The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)
Cert 15/130 mins
Directed by Anthony Minghella With Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour-Hoffman and Jack Davenport
Tom Ripley is a bright, charismatic, bisexual sociopath who survives in mid 1950s New York City as a men’s room attendant and sometimes pianist, though his real skills are impersonating other people, forging handwriting and running secondrate scams. Tom meets the shipping tycoon father of Dickie Greenleaf, who has gone to Italy with his beautiful girlfriend and is living a carefree life on his father’s money. His father will pay Ripley $1,000 plus expenses to persuade Dickie to return home. Tom is attracted to Dickie’s life of pleasure, and decides he would rather be Dickie than Tom Ripley and poverty stricken.