The Talented Mr. Ripley

Movie Title: The Talented Mr. Ripley
Rating: 7
Reviewed By: Mike Stevens

Review: Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, and Gwyneth Paltrow. How can you go wrong with a cast like that? Well you can't. The Talented Mr. Ripley begins in New York during the 50s at a little party that Mr. Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) fills in at the piano. In doing so he borrows a jacket from a friend, which that friend went to Princeton. So now a certain somebody at that piano party believes that Tom Ripley, a poor busboy and piano tuner who is also a really good pianist, attended the prestigious Ivy League institution in New Jersey (hard to believe that you can actually have an Ivy League school in Jersey, I know I always thought that was an oxymoron). Well anyway I guess we should resume the review. That certain somebody I mentioned is a Mr. Herbert Greenleaf, a shipbuilding baron played by James Rebhorn (you remember him as the headmaster in Scent of a Woman). He is also the father of Dickie Greenleaf, who has shunned his father's business and run off to Europe. So instead of cutting off his allowance, the senior Greenleaf hires Tom Ripley to go to Italy and bring back his son. On his way to find Dickie, Tom runs into Meredith Logue (Cate Blanchett) who is pretending to be a nobody when in fact she is a member of a wealthy family. At this point Tom begins his long descent into being somebody else when he tells Meredith that he is Dickie Greenleaf, and is traveling under an assumed name as to not draw attention to himself. Tom as Dickie then gets invited to meet Meredith and the rest of the wealthy parent club later, and the Tom is on his way to find the real Dickie. Tom meets up with Dickie (Jude Law) in a small Italian village on the sea where Dickie is hooked up with Marge Sherwood (the beautiful Ms. Paltrow), and is sleeping with all the other attractive women in town. As a side note Marge is trying to get Dickie to marry her. Tom tries to get Dickie to come home, Dickie says no way Jose, they bilk some more money from Dickie's dad, Mr. Geenleaf says that's all folks, and then as they say, the plot thickens. Anthony Minghella directs this very "Talented" cast in a very surprising thriller/drama based on a book by Patricia Highsmith. Philip Seymour Hoffman puts in a good performance as the womanizing Freddie Miles (Hoffman was in Scent of a Women with James Rebhorn when he played the betraying friend to Chris O'Donnell). The Talented Mr. Ripley runs just under two and a half hours and is rated R. As to the nudity, well yes there is a little bit of nudity, but it was not the kind I or anyone else was expecting. In fact most of the sexual tension was not between the characters I though it would be between. The acting was superb, as expected from a group like Paltrow, Damon, Law, and Blanchett. The setting was great and made you feel like you were back in the 1950s in both New York and Europe. The story itself is a bit hard to believe at times, mainly that people would believe that Tom looks just like Dickie and could pass as him without any problems. Overall I liked the film and acting, so I give it a score of seven on the couch meter. Later.