Director/auteur Anthony Minghella's latest film, The Talented Mr. Ripley, is a worthy follow-up to his last film, The English Patient (1996). Like The English Patient, which went on to win nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Best Director, Ripley features a conflicted hero, a lush setting, and an award worthy score by composer Gabriel Yared. However, there is one major difference; Ripley's hero is a murderous sociopath.
The title character, Tom Ripley, played with great energy by Matt Damon, is a young man in search of a new identity. While playing the piano at a party, he meets a millionaire, played by James Rebhorn, who asks him if he would be willing to go to Italy and return with his son, Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law). Dickie has run off to Italy with his girlfriend, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), to live a playboy lifestyle and absorb Italy's Jazz scene. Tom agrees to go and find him. However, from his arrival, he becomes obsessed with Dickie and Marge's lifestyle, including the lifestyle of their aristocratic American friends. Before long, Tom becomes obsessed with Dickie himself.
After Tom tells Dickie about his mission in Italy, Dickie allows Tom to live with him and Marge and live off of Dickie's father's money. However, when Tom's romantic obsession for Dickie is revealed, Dickie decides that it is time for Tom to return to America. At this point, Tom's murdering spree begins, starting with Dickie. After that, Tom claims Dickie's identity and money and begins to make his way into Dickie's circle of friends.
Based on the 1955 pulp thriller of the same name, Ripley is as much about identity as it is about murder. In one of the film's most chilling scenes, Tom says to Marge, "I'd rather be a fake somebody than a real nobody." These words reveal the real issue at work behind both the film and the novel. It is Tom's yearning to be someone bigger, along with his repressed homosexual passion for Dickie, that leads him to murder. The strange effect of the film is that, because of the conflicts within Tom, the audience is simultaneously horrified by Tom, yet remains somewhat sympathetic to him, hoping that he is never found out.
Ripley is a chilling story and a beautiful film. The charm and beauty of Italy, along with an extremely talented cast and the artistic polish Minghella gives to each shot, make the film thoroughly enjoyable. Every shot, as with The English Patient, screams art. However, the artistic element added by Minghella does not quite fit the dark atmosphere of Highsmith's novel. Nevertheless, the visual experience is grand, and Minghella deserves credit for bringing the novel's homoerotic subtext to the surface. Not only is this surfacing of the homosexual subtext of Highsmith's novel brave on Minghella's part, it is also a huge risk for a young A-List talent like Damon.
Although the film has been nominated for five Academy Awards, both director and star were overlooked. The only actor even nominated for an Oscar was Jude Law, whose magnetism and charm in the film help the audience understand Tom's motivations. However, it is not surprising that the film was overlooked for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor awards. The Academy Awards, which have long been known as conservative, might have trouble accepting a homosexual anti-hero who actually gets away with multiple murders. Although the film did not fare well in the Oscar race, the fact that the film is present in the race at all is a testimony to its value. Filled with great talent, including Cate Blanchett and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as repugnant American socialites, Ripley is filmmaking at its height, both artistic and entertaining. As critic Michael Atkinson writes about the film, it is "so sumptuous, ravishing, and effortlessly enjoyable that it feels more like a champagne bath than a movie."