When The Talented Mr. Ripley was released in late 1999, there was a lot of hype surrounding it. Matt Damon was hot at the box office thanks to Good Will Hunting. Gwyneth Paltrow had received the “Best Actress” Academy Award for Shakespeare in Love. Newcomer Jude Law was hailed as one of Hollywood’s next big things. I expected the film to be fantastic. For one reason or another, however, I never got the chance to see the film while it was in theaters. I didn’t miss much.
Matt Damon plays Tom Ripley, a piano tuner and bathroom attendant from New York City. When Ripley dons a Princeton University blazer and fills in for a friend at piano-playing engagement, he’s approached by Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn), a wealthy shipping magnate who thinks Ripley might know his son, who also attended Princeton. It seems Greenleaf’s son, Dickie (Jude Law), is spending his time in Italy lounging around and sailing boats. Mr. Greenleaf offers Ripley $1000 to go to Italy to convince Dickie to come back to New York and assume some responsibility. Ripley hesitatingly accepts the offer and soon finds himself in Italy tracking down Dickie.
Ripley quickly finds Dickie and, after studying him for a bit, manages to convince him that they knew each other at Princeton. When Dickie says that everyone should have at least one thing they do well, Ripley reveals that his talents are “forging signatures, telling lies and impersonating almost anyone” and then proceeds to do an impression of Dickie’s father instructing him to go to Italy to retrieve his son. This apparently wins Dickie over and the two hit it off quite well. Even Dickie’s girlfriend, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), is completely taken in by Ripley’s seeming charms. Ripley begins to spend the money that Mr. Greenleaf is paying him to pursue the playboy life with Dickie. Things turn sour, however, when Ripley discovers that Dickie tires of people rather quickly, something that even Marge can attest to. The plot unravels from there as Ripley begins to utilize those talents he bragged about to Dickie.
While the movie isn’t exactly B-grade, it’s still incredibly disappointing. Two performances stand out in this film and one of them isn’t even in the top billing. Jude Law is convincing and engaging as Dickie. He’s everything that someone like Dickie should be: shallow, overly fashion-conscious and fair-weather. Perfect. The other stand-out performance is Philip Seymour Hoffman as Freddie Miles, a character that becomes crucial to the story, but who is on-screen for less than 15 minutes. Hoffman breathes more life into Freddie Miles in those 15 minutes than Matt Damon is able to do with Ripley in over two hours. Paltrow’s role as Marge is nothing special, but she handles it as professionally as possible. If anything, she’s not on-screen enough.
The Italian scenery is much more interesting than the characters. I found it impossible to identify with anyone in this film. Who was I supposed to empathize with? Not Ripley. He’s the bad guy. Not Dickie. He’s the rich, irresponsible jerk. Not Marge. She’s too wishy-washy. Sigh. I found myself paying more attention to the music and the furniture than the acting and the dialogue. That doesn’t bode well for a film with so many potential attention-getters in the cast. Disappointing indeed.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
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