This is a great favorite of mine and I’ve watched it many times, but there’s something I’ve always wondered about:
At the end, Ripley kills Peter, because Meredith and her pals showed up on the boat and they know Ripley as Dickie Greenfield, while Peter knows him as Tom; so obviously he doesn’t want his cover blown. But what the heck will Tom do with the body? He can’t just leave it in the cabin. And Peter’s name must be on the list of passengers. Since he strangled Peter, would he be able to claim that P. died of a heart attack? Or did he plan to toss the body overboard late at night?
They had separate cabins. Recall that Ripley enters a different cabin and, while Peter’s voiceover turns from “Tom is tender” to “Tom is crushing me,” begins to cry. They are not traveling together, from an official or cruise ship standpoint. All Tom has to do is get off the boat before the body is discovered and he’s off scott-free. And if Meredith says anything, it will be that she saw Dickie Greenleaf, already suspected of killing Tom Ripley and Freddy Miles, on the boat.
By the way, if you haven’t watched “Ripley’s Game” with John Malkovich as Ripley, check it out.