Tom Ripley is one of those characters that never leaves us, a charismatic black hole that draws us to its bottom because of how easy it is to see ourselves in it. If the success of the recent Ripley Netflix miniseries starring Andrew Scott is any indication, the tale of Tom’s dark duplicity is one that we still find fascinating and open to multiple interpretations.
As great as that miniseries was, it will always stand in the shadow of The Talented Mr. Ripley, the film adaptation celebrating its 25th birthday, starring Matt Damon as its sociopathic protagonist.
It’s held up scrumptiously. As written by Patricia Highsmith, Tom is an absolute — if somewhat accidental — bastard, making Anthony Minghella’s lusciously decadent version of the first book in the Ripley series stand out among adaptations for its markedly sympathetic Tom.
Minghella’s Version Focuses on Tom’s Vulnerability

Image via Paramount Pictures

When Tom Ripley (Damon) finds himself convinced to track down playboy extraordinaire Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), he has no idea how easily he’ll be thunderstruck by the lavish lifestyle he finds. Despite doing his best research to act like he was Dickie’s classmate, he’s helpless to resist Dickie’s charm, the rarefied lifestyle he represents, and all the golden doors that his family name will open. Tom considers himself an expert faker, or at least good enough to pull the wool over the eyes of Dickie, Dickie’s fiancée, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), and Dickie’s best friend, Freddie (a wonderfully crass Philip Seymour Hoffman).
The good times don’t last long, though, as the fundamentally empty Tom’s desires get the better of him. The rest of the movie has him busy covering his tracks like never before as he digs himself into a hole as deep as the one in his heart. While remaining largely faithful to the plot of Patricia Highsmith’s original novel, Minghella’s version is especially ripe in its characterization of Tom as a spiritually vacant leech perpetually trapped in a prison of his own making.
This Tom Ripley Is a Tragically Conflicted Lover

The question of what Tom truly desires is one with which every adaptation must contend. He can range from a brilliant golem to a simmering outsider to a cold-blooded seducer, depending on the creatives involved. Damon’s somewhat distinct Ripley overflows with limitless hunger and rapacious yearning, his thirst hidden underneath affable, almost goofy, puppy-dog earnestness. Lined up against the others, it’s remarkably human.
Ripley’s existence has always been a sadistic joke about the power of white male privilege to skirt serious consequences. Arguably, this version gets the most to the heart of that particular aspect of Highsmith’s hero by having the endlessly trustworthy Damon crank his boy-next-door aura to eleven as he lies to everyone in sight. Part of the fun is that Tom is clearly not as much a criminal genius as the other Ripleys. He is only just smart enough to get him out of situations that would have snagged him if he weren’t so handsome or so good at fitting in to each social situation. It makes it all the more poisonous how frequently Ripley can only confess to his truest thoughts and wants when under the guise of falseness, be it mimicking other people’s voices or forging letters from “Dickie.” That coupling of artifice with reality to reveal a darker truth is one of the more potent ways that the film hints at its core change: making the dynamic of Tom and Dickie one of thwarted queer desire.
It’s obvious how much Tom is in love with Dickie (to the extent he’s capable of it), and the film finds numerous ways to play with this unspoken tension. Tom goes so far as to want to wear Dickie’s suits and smell them on Dickie as he’s asleep, wanting to fulfill a desire to be on the inside of Dickie’s life in more ways than one. One particularly charged scene involves Tom asking Dickie if he can sit in his bath while Dickie is still naked inside it, which doesn’t escape Dickie’s attention. Highsmith offered this homoerotic element in her books, but Minghella captures it in more classically romantic sepia tones.
Scenes like this are aided immeasurably by Jude Law being in top golden god form, arguably never hotter or more perfectly cast, overflowing with such affluenza and blazing enjoyment that it almost covers up what a self-aware and vain monster he is. Law should have won Best Supporting Actor Oscar plain and simple. The bluntness with which he presents his abrasively selfish life philosophy makes it so obvious how little he actually thinks of Tom (or anyone around him, for that matter), antagonizing the sheer tragedy of Tom destroying everyone’s lives because of someone who was not worth it. Ripley isn’t the only sociopath on view. But Law is far from the only highlight in a cast full of scene-stealers.
Philip Seymour Hoffman Steals Every Scene

