Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
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 | |
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Fiorello | ... | Fausto (as Rosario Fiorello) |
Stefania Rocca | ... | Silvana | |
Ivano Marescotti | ... | Colonnello Verrecchia | |
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Anna Longhi | ... | Signora Buffi |
Alessandro Fabrizi | ... | Sergeant Baggio |
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. Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
I was so fascinated by Tom Ripley's character that I watched this movie again and again. There was something about him that I felt sympathetic towards on one hand and gave me the creeps on the other. Sympathetic because in more than one ways he is like you and me. He wants to be rich, he wants approval and he is may be just an opportunist. Creepy because he latches on like a leech, he can't take rejection and though he doesn't plan but once he assumes the identity of someone else he can go to any extent to keep that. Actually one can identify with the character so much that it's almost scary to look inside your dark corners.
Matt Damon played this three-dimensional character so well that I almost became a huge fan of his. Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf, whose identity Tom Ripley steals was very good as well. The movie is shot in Italy, moves at a leisurely speed and is very atmospheric. One of my all time favorite thrillers.