Plot
In late 1950's New York, Tom Ripley, a young underachiever, is sent to Europe to retrieve a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy, named Dickie Greenleaf. But when the errand fails, Ripley takes extreme measures.

Release Year: 1999

Rating: 7.3/10 (78,178 voted)

Critic's Score: 76/100

Director: Anthony Minghella

Stars: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law

Storyline
The 1950s. Manhattan lavatory attendant, Tom Ripley, borrows a Princeton jacket to play piano at a garden party. When the wealthy father of a recent Princeton grad chats Tom up, Tom pretends to know the son and is soon offered $1,000 to go to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf to return home. In Italy, Tom attaches himself to Dickie and to Marge, Dickie's cultured fiancée, pretending to love jazz and harboring homoerotic hopes as he soaks in luxury. Besides lying, Tom's talents include impressions and forgery, so when the handsome and confident Dickie tires of Tom, dismissing him as a bore, Tom goes to extreme lengths to make Greenleaf's privileges his own.

Writers: Patricia Highsmith, Anthony Minghella

Cast:
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
Fiorello - Fausto (as Rosario Fiorello)
Stefania Rocca - Silvana
Ivano Marescotti - Colonnello Verrecchia
Anna Longhi - Signora Buffi
Alessandro Fabrizi - Sergeant Baggio

Taglines: It's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

Official Website: Official Site [Russia] |

Release Date: 25 December 1999

Filming Locations: Anzio, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Box Office Details

Budget: $40,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $12,738,237 (USA) (26 December 1999) (2307 Screens)

Gross: $81,292,135 (USA) (23 April 2000)

Runtime: 139 min

Trivia:
Matt Damon lost 30 pounds for his role in the movie.

Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: The 'glasses' Ripley wears throughout the film often do not have lenses in, revealing them as a prop. This would be explainable if they were being used as a disguise, but Ripley always puts them on before reading or using his binoculars, meaning he needs them.

Quotes:
[first lines]
Tom Ripley: If I could just go back... if I could rub everything out... starting with myself.

The Purple Noon of Anthony Minghella

Rating: 8/10

As a huge fan of Rene Clement's "Purple Noon" I came to Minghella's version of Patricia Highsmith's story with suspicion and an irrational predisposition to dismiss it. Well, I was wrong. The talented Mr. Minghella perpetrated a magic trick. The film stands on its own as an entertaining, creepy, thoughtful, beautiful to look at piece of film-making. Jude Law throw us for six, we're not suppose to feel attracted to the selfish Dickie Greenleaf, but we do. His scrumptious performance is alluring, seductive. He is a scene stealer of major proportions. In the original, Maurice Ronnet's oily Dickie Greenleaf was a perfect lamb to the slaughter. We don't mourn his death and want the murderous Ripley, as played by Alain Delon, to get away with it. Here, when Jude Law is on the screen that's what we're looking at. We're prepared to forgive him anything and everything. I did believed in Gwyneth Paltrow's qualm, totally. In the original, Marie Laforet played it as a tenuous, unclear little excuse. Gwyneth Paltrow gives us a multi dimensional character and we go through her torment every step of the way. That, presumably, is merit in great part of Minghella's superb screenplay. Other joys are Cate Blanchett and Philip Seymour Hoffman. On the minus side Matt Damon couldn't make me forget Alain Delon. His Ripley is a better written character than Delon's and his performance is top notch, but Delon was breathtaking on the screen. I think than Anthony Minghella was more interested in the inner workings of Ripley's mind that in the pyrotechnics of a implausible plot. Good. The semi confession of Matt Damon about a basement full of secret truths tells us about his pain about his fear. Delon's Ripley is amoral to the hilt. The murder of Dickie in the original is terrifying. It takes forever. As well as the getting rid of Freddy's body. Minghella never show us how Ripley managed to bring a dead body down the stairs. Clement spends a great deal of time with it. Making it enormously suspenseful. But, as I mentioned before we did care about Delon and, maybe, Minghella new that whether Damon got caught or not wasn't that important. All in all I liked the film very much and the biggest lesson from a film fanatic's point of view is: you don't kill your Jude Law half way through a film unless you leave us in the hands of someone who will make us forget him. Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins, remember that?

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