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The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patreon)

Published:
2022-07-28 14:58:11
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

We're back after a week off to discuss Anthony Minghella's 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' - another entry in the canon of 1999 films interrogating the myth of American prosperity at The End of History™.

We talk through the film's singular exploration of the tension between modernism and postmodernism using the backdrop of midcentury Europe, the immaculate performances from several up-and-comers-now-titans of Hollywood (including a career-best Jude Law), and how the movie anticipates our current obsession with grifter sagas in the 21st century. 

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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish

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Comments

Jesper Ohlsson

The sequel to this movie is - as I remember it - one of the most miserable continuations of what was a fascinating, beautifully shot and all around thrilling movie (one of my favorites, growing up). ...though I guess in some sense it makes sense that "older Ripley" would be an empty, pathetic automaton of a person. However, it was, at the time, impossible to also not notice the meta-decision to scrub any idea of queer/gayness from Ripley in his older years as a kind of over-correcting (or just chicken-shit:ness) for the original. I haven't seen it since, but I remember feeling like someone had taken something unique and beautiful, and mushed it out to something bland and awful. ...though the grand prize of "fantastic first movie, sequel snuffing out anything interesting or beautiful" still goes to "Hannibal". (it was the first movie where I took notice that any project Julianne Moore is in, is cause for concern. She's fantastic, but has a real propensity to waste her talent in clunkers).

Jesper Ohlsson

Also, Gwyneth Paltrow in this movie is absolutely perfect casting. It's completely believable that she - as in the character, not the actor - would transition to some bougie life-style flimflammery later in life, in lieu of doing anything meaningful.

Jesper Ohlsson

..I looked up the lyrics for the "Americano" song, because I remember it as weirdly self-deprecating (because I missheard the lyrics). I remember it as: "you wanna be americano, americano but you were born in Italy. You wanna live with amore, drink whiskey and soda but all you do is sing off-key" Though you can certainly read some criticism about "wanting to be american" in the original lyrics, teenage-me's missheard lyrics would be way out of the characters that Damon and Jude Law play. ...I still sorta prefer my missheard version. Damon also sings a pretty beautiful rendition of My Funny Valentine at some point in the movie, which was my introduction to that song (and I definitely had a recording of Damon singing that song on Minidisc in high school). God, I love this movie. So, so good.

Jesper Ohlsson

..I have a vague memory of watching the Dennis Hopper adaptation (The American Friend), and while I think I was dissapointed that there wasn't any gay stuff at the time - admittedly my main interest at the time, being gassed up watching this movie - it was also interesting to discover that Dennis Hopper had a period of his career where he was "doing European movies". It's a weirdly wistful thing that there was a period, not obscenely long ago, where american big-shot actors could do a movie in German, that still retained "a very European" sensibility in the production. I feel like the last time that happened was the original Jason Bourne movie, and I think a lot of the draw for that movie was that "Europe" wasn't just "set-dressing for an american lead movie", but actually informing the flow, feel, mood and visuals of the movie (the look of the movie has a very appropriately grey-toned and bleached-out look that feels like walking around in Berlin). //I'm sure someone out there has done a fan-edit on youtube that directly links the ending of Talented Mr Ripley to the beginning of Jason Bourne. I hate that meta-movie-universe-shit, but it's so undeniably "dove-taily" that someone must have done that. //I was surprised to learn that the director is straight (for what wikipedia tells me). The movie has such a well-observed - and tender - sensibility for small, intimate details and exchanges. I think a very big part of why I loved this movie as a gay teen, was that it was both a "gay movie", but also a much richer text than what you could expect, if you were were on the hunt for "gay movies". I think this movie was the first time I noticed Hoffman as an actor. I remember teenage-me being incredibly annoyed at his restlessly aggressive character, but - obviously - getting familiar with him as an actor over the years, it's such an incredible loss that he's gone. ... (to the extent you miss strangers on an instrumental basis, ie, "they were really good in movies I watched, and I want them to still be alive so they can be in future movies that I also would like to watch, unless the movie has bad reviews, at which point I might watch the movie for free when I'm drunk and think, hey, he was still pretty good in that role.")