Year Released: 1999
Directed by; Anthony Minghella
Based on 1955 novel by patricia Highsmith
Starring: Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Davenport
(R, 139 min.)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery and Suspense

“I always thought it would be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.” –Tom Ripley

This 1999 flick still packs a wallop. Matt Damon as we seldom see him, a nerdy misfit, “the inverse of The Great Gatsby, a social outsider who beats the wealthy at their own game.”(Leslie Kenall Dye) Stir in a fabulous, radiant Jennifer Paltrow and a stunningly handsome Jude Law, who seems born to play the part of an indolent playboy, and we have a luscious and lethal cocktail, a would be menage a trois that sours before it is even poured.

Director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) adds a few of his own ingredients to Patricia Highsmith’s novel, creating his own smooth concoction featuring

…gorgeous young swells like Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow swooning on the Italian coast; it has a soundtrack and cinematography as rich as crème de menthe. –Ty Burr

But before we get to sunny Italy, we get a glimpse at Tom Ripley’s (Matt Damon) bleak existence in New York. Filling in for a piano player who is under the weather, he borrows the guys’ jacket, which happens to have a Princeton monogram. These “borrowed robes,” like those of Macbeth, usher an ambitious Tom Ripley into what seems a golden opportunity. Seeing Tom’s jacket and the supposed Princeton connection, shipping magnate Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn) approaches Tom with a strange but appealing offer.

His Princeton educated son Dickie (Jude Law) has been living off his trust fund in Italy and has refused to return home to take his place in the ship building empire his father has founded. Will Tom take $1000 and an expense paid trip to Italy to persuade Dickie to come home?

We have to remember what that money was worth in the late fifties – over $10,000 today – to see the allure of pursuing this case of mistaken identity. Ripley, really a piano tuner at Princeton, not one of its elite students, lives a life of squalor, as we soon see. His sub basement dwelling only has access to the street several stories above via a ladder attached to a drab concrete wall – the stage symbolism for the ladder of success.

Tom prepares for his journey up this ladder with a passion, the classically trained pianist purposely studying jazz, a music form he actually disdains, but one that he learns Dickie, an amateur sax player, adores.

The class divides are on full display as Mr. Greenleaf’s Black limousine driver picks up Ripley, who has climbed the ladder out of his hovel with suitcase in hand.

“The Greenleaf name opens a lot of doors,” the limo drives smiles, further whetting Tom’s appetite for the good life, now an approaching reality and not just a dream.

***

But Ripley’s meticulously planned “casual encounter” with Dickie and his expatriate girlfriend Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow) goes poorly. Dickie does not remember the supposed ex classmate, and why should he, since that is all a lie in a soon evolving web of them. More gawkiness in Ripley’s pale body and horn-rimmed glasses contrasting with the Dickie and Marge’s tanned languor. (Matt Damon lost 30 pounds for the role to cement the skinny nerd look.)

It is only when they go to a jazz bar together that things begin to click for Ripley. What starts out with an awkward Ripley in the audience changes as Dickie calls him on stage and escalates, with the help of several drinks, into a very intimate affair.

Soon Marge and Dickie have invited Ripley into their casually elegant digs in the fictitious coastal town of Mongibello, which roughly translates into “eating beauty.” Perhaps a good way to capture the film’s

…lush evocation of depravity concealed by good manners and better clothes; texturally, the depth of feeling is as enduring as the bloodstains that won’t wash off. –Haley Miotek

Ah, but we are getting ahead of ourselves. No actual blood yet, just the lifeless body of a local girl emerging from the sea at the annual Festival of the Madonna. In fact, the sea gives up the wooden statue of the Madonna at the same time it does the body of Silvania, who it turns out, is certainly no virgin, having drown herself due to the shame of being unmarried and pregnant. The lurking Ripley has seen Dickie with her and draws his own conclusions.

By now Ripley and Dickie have become very close, with Ripley finally divulging the real reason for his trip there, not so much out of honesty, but shrewdly using the truth to further insinuate himself into Dickie’s lavish life. Once again Ripley has played his cards right, realizing Dickie would jump at the chance to conspire with him and string along the elder Greenleaf, as well as his money.

Even Marge likes Ripley for a while.

But all that changes with the small but spectacular entrance of Dickie’s old buddy, the rich Freddie Miles (a scene stealing Philip Seymour Hoffman) who can smell a phony. Soon Ripley is repositioned to his outsider status, the new knight jumping over the pawn that he immediately sees Ripley to be.

And so does Dickie, too, in spite of knowing that Ripley is attracted to him personally as well as to his privileged life. Tom Ripley is back to being the social outcast he thought he had left behind, and Dickie’s distant attitude needs no words to convey the rift.

But the words do follow later. "Who are you? Some third-class mooch!" Dickie spits out at Tom.

The twists and turns escalate now, as Ripley is not sure if he loves Dickie or just wants to be him. Fractured mirrors and reflections show us surface illusions, as Ripley, rejected now by Dickie, realizes the gravy train is over. The sea will have more dead soon, and our talented Mr. Ripley, too clever by half, sees his easy lies and false identities catching up with him.

But a drowning man clutches at anything to stay afloat, even if those objects may have been loved, cajoled, or courted at one time.

“Matt Damon nails sinister…evoking pity as well as hatred.” – Ellie Hubble

Will you pity or hate him as the final credits role?

See for yourself in this epic film that was an early vehicle for so many young actors destined to be stars, commanding our full attention and lighting up the screen with their presence.

Creepy but dazzling. Not to be missed. Or enjoyed again like a fine, aged vintage.

–Kathy Borich
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Trailer

Film-Loving Foodie

I’ll turn it over to Cory Ohlendorg of Imbibe Magazine:

Based on the thrilling novel by Patricia Highsmith and produced during Miramax's heyday of the late 1990s, The Talented Mr. Ripley is a rip-roaring Italian travel postcard. (If you haven't seen it, or it's been a while, the movie follows Dickie Greenleaf (played by Jude Law), a consummate playboy living off his trust fund who unwittingly takes Tom Ripley (played by Matt Damon) under his wing. But Ripley is a sycophantic and sociopathic buddy who becomes dangerously obsessed with him.)

What better to sip while wishing you were in Italy than a Negroni? But this richly layered variation, from Imbibe, swaps out the gin for a splash of smoky mezcal. The flame-charred flavors add a warm, winter depth to the Campari's sweetly bracing citrus tang. For added Italian flair, garnish with a spring of fresh rosemary (and use a kitchen torch to flame the leaves until they smoke). –Cory Ohlendorg

Hell’s Belles – Mezcal Negroni Cocktail

Ingredients and Needed Tools

1¼ OZ. MEZCAL
1½ OZ. COCCHI AMERICANO ROSA
½ OZ. CAMPARI
Tools
BARSPOON, STRAINER
GLASS:OLD FASHIONED
GARNISH:GRAPEFRUIT TWIST, ROSEMARY SPRIG

Directions

Stir all of the ingredients with ice to chill, then strain into an ice-filled glass. Twist a piece of grapefruit peel over the drink, then pierce the twist with a rosemary sprig and use as garnish. (Optional: Use a kitchen torch to flame the rosemary sprig until it smokes; extinguish the flame before serving.)

Imbibe Magazine.com