripley scuttles the boat and swims to shore.
At the hotel, Ripley lets the concierge assume that he is Dickie. Marge is left by Ripley to believe that she has frightened him off by the prospect of marriage. He creates the illusion that Dickie is still alive by checking into one hotel as Dickie and he in the other and creating an exchange of communications between the two. Through forgery, he is able to draw on Dickie’s allowance.
As Dickie, Ripley rents an expensive apartment in Rome. Freddie visits Dickie and finds Ripley living in his place dressed much as Dickie would be but the furnishings different from Dickie’s style. Freddie’s suspicions are heightened when the landlady acknowledges Ripley as “Signor Greenleaf”. Freddie returns to the apartment, Ripley bashes him to death with a bust and then disposes of the body.
Ripley has a cat-and-mouse existence with the Italian police and Dickie’s friends. His predicament is complicated by the presence of Meredith Logue, an heiress he met upon his arrival in Italy and to whom he had introduced himself as Dickie. Ripley clears himself by forging a suicide note addressed to Ripley in Dickie’s name and moves to Venice. Marge suspects Ripley’s involvement in Dickie’s death and confronts him after finding Dickie’s rings in Ripley’s apartment. Ripley is about to murder her but is interrupted by a mutual friend, Peter Smith-Kingsley, who enters the apartment.
Herbert hires a private investigator, Alvin MacCarron, and they come to Italy. MacCarron reveals to Ripley that anyone connected as witnesses to the situation will not testify and all leads indicate that Dickie was involved in the killing of Freddie. And as the Italian authorities had no idea about Dickie’s hostile actions in The US, Herbert would stop his investigation and transfer to Ripley income from Dickie’s trust in order to keep the matter quiet. Marge, unaware of Dickie’s past, again accuses Ripley before being taken away by Greenleaf and MacCarron.
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
Starring: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Davenport, James Rebhorn, Sergio Rubini, Philip Baker Hall, Stefania Rocca
Screenplay by: Anthony Minghella
Production Design by: Roy Walker
Cinematography by: John Seale
Film Editing by: Walter Murch
Costume Design by: Gary Jones, Ann Roth
Set Decoration by: Bruno Cesari
Art Direction by: John Fenner, Stefano Maria Ortolani
Music by: Gabriel Yared
MPAA Rating: R for violence, language and brief nudity.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures, Miramax Films
Release Date: December 25, 1999
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