The Talented Mr. Ripley

Colour, 35 mm
USA, 1999, 139 min
Section: Special Events

Synopsis

The story of a man who wanted to be someone else – better, more attractive, more successful, wealthier. Tom Ripley is a hard-up New York pianist whose dreams come true when rich industrialist Herbert Greenleaf mistakes him for his son’s friend from school. He asks him to go and find Dickie, who has extended his holiday in Italy indefinitely, and to bring him back home. After careful preparations, Tom assumes his role and leaves for Amalfi, where Dickie and his fiancée Marge are enjoying the dolce far niente typical of affluent Americans in Italy during the 1950s. Tom manages to hook up with him but the greater his admiration for the enchanting Dickie, the greater his suffering as the target of Dickie’s snide condescension. In the end he is driven to take drastic steps, but can he avoid the consequences of his actions? Minghella adapted the first of the five novels by Patricia Highsmith that focus on unscrupulous crook and occasional murderer Tom Ripley, producing a film adaptation with an extraordinary sense of both the environment and the period, and also the psychological motivation of his protagonist.

About the director

Anthony Minghella (1954, Isle of Wight, Great Britain – 2008, London) studied English and drama at Hull University in Yorkshire, where he later taught literature for several years. He began writing songs in the 1980s, and then also stage plays which he directed himself. After writing scripts for television, he debuted in 1990 with the black comedy Truly, Madly, Deeply, but then firmly established himself as a major-league player with the elegant melodrama The English Patient (1996, Oscar for Best Direction). His subsequent films also received awards – The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and Cold Mountain (2003). The last film Minghella made before his untimely death was the intimate psychological crime drama Breaking and Entering (2006).