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An all star cast and great locations, but this film just didn't
hit the mark for me with its bizarre main characters and patchy
plot.
Matt Damon stars as the titular Tom Ripley, a man with self
confessed talents for forging signatures, telling lies, and
impersonating just about anybody. As a result of chance encounter,
an American shipping magnate sends Tom on a mission to Italy.
The mission is to bring the magnate's layabout son home. Tom
tracks down the son in question, a charmer by the name of Dickie
Greenleaf (Jude Law) who is living the high life with his girlfriend
Marge (Gwynneth Paltrow). After getting a taste of Dickie's
lifestyle, Tom decides he likes it, abandons his mission and
moves in with Dickie and Marge. Life isn't that easy however
and conflict arises when Tom's obsession with Dickie's life
becomes a little too un healthy leading to a series of increasingly
dramatic situations.
Most of the best performances come from the supporting cast.
Jude Law is very convincing as the charismatic carefree playboy
Dickie while Phillip Seymour Hoffman is deliciously nasty as
Dickie's oafish pal Freddie.
But the story centres on Tom Ripley who is a very strange character.
He is a kind of anti-hero and it is difficult to decide whether
to root for him or not. While some people may think this sort
of ambiguous character makes things more interesting, but for
me it just meant that there was less tension because I did not
really care what happened to him despite the elaborate cat and
mouse dramas towards the end of the film.
Anthony Minghella directs this adaption of the Patricia Highsmith
novel and he does an excellent job of bringing the audience
into the world of 1950s Italy with wonderful attention to sets
and costume design in much the same way as he did with his Oscar
winning epic The English Patient. He has also assembled an box
office guaranteeing all star cast but the brilliant part is
that most of the cast was signed up before they became big stars
(Damon before Good Will Hunting, Paltrow before Shakespeare
in Love, and Blanchett before Elizabeth).
Not a bad movie, just one that I didn't enjoy.
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