The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 127
Fresh: 105 | Rotten: 22
With Matt Damon's unsettling performance offering a darkly twisted counterpoint to Anthony Minghella's glossy direction, The Talented Mr. Ripley is a suspense thriller that lingers.
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 33
Fresh: 26 | Rotten: 7
With Matt Damon's unsettling performance offering a darkly twisted counterpoint to Anthony Minghella's glossy direction, The Talented Mr. Ripley is a suspense thriller that lingers.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 114,067
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Movie Info
After the Oscar-winning The English Patient, writer/director Anthony Minghella attempted another tricky literary adaptation with The Talented Mr. Ripley, which features heartthrob Matt Damon cast against type as a psychopathic bisexual murderer. Tom Ripley (Damon) is a bright and charismatic sociopath who makes his way in mid-'50s New York City as a men's room attendant and sometimes pianist, though his real skill is in impersonating other people, forging handwriting, and running second-rate
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Cast
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Matt Damon
Tom Ripley -
Gwyneth Paltrow
Marge Sherwood -
Jude Law
Dickie Greenleaf -
Cate Blanchett
Meredith Logue -
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Freddie Miles -
Jack Davenport
Peter Smith-Kingsley -
James Rebhorn
Herbert Greenleaf -
Sergio Rubini
Inspector Roverini -
Philip Baker Hall
Alvin MacCarron -
Celia Weston
Aunt Joan -
Rosario Fiorello
Fausto -
Stefania Rocca
Silvania -
Ivano Marescotti
Superintendent Verrecch... -
Anna Longhi
Signora Buffi -
Alessandro Fabrizi
Sergeant Baggio -
Lisa Eichhorn
Emily Greenleaf -
Gretchen Egolf
Fran
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All Critics (130) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (108) | Rotten (23) | DVD (27)
Familiarity is the watchword of this overblown opus, which neglects holes in the plot to play up its postmodern theme of identity as pastiche -- a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Top CriticOn balance, The Talented Mr. Ripley is worth seeing more for its undeniably delightful journey than its final destination.
Not only is it an elegantly polished affair, with top notch performances all round, and magnificent camerawork and editing, it's also acutely aware of how class, money and sex shape desire and resentment.
It's a gorgeously unsettling film. You can hide in the shadows, but luminescence exposes who you are, and the only escape is into another identity.
Even before its release, The Talented Mr. Ripley has attracted some mighty serious analytic attention.
If anybody can create sympathy for the devil, the angelic Matt Damon can.
Full of murder and deceit; too violent for kids.
The blend of Minghella's gloss and Damon's steel results in a psychological thriller of huge style and depth. A very good movie.
This is certainly no fast-paced nail-biting thriller, but much rather a slow-paced intriguing drama very reminiscent of Hitchcock films.
Ripley morphs into a well-meaning kid who yearns to be somebody. He's deprived, not depraved.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is lovely wrapping without much to say.
The Master of Suspense would never have turned in a movie this sloppy.
When Law leaves in the middle, the whole film just sags.
Minghella, once again, shows his eclectic talents.
In a career-making performance, the saxophone-blowing, tantrum-throwing Law plays Dickie with such vigor and energy that when he exits, the light dims slightly from the film...
We all knew Damon was a fine actor after Good Will Hunting, but The Talented Mr. Ripley takes him much further much faster than anyone could have expected.
In a starry line-up it's Jude Law who commands most presence, playing the charmer so well that his absence in the latter half leaves a gaping void.
Audience Reviews for The Talented Mr. Ripley
Super Reviewer
While The Talented Mr. Ripley has all the ingredients to be masterclass thriller it still falls just a little short of being masterpiece. Minghella's own ambition and aim for something more broader with this story about chameleon-like misantrophic named Tom Ripley just goes on a bit too long. With more tighter editing from Walter Murch this could have been great work, but even with all it's flaws it is entertaining and good enough to keep you interested for it's entire running time.
Minghella is a director who clearly was fascinated by old epics. Films of David Lean quite possibly. I don't know for sure, but he certainly like to shoot his films like those old epics. At times you almost forget that you are watching a film about sociopath because everything resembles an greatest looking painting ever made from Italy. With his photographer John Seale, Minghella definetly does wonders with his camera but at the same time he lingers a bit too long with his images and forgets the story.
Cast overall here is simply brilliant. Leading trio including Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow are all outstandind here and Philip Seymour Hoffman has a nice supporting turn as a annoying rich bastard.
When it comes to production values or to acting there is nothing to complaint about, but Minghella's script is the biggest flaw here and has enough of sideplots for even a five different films. Still worth to see and one of Minghella's best works.
Super Reviewer
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- Tom Ripley: No, I like him. You like everybody, Marge.
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- Tom Ripley: Well, whatever you do, however terrible, however hurtful, it all makes sense, doesn't it, in your head. You never meet anybody that thinks they're a bad person.
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- Marge Sherwood: Why is it when men play together, they always try to kill each other?
- Dickie Greenleaf: [jokingly] He's drowning me!
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- Peter Smith-Kingsley: That Dickie murdered you and took your name with a false passport? That's ridiculous.
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- Herbert Greenleaf: People say you can't choose your parents, but I believe you can't choose your children.
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- Tom Ripley: It's better to be a fake somebody, than a real nobody!
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Foreign Titles
- Der talentierte Mr. Ripley (DE)
- The Talented Mr Ripley (UK)
Set in the 1950s, Tom Ripley is a young, bisexual man whose only real talents in life are forging handwriting, impersonating others, and running second-rate scams. He makes his way in New York as a men's room attendant and occasional pianist, but, after being mistaken for a Princeton grad, he comes into contact with a shipping tycoon named Greenleaf who offers Tom $1,000 plus expenses to go to Italy and convince his wayward son Dickie to return home to the States.
Tom sets out on this task, but after befriending Dickie and spending lots of time with him and his lover Marge, he becomes dangerously envious of the carefree and lavish lifestyle lead by Dickie, and after his advances are rejected, Tom decides he'd rather become Dickie instead of continuing his life as it was. After impulsively murdering DIckie and assuming his identity, he finds himself playing a dangerous game in order to cover his tracks and keep the truth hidden.
Aside from greatly expanding on a minor character from the book and creating a whole new one for the movie, this is a wonderfully accurate and faithful take on the source material. It's a very taut and gripping psychological thriller, and the cast masterfully bring the characters to life. Matt Damon is tremendous, and successfully goes against type as the psychopathic con man with serious issues when it comes to identity and a sense of belonging. He's quite chilling, and you really feel on edge as he tries to pull off the task of becoming someone else.
Jude Law is marvelous as the arrogant and brash Dickie, and he really sells the carefree hipster persona of the character. Gwyneth Paltrow is really good as Dickie's lover Marge, although I feel she really gets overshadowed by everyone else, namely Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dickie's friend Freddie Miles, a really slimey and highly suspicious worm who barely conceals his contempt for the tormented lower class Ripley. It's a marvelous performance, and a real tribute to his talents, as Freddie is probably the most loathsome character here.
The production values are top notch, the cinematography and location shooting are absolutely gorgeous, and the film is really strong when it comes to delivering the tension, suspense, and thrills. This is a classy and wonderfully engrossing thriller that you should definitely make a point to see.