The talented Mr. Ripley.

Every film on this blog is picked randomly by cover recognition from movie quiz's, suggestion from other people's lists of films or from a random selection of films released in each year that comes up in google. Nothing is read about the film before watching it so there are going to be a few weird films that have you wondering why they have been chosen- just random luck.

The Talented Mr. Ripley. A bit of a hard one to really work out, many plots and sub plots that make things quite difficult to truly understand. Mr. Ripley himself (Matt Damon) is in his own words 'A Nobody', a Piano player that is mistaken for someone that goes to Princeton and is paid to go to Italy and convince Dickie (Jude Law) to come back to the states. This film is all about how Ripley manages to keep conning people, assuming identities and also keep lovers of both genders. Ripley manages to clear himself of multiple murders and almost kills everyone in the entire film. 

Matt Damon takes on the task of playing the weird, somewhat Gatsby like character that is Tom Ripley and he is a very convincing sneaky and conflicted character. Nothing in him suggests that he is a cold blooded killer but then often killers are made to be killers by an accident and nothing more. When he killed he looked like he could quite easily do it, when he was preparing to kill the delivery of the lines made you shiver and want to run away, you feared for Gwyeneth Paltrow and she was cowering too- she wasn't convinced by him and she was the only one that was on the right track- she saw him for what he really was.

Cate Blanchett was tasked with the job of being the fiancee to Ripley. Her somewhat cold and hard to read face makes her perfect for a role like this. Did she ever truly love him? We think so and you are supposed to think so. Was she entirely convinced by his performance? We'll never know but when he dumped her that should have shown her clearly what he was.

Jack Davenport and Phillip Seymour Hoffman took on the assisting roles. I have so much respect for the both of them that it seems pointless to waste time saying things that have already been said. One thing that neither Jude Law nor Jack Davenport will ever manage to do is hide their very British accents but that doesn't matter too much. A friend, a stubborn child, a suspicious man, it didn't matter what they were doing in this film because they were all united in death, deceived by the very talented Mr. Ripley.

People don't like this film- is it because they don't like the topic or because they don't like the acting in it? As far as my eyes can see there is nothing wrong with the acting from the cast of well known names so it must be the topic and I can understand why it may not become your favourite film but in my book it was a good film. Not one that I need to watch again for a few years but one that I would watch again.