I missed this movie when it was first released and only picked it up on DVD a short time ago. The movie starts out okay and has an interesting premise, but did it go off the friggen rails.
When is this movie supposed to take place time wise, I remember one of the characters mothers mentioning the class of 54 in princeton, but why would someone still be taking a steamship to europe post war, concidering that the paycheck Ripley was earning, the father would have been able to afford to send him on a super connie.
What was the fixation with Jazz, this is pretty much what confuses me with the time frame that the movie existed in. Had this been either the twenties or thirties, I could see Jazz being the music de jour, but in the fifties ???
Like all Minghella movies, this one sucks. Moreover it sucks big when compared to the previous Ripley adaptation, Purple Noon ( Purple Noon - Wikipedia ). Check it, it’s really a great movie. And, all the more cruel to the Minghella take.
It’s extremely faithful to the 1955 book, and jazz featured very heavily in it.
The “Ripliad”, five books, is one of my favourite series. The author, Patricia Highsmith, played fast and loose with time, with Ripley ageing only one or two years between books, but the setting progressed contemporarily with the time she was writing - from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Personally I think the movie does a great job, that you’ll ‘get’ if you read the books. And I can’t recommend the entire series of books enough. Ripley is the most brilliantly conceived psychopath I’ve read since Hannibal Lecter.
The 2002 Ripley’s Game, starring John Malkovitch is also a very good adaptation of one of the books, but avoid at all cost the 2005 Ripley Under Ground - it’s appalling.