The Talented Mr. Ripley (released in theaters on Dec. 25, 1999) is a lush, unnerving psychological thriller that turns the sun-drenched Italian coastline into the backdrop for a slow-motion moral collapse. Adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel, it follows a young man who discovers that pretending to be someone else is dangerously easier than living with himself.
Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) begins as a seemingly unremarkable New Yorker, hired by a wealthy shipbuilder to travel to Italy and persuade his wayward son Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) to return home.
Armed with a borrowed Princeton jacket and a talent for mimicry, Tom insinuates himself into Dickie’s glamorous world of jazz, boats, and idle privilege, where Dickie lives with his perceptive girlfriend Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow).
Tom becomes both enthralled and obsessed—drawn to Dickie’s charm, money, and effortless social ease, desperate to belong in a life that is not his.
What starts as friendship curdles into envy and possessiveness.
As Dickie’s interest in Tom cools and his cruelty surfaces, Tom responds with a fateful act of violence that becomes the hinge of the film.
From there, Tom’s life becomes an intricate performance: forging signatures, faking identities, and juggling lies as he alternates between playing Tom and impersonating Dickie.
Cate Blanchett’s Meredith, a curious socialite, and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Freddie, a suspicious, brutish friend of Dickie’s, tighten the noose simply by being too observant.
Tom’s greatest gift—his ability to imitate—becomes his curse, trapping him in a maze of deceptions he must continuously escalate to survive.
Damon’s performance is a delicate marvel, blending boyish vulnerability with a chilling capacity for calculation. Law gives Dickie a reckless magnetism that makes Tom’s infatuation tragically plausible, while Paltrow charts Marge’s arc from warm trust to dawning horror.
Blanchett and Hoffman, in smaller roles, sharpen the film’s tension: Meredith through her unwitting complicity in Tom’s lies, Freddie through his sniffing contempt for this awkward intruder.
James Rebhorn, Philip Baker Hall and Jack Davenport round out the cast.
Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Cold Mountain) directed the film.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley (Photo/Paramount Pictures)
Reception for The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Talented Mr. Ripley grossed $12.7 million on its opening weekend, finishing second at the box office, trailing Any Given Sunday, which earned $13.6 million on its debut weekend.
The film would gross $128.8 million worldwide.
Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars in his review.
Legacy
The Talented Mr. Ripley has grown into a modern classic of psychological suspense, admired for its luxurious style, moral ambiguity, and quietly devastating ending.
It helped solidify Damon as more than a conventional leading man, showcased Law’s star power, and stands as one of Minghella’s most elegantly unsettling works—a story about the seductive promise of reinvention and the monstrous cost of never feeling “enough” in your own skin.
