Product Details

• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Paramount Home Video
• DVD Release Date: May 21, 2002
• Run Time: 139 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (367 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00003CX6P
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,975 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Talented Mr. Ripley" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

"I feel like I've been handed a new life," says Tom Ripley at a crucial turning point of this well-cast, stylishly crafted psychological thriller. And indeed he has, because the devious, impoverished Ripley (played with subtle depth by Matt Damon) has just traded his own identity for that of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), the playboy heir to a shipping fortune who has become Ripley's model for a life worth living. Having been sent by Dickie's father to retrieve the errant son from Italy, Ripley has smoothly ingratiated himself with Dickey and his lovely, unsuspecting fiancée, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow). In due course, the sheer evil of Ripley's amoral scheme will be revealed.

Superbly adapted from the acclaimed novel by Patricia Highsmith (also the basis of the acclaimed French version, Purple Noon), The Talented Mr. Ripley is writer-director Anthony Minghella's impressive follow-up to his Oscar-winning triumph The English Patient. Re-creating late-1950s Italy in exacting detail, the film captures the sensuousness of la dolce vita while suspensefully developing the fracturing of Ripley's mind as his crimes grow increasingly desperate. And where Hitchcock was necessarily discreet with the homosexual subtext of Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, Minghella brings it out of the closet, increasing the dramatic tension and complexity of Ripley's psychological breakdown. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Cate Blanchett are excellent in pivotal supporting roles, and the film's final image is utterly effective: Ripley's talents have gone too far, and this study of class distinction, obsession, and deadly desire reaches a disturbing yet richly appropriate conclusion. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

For his first outing since "The English Patient," the writer and director Anthony Minghella has returned to the roasted light of Italy; this is a less passionate project-or, rather, the passions are directed toward less salubrious ends. The source is Patricia Highsmith's spooky, misanthropic novel of 1955; Matt Damon plays Tom Ripley, her murderous hero, although he probably lacks the quicksilver elusiveness that the role demands. He is outshone by Jude Law, whose violent disappearance, halfway through the picture, is a grievous wound. Law is sunny, slippery, and pansexual; he might have made a better Ripley himself. In the female roles, Gwyneth Paltrow struggles to find anything much in the stony Marge, whom Highsmith so loftily scorned; more rewarding is the dreamy Cate Blanchett as an heiress named Meredith Logue-a part invented by Minghella. Her fine features are like a flawless period detail in themselves. The film feels warm but unsettled, as if hinting at approaching storms; the score, too, flits from lugubrious to manic. With Philip Seymour Hoffman, perfectly cast once again, this time as another of Tom's victims. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HAVING IT ALL, October 25, 2004

By 

GEORGE RANNIE "GWRJWMCL" (DENVER, COLORADO United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Talented Mr. Ripley (DVD)

When picking out films to see, I usually gravitate toward the "small" independent type of film usually avoiding the larger "major" productions. Thus, I avoided "the Talented Mr. Ripley" up until recently. My mistake! "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is outstanding and has, to me, everything a movie should have to make it the "complete film experience"-great script and direction, great acting, wonderful sound tract and beautiful cinematography. This film has it all!
The acting, by all of the actors, is superb. Matt Damon, as Tom Ripley is outstanding. He portrays a very complicated character believably. At no time are you aware that he is acting. This character does things that are, indeed, despicable; however, due to the acting skills of Damon, I actually liked the guy and felt deep sympathy and empathy for him and for his desire to be someone else
(I think we all have been there-at least I have-fortunately all of us don't do what Tom Ripley does, in the film, to achieve our wishes). To me the last scene of the film is fantastic and heart breaking due to Matt Damon giving a gut wrenching performance--the character Tom has finally found someone to love, and has found someone that accepts him as himself but due to past deeds and the need to keep his past hidden, he has to kill the person that could have brought him love and happiness. As usual, Jude Law, as the playboy and errant son Dickie, is awesome. He plays a cad but due to his acting skills you, like this cad. Gwenyth Platrow gives a "knock-em dead" performance, as Dickie's girlfriend starting out as a plastic rich "air-head" and ending up as the only one that really knows what has happened to Dickie when he has disappeared and becoming a completely different person because of that knowledge. Her knock down drag out with the character Tom is great. Cate Blanchett plays a socialite- debutante-type wonderfully. The acting alone would have made "The Talented Mr. Ripley" a great film; however, there is more!
The film has one of the best sound tracts that I've ever heard. The sound tract makes use of Renaissance Church music, so-called "Classical music" "cool" jazz and one of my favorites I (if not my favorite) pop standards-"My Funny Valentine" sung wonderfully by Matt Damon. The sound tract is gorgeous! What impressed me the most is that Matt Damon and Jude Law took the time to learn to really play the instruments that they were suppose to be playing in the film-Damon, the piano and Law the saxophone. One of my favorite scenes is in the smoked filled American-jazz nightclub--fabulous.
The recreation of 1950-era Italy is great and it is shot beautifully.
If you want to have an enjoyable film experience, buy this film

104 of 122 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SLEEK SUSPENSE, June 18, 2000

By 

R. Penola (NYC, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Minghella's sleek, gorgeous movie version of Patricia Highsmith's classic novel of suspense is near-perfect. The story, set in and around stunning Italian coastal hot spots, circa the 50s, remains fresh and infinitely compelling; the main character, Tom Ripley, is that fascinating mix of vulnerability and psychotic killer, much like Norman Bates in Psycho. Matt Damon does his best with this role; casting him I think was the film's one half misstep -- Damon exudes such a glamour and self-possession that it is difficult to wholly buy his insecurity, though adding more than a hint of homosexuality does much to make him more believable. The other performances, however, are riveting. Philip Seymour Hoffman is perfection as a smart, slick, obnoxious friend of Dickie's; Cate Blanchett, an added character, is engrossing, funny and heartbreaking, too; Gwenyth Paltrow, often overlooked in the reviews for this film, is spectacular in each and every scene, conveying the privilege of her class and also her near-desperate need for Dickie's love. But Jude Law emerges as a superstar in the movie -- he has the matinee-idol look of 50s stars, and does an amazing job of creating Dickie Greenleaf, that kind of shiny, sexy person, someone who has it all, with a cavalier indifference to those who love him most. The musical score is evocative and moving. The opening credits, an artistic risk, set up, with glossy, hynotic camera work, a film that will often leave you breathless. A thinking man's thriller, one that is not easy to forget.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A bloody lullaby, August 6, 2000

By 

Thomas Ripley (Paris, France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Talented Mr. Ripley (DVD)

Every year, certain films are released that are completely misunderstood, either by critics, or by the movie-going public and Anthony Minghella's take on the Patricia Highsmith novel "The Talented Mr Ripley" falls into this category.

It was perceived as a suspense thriller, which the trailer did nothing to dispel but it is so much more than that. It is a thought provoking character study of a man so uncomfortable with his own personality that he must try an inhabit that of another man, the unfortunate Dickie Greenleaf. However to do so means a few murders and this is where the film gets its marquee appeal. Matt Damon invests the role with such subtlety that you are taken by surprise - no longer the apple-pie boy of past films, here he is a sad