invaderthe talented mr.ripley 天才雷普利

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

scams.

After

being mistaken for a Princeton student, Tom meets the shipping tycoon father of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude

Law), who has traveled to the coast of Italy, where he's living a carefree life with his father's money and

his

beautiful girlfriend,

Marge

(Gwyneth

Paltrow).

Dickie's

father

will

pay

Ripley

1,000

dollars

plus

his

expenses if he can persuade Dickie to return to America. As Ripley and Dickie become friends, Tom finds

himself

both

attracted

to

Dickie

and envious

of his

life

of pleasure.

In time,

he

decides

that

he

would

rather

be

Dickie

Greenleaf

than

Tom

Ripley,

so

rather

than

go

back

to

his

life

of

poverty,

Ripley

impulsively murders Dickie and assumes his identity. The Talented Mr. Ripley was based on the first of a

series of novels featuring Tom Ripley written by Patricia Highsmith; the story was previously filmed in

1960 as Purple Noon, with Alain Delon as Ripley. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The

late

'50s.

New

York

lavatory

attendant

Tom

Ripley

(Damon)

may

not

be

conventionally

talented,

but

he's

very

able

when

it

comes

to

reacting

on

the

spot,

especially with little white lies. When shipbuilder Herbert Greenleaf assumes he's an old

college

pal

of

his

son

Dickie

(Law),

Ripley's

quick

to

snap

up

the

opportunity

to

visit

Europe,

purportedly

to

lure

the

playboy

home,

but

actually

to

sample

la

dolce

vita

for

himself. But, having wormed his way into the affections of Dickie and his girlfriend Marge

(Paltrow), he

can't face

losing his new-found

life

of leisure. Minghella's

imaginative

but

mostly faithful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's classic study of a sociopathic killer is a

class

act,

in

every

sense.

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,

and

of

the

distinctions

between presenting a facade to the world, outright pretence and the more radical practice

of reinventing oneself. It's into these registers that Minghella weaves the most intriguing

and ironic undertones.

In

a

chilling

thriller,

Matt

Damon

plays

a

master

of

assumed

identities;

Jim Carrey's eerie Andy Kaufman riff is barely more than skin- deep.

In the movies, pathology and murder are often framed in deep shadow, as

if

horror

only

bloomed

in

dark

places,

but

true

epicureans

of

depravity

know that cold

creeps

are

coldest

in the bright

sunshine.

The

Talented

Mr. Ripley

-- based on the same 1955 Patricia Highsmith novel, the first

in her

Clé

ment's

Purple

Noon,

starring

Alain

Delon

--

is

awash

in

the

sensual

yellows

and

caramels

of

Naples

and

Venice

and

San

Remo

and

Rome.

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.

Tom

Ripley

(Matt

Damon)

is

a

kind

of

learning- on-the-job

psychopath

whose chief talent is slipping into the guises of others. In New York, he

casually

convinces

Herbert

Greenleaf

(James

Rebhorn),

a

wealthy

shipbuilder,

that

the

man's

expatriate

son,

Dickie

(Jude

Law),

was

a

Princeton classmate, which results in an offer from the father to travel to

Italy

and

bring

back

the

free- spending

scion.

But

once

ensconced

in

seaside Naples with Dickie and his expensive-looking blonde girlfriend,

Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), Tom is in no hurry to wrap things up, and so,

by revealing his mission, he becomes, in effect, a double agent. He makes

himself over as Dickie, first by co-opting Dickie's

dolce vita

lifestyle and

then by co-opting the man himself by murdering him.

Tom's capacity for impersonation at first seems like the survival tactic of

a

rube

among

the

well- heeled,

but

it

turns

out

to

be

his

essence.

Writer-director

Anthony

Minghella

keeps

Tom

in

virtually

every

scene;

his

switching

of

identities

from

Dickie

to

Tom

and

back

again,

and

his

narrow escapes, are breathtaking. By keeping everything centered on Tom,

Minghella

makes

us

complicit

in

the

young

man's

pathology.

He's

the

outsider on the inside; the deeper his infiltration, the more blood he spills

and the more unreachable he becomes.

Though Tom is shown at various points to be racked with remorse, he's

not really someone you can project yourself onto (unless he's meant to be

Everyman as No Man). If Minghella intends to demonstrate how, given

the right

circumstances,

any

of

us

could

slide into

murder

with

a

fairly

clean

conscience,

then

he

underestimates

the

way

Matt

Damon

in

this

film

comes

across

as

a

vacuum

(albeit

a

seductively

robust

and

personable vacuum). The setting and even some of the themes of the film

are distinctly Jamesian, but Tom is like an existential version of the Jackal

from

The Day of the Jackal;

this cipher mutates into whatever puts him

out of harm's way.

It's

this

free-floating

dread

under

a

hot

summer

sun,

and

not

the

film's

cautionary-tale

aspects,

that

takes

hold.

The

actors

seem

to

have

been

chosen

for

their

ability

to

reflect

the

light.

Jude

Law

and

Gwyneth

Paltrow, in particular, look like they were dipped in gold; the emollients

of

wealth

have

oiled

them

to

a

fine

finish.

The

other

performers,

including

Cate

Blanchett

as

a

textile

heiress

and

the

always

marvelous

Philip

Seymour

Hoffman

as

Freddie,

Dickie's

sneering

upper-crust

Princeton

mate,

bring

some

earth

tones

into

all

the

blondeness.

They

seem to operate in a less hazy, more grounded world. It is Freddie who,

with his instincts for the deceptions of the lowborn, roots out Tom in the

film's

most

cloak-and-dagger-ish

scene. The

sequence

probably

belongs

in a more conventional movie, and yet I'm not sorry it's here. We've been

asked to identify so closely with the far-gone Tom that the intrusion of

Freddie, with his sharp, rational suspicions, is a balm. He's someone we

can get behind.

Too

much

should

not

be

made

of

the

cool

amorality

and

character-doubling on display here. Although the film captures better than

Purple

Noon

did

the

distinctive

Highsmith

tone

of

steady- state

anxiety,

it's essentially a glossy plaything of a thriller -- which is what the Alain

Delon

film

was,

too.

Minghella

brings

out

the

homosexual

subtext

and

erotic ambiguities in the material, and he heightens the class resentments,

but

make

no

mistake:

The

big

draw

here

is

the

luxuriousness

of

corruption,

and

Minghella,

for

all

his

pretensions,

is

enough

of

a

showman to know it.

If anybody can create sympathy for the devil, the angelic Matt Damon can.

As

the

title

character

of

Talented

Mr.

Ripley,

he

plays

an

ingratiating

sociopath who works his way through the American upper crust at play in Italy,

leaving behind a bloody but elusive trail.

The mystery is not who did it, but whether he will get caught. This thriller is so

expertly

--

and

perversely

--

poised

that

audience

members

may

find

themselves secretly rooting for the duplicitous Ripley.