The first book that Highsmith wrote about Ripley was the Edgar Allan Poe Award winner The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was followed by an additional four adventures.  The first cinematic adaptation of this book came in 1960 through Plein Soleil directed by René Clément with Alain Delon cast as Tom Ripley.  Almost four decades later director Anthony Minghella returns to the first book of Ripley to which he applied the lengthy title The Mysterious Yearning Secretive Sad Lonely Troubled Confused Loving Musical Gifted Intelligent Beautiful Tender Sensitive Haunted Passionate Talented Mr. Ripley.  The many descriptive adjectives of the complete film title provide much for the audience to ponder about Tom Ripley’s persona.  However, viewing of the film will answer some of these questions while it will certainly instigate additional bewilderment.  Yet, the concisely brief title The Talented Mr. Ripley offers equally much mystery, as its lengthy companion.

The opening montage opens with an ominously sounding lullaby that accompanies the sharply edged and fragmented imagery of Tom Ripley (Matt Damon).  His face emerges fractured similar to the reflection of a broken mirror, which symbolically might suggest a hint of Ripley’s broken persona.  Simultaneously, the dawdling lullaby’s agonizing lyric echoes in the background through the words:

“From the silence, from the night,
comes a distant lullaby.
Soul surrendering your soul,
the heart in you not whole.
For love, for love, walked out,
cast into the dark,
branded with a mark,
of shame of Cain.”

These poetic words bring about the notion of jealousy from Cain’s slaying of his brother Abel, as God preferred Abel’s sacrifice to his gift.  It also reflects upon the punishment God threw on Cain for killing his brother, as Cain was doomed to wander the earth for an eternity.  Analogously, it presents a strong indication of Ripley’s meaningless and aimless existence, as he seeks something better that he finds in the Greenleaf family through maybe wealth, status, elegance, culture, love, belonging, and more.

Eventually, the opening montage bridges into reality through Ripley’s flashback voice-over-narration explaining how he wished he could erase his actions of the past by not having borrowed a jacket.  This, as the final verse of the ill-omened lullaby pours out over an aristocratic audience on an extraordinarily blossoming terrace facing over the New York’s Central Park.  The borrowed jacket that Ripley refers to has a Princeton crest on the chest, which Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn) recognizes.  Assumingly, Mr. Greenleaf believes that Ripley is an alumnus of the prestigious Ivy League university where his son Dickey (Jude Law) also attended, while Ripley simply borrowed the jacket in order to fill in for an injured pianist.  An interesting notion emerges here, as the audience will undoubtedly assume that Matt Damon’s character is Ripley, but for all that the audience is allowed to learn, Ripley might only be the assumed alter ego of the pianist whom he pretended to be at the party.  Thus, it is interesting to know that Ripley’s true identity might never have been revealed in the beginning.

Instead, Ripley (if this is his true name) works as a bathroom attendant at the New York City Opera where he constantly faces the upper classes lavish wastefulness and their taste in the finer things of life.  After having worn the Princeton jacket, Ripley has an invitation to meet with the prosperous shipbuilder Mr. Greenleaf, which allows him a chance to reach the things he much desires.  It also brings him to Italy where he is supposed to convince Dickey to return home.  The trip leads Ripley into a completely new life style without responsibilities and a lot of squandering.  In Italy, he also meets Dickey’s fiancée Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Paltrow) and the lone traveler Meredith Logue (Cate Blanchett).  Everything seems far better than he expected, as he carefully manipulates his way into Dickey’s world by becoming his confidant.  It comes to a point where the friendship begins to turn into sexual overtones, as Ripley refers to Dickey to look like Superman and in a later scene wants to join him in the bathtub.  Overtly, Minghella enhances the strong emotion within the scenes through carefully planed and symbolic mise-en-scene, which supports the homosexual atmosphere between the two men.  However, when Dickey meets up with an old friend, Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the honeymoon comes to an end, as Ripley no longer is the focal point of Dickey’s existence.

Anxiety, emotional soreness, and rejection set Ripley in a new direction where his neediness surfaces along with his fear of loosing what he just has acquired.  Strong feelings lead him into sad and dismal thoughts rippling through his persona, as notions of jealously, aimlessness, and rootlessness emerge.  A rift becomes noticeable through their differences, as Ripley loves the old and traditional while Dickey embraces the fresh and invigorating.  Musically, it is especially obvious, as Ripley worships classical and opera when Dickey is a Jazz freak.  Yet, Ripley desires to mend the fracture between them in order to keep the life he has grown accustomed to, but Dickey has already made up his mind.  In a haze of passion and fear, the slash of an oar blended in blood ends their relationship, which urges Ripley to instinctively make a drastic change to hold onto his ambition of an affluent lifestyle.  It slowly turns into a nightmarish journey for Ripley, as he finds himself cornered and must play his cards well in order to find a way out.  However, complexity of his dilemma rises beyond his imagination, as past and present becomes too much involved with one another.

What makes the film even more intriguing is the intricate psychology of the villain Ripley, and much of this rests within Highsmith’s rich writing.  However, Jude Law’s Oscar nominated character also plays a strong roll into why Ripley appears naively, as Dickie’s persona is far from innocent.  Dickie, a sociable smooth talker, appears to have no scruples, as an example, he intentionally seeks the attention of women for a bout in lustful activity without concern for his future wife.  In a way Dickie is a sociopath, as he is deceitful, reckless, and impulsive while also displaying complete indifference when hurting someone.  In a way both Ripley and Dickie are alike, yet they are very unlike.  Ripley has strong feelings for others while Dickie seems to miss them all together with the exception of those for himself.  Through these two characters, the audience meets a fascinating relationship between two men, which turns out to be a lethal affair.

In closing, The Talented Mr. Ripley presents a poignantly disturbing tale with a Hitchcockian atmosphere enhanced by its visual and aural elements.  Visually, the film applies mise-en-scene purposefully in order to elevate the message with the scene, but it also has an artistic component through the use of reflections in mirrors and the framing of each scene.  In combination with the outstanding cast, these visuals become even more potent, as the strong performances elevate the moment within the scenes.  The final scene portrays extraordinary strong visuals that will embed themselves in the long-term memory.  Yet, it is within the aural experience where the film might hide some of its true gems, as play with both jazz from the 1950s and classical music intentionally bring out the personalities of the characters.  It also augments the emotional situations such as when Ripley weeps in the Opera scene.  Ripley cries, because he relates to the main character in the duel scene from Eugene Onegin who is a fabrication of several fictitious heroes.  In addition, the film succeeds brilliantly in capturing the psychological shadows of Highsmith’s fictitious villain while it might also suggest that some of her own persona might rest within our talented Mr. Ripley.

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