Image via Miramax 

The Talented Mr. Ripley is vintage 90s Miramax cinema in the best possible way, with an interesting and varied troupe strutting their stuff in gorgeous Italian locations. While Gwyneth Paltrow radiates sheltered intelligence and a newly discovered Cate Blanchett has choice moments as Meredith, an acquaintance who Tom uses to help cover his tracks, it’s Philip Seymour Hoffman who nearly consumes the film as Freddie. Freddie only has four brief scenes, yet Hoffman devours all of them with a bacchanalian relish, with a sharp seasoning of utter disdain in every expression. Freddie never explains himself. We only need to see how he looks at Tom to know he instantly recognizes the phoniness in Tom no one else can see. For as much as Hoffman’s Freddie is a grotesque cretin, he knows who he is and is honest about it and can therefore spot a fake. Hoffman could do most anything as an actor, but he had a particular niche for playing self-respecting jerk-offs. Freddie might be the most fun version of this he’d ever play. Try not to burst out laughing at the way he vogues and rolls his eyes as he tortures Tom with his awful piano playing. It’s douchebaggery elevated to a high art.
Anthony Minghella Crafts an Exciting Yet Tasteful Thriller

Anthony Minghella was a director who usually favored swooningly romantic epics such as The English Patient and Cold Mountain. The Talented Mr. Ripley, however, sees him working in a mode akin to Alfred Hitchcock meeting Sydney Pollack. The sets and costumes are all tasteful and lavish, the opening title sequences have a smooth retro feel recalling Saul Bass, and the film is notably attuned to the sensitive emotional changes in upper-class environments.
Underneath this surface idyll, The Talented Mr. Ripley also has a true flair for visual tension, something Minghella rarely touched on in the rest of his career. Watching as red blood suddenly appears on a white robe or one character sitting next to another, knowing that a word between them could unravel everything, squeezes out gasps. Minghella makes watching a two-faced con artist find out how far they can take their lie delicious. For all the melodramatic doom of Tom’s plight, the film succeeds just as much at being a fun thriller, skimming the particulars of Tom’s schemes in favor of the pulse-quickening questions of how he’ll get out of the next social vice-grip. Minghella knows that it’s precisely because of Tom’s guilt and his desperation for a better life that we’ll still get carried along in the rush, as long as there’s an eventual payoff.
There’s something Shakespearean about Minghella’s unashamed sympathy for the bed Tom has forced himself to lie in, eager to remind us that even those who connive and murder lie awake at night can be haunted by the voices of those they’ve wronged. Tom has never truly been a “hero,” and, ideally, he should never be portrayed as one. But The Talented Mr. Ripley comes as close as possible to doing so, primarily through pity.
We never really root for Matt Damon’s Tom, but we do feel sorry for him; so clear is his toxic self-denial and how far down it’s driven him. It’s not for nothing that the opening scene has a song discussing surrendering your soul and being branded with a mark of shame, speaking to both Tom’s motivation and his self-fulfilled destiny. Highsmith’s Ripley novels tended to leave audiences with a message that anybody who’s smart enough and lucky enough can get away with crime as a side effect of human nature. The Talented Mr. Ripley, however, remains as powerful as ever as it asks if getting away with it all is truly worth your soul.

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The Talented Mr. Ripley

In late 1950s New York, a young underachiever named Tom Ripley is sent to Italy to retrieve Dickie Greenleaf, a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy. But when the errand fails, Ripley takes extreme measures.

Release Date

December 25, 1999

Director

Anthony Minghella

Runtime

139 minutes

The Talented Mr. Ripley can be watched in the US on Paramount Plus.
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