Inside every person is a dark recess of the brain where traumatic images are stored, nightmares are kept, and horrible events are locked away. Inside Mr. Tom Ripley, his dark basement is full - full of acts of rage, images of horror, and they're all locked up, no one but Tom Ripley has the key even though he so desperately wants to give it away.

Had Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) not put on that Princeton jacket that one day, his life would have never changed as dramatically as it did. Filling in for a friend at a party as a pianist, Tom is approached by Herbert Greenleaf, shipping multi-millionaire. His proposition: travel to Italy and persuade his renegade son to come back to American to take over the family business. For this he'll be paid $1000 (the movie takes place in 1958) and get to see Italy. It's a deal too good to pass up. Since Tom has never met Dickie (Jude Law), been to Princeton, or heard of Jazz (mentioned by Herbert as Dickie's favorite music), he decides to do his homework. After a few days with Tom's brilliant mind, he is able to memorize jazz songs, and put on a convincing charade to anyone he meets.

And it's off to Italy. Once in Italy, Tom meets up with Dickie and is introduced to his girlfriend, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow). Immediately, we see the bond between Tom and Dickie and Marge is intense. Tom reveals his true motivations in coming to Italy and Dickie and Tom think up a plan to trick Herbert into thinking Tom is doing his job, but there's nothing that can be done. Tom then commences to spend almost every minute of every hour of every day with Dickie and Marge. He moves in with them, eats meals with them, and goes out with them. Tom even goes so far as to proclaim Dickie "the brother he never had."

The only problem in this sweet lifestyle of Tom's is that it can't go on forever, so because Tom believes, "I always thought it would be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody," he decides to become Dickie Greenleaf. And the trickery begins. Tom/Dickie is able to fool everyone, the police, Dickie's friends, everyone except Marge. The Talented Mr. Ripley builds off of a great script, but in the end it really boils down to a very slow moving dramatic suspense movie whose pace just doesn't make it fun or interesting to watch. I thought that the premise behind the movie was very intriguing, but unfortunately director Anthony Minghella was unable to pull off the conflicts that plagued Tom Ripley. Tom had so many different conflicts, including his sexual orientation and his aspiration to fit into the upper class it was hard to figure out which one Tom was aspiring to in each different scene and it seems as if Minghella couldn't figure it out either.

I failed to see what was so great about The Talented Mr. Ripley. The acting was acceptable with the only stand-out performance turned in by Jude Law (who isn't with us long in the movie) and the whole plot line quite unbelievable. Everything just seemed to fit together a little bit too well - the inept Italian police, Dickie's background, and the general instinct of men to stick together. If it hadn't happened already, the movie completely falls apart while nearing the end. When closure would have ended the movie on an interesting note, the movie decided to push on, explore one more plot twist, and ultimately made the movie even more unbelievable with yet another absurd coincidence. Unfortunately the movie fell short (way short) of the hopes I had going in, but who can argue with a free screening?

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Genres: Drama, Suspense
Rated: R
Runtime: 139 minutes
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