Word: minghella
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...mostly in southern Italy, Minghella's tantalizing movie captures the pulse, temperature and texture of the idle rich at play and the yearning of Ripley, who wants that good life so much he'd kill for it. Inhabiting this very dolce vita is a quintet of smart-looking young performers--Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jack Davenport--giving vigorous life and fine shading to roles of wealth or breeding. They parade their star quality (or supporting-actor quality) not by screaming and cussing Method style but by radiating an unforced glamour that recalls Hollywood...
Observing these blessed creatures, coveting their unearned good fortune, is Damon's Ripley, more muted and awkward than they but a fast study. Ripley's outsider status is what especially appealed to Minghella, 45, a playwright and former professor whose Italian immigrant parents still make and sell ice cream on the Isle of Wight. "This sense of a man with his nose pressed up against the window, the sense that there's a better life being led by other people--to me, these feelings are familiar and pungent...
...discuss Minghella's adaptation of the Ripley book--how he has deepened it, enriched it, possibly distorted it--we'll be spilling a bean or two about the plot, which is, anyway, well known from the novel (published in 1955 and still in print) and a 1960 French film version, Rene Clement's Purple Noon (which is on video and was rereleased in U.S. theaters in 1996). You're welcome to see the new movie first--it should be on every naughty child's Christmas wish list. Then come back and we'll talk...
...indolence. Dickie paints, indifferently; he tans, splendidly; and he flirts with Marge (Paltrow), a young American who has a crush on him. Dickie is an effortless charmer who enjoys watching people try to charm him, and Tom is up to the challenge. "Dickie inherited wealth, looks and privilege," says Minghella. "Ripley inherited nothing and has nothing. He so much wants the life that Dickie has that he'll do anything to get that life...
...Minghella does not let Ripley off that easily. He devises two characters who fall for the killer and get in his way: a sweet, rich buttinsky (Blanchett) and a gentle homosexual (Davenport). Can he kiss them, or kiss them off, without bumping them off? We won't tell, but we will say that Tom has second thoughts about his addiction to killing the things he loves. The film lets Tom off the hook for the murders of Dickie and Freddie. Then it creates a new hook and leaves you wondering if Ripley will hang from...