Why ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ Still Sizzles 20 Years Later
Released on Christmas Day 1999, The Talented Mr. Ripley was, in a very obvious sense, the ultimate Miramax movie. It paired writer/director Anthony Minghella (post-The English Patient, winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture) with headliners Matt Damon (post-Good Will Hunting, which earned him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar) and Gwyneth Paltrow (post-Shakespeare in Love, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar), as well as Cate Blanchett (fresh off a Best Actress nod for 1998’s Elizabeth). It was an adaptation of esteemed literary source material (Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel of the same name). And it boasted breakout turns from up-and-coming actors Jude Law and Philip Seymour Hoffman. A high-minded, star-studded affair destined for accolades and golden statuettes, it had prestige written all over it, and its sturdy box office ($128 million domestic) and five Academy Award nominations predictably solidified it as another hit for the unstoppable studio.
Nonetheless, 20 years after its theatrical debut, what’s most striking about The Talented Mr. Ripley is that, despite its illustrious pedigree, it’s a decidedly dark and demented sort of polished gem, all spectacular surfaces masking a fundamentally rotten core. To be sure, awards season always brings with it epics of a downcast nature. Yet even so, Minghella’s film remains a particularly nasty bit of big-budget business, enticing one with high fashion, opulent locales, and even prettier people—and then exposing everything on display as corrupt, broken, and empty. Romantic connection and class envy drive its narrative, and are eventually revealed to be warped desires that lead only to misery. But more fundamental still, it’s a story about the yearning to be something more—something different—and the lengths to which some will go to satisfy that craving.
And, in the end, the futility of such dreams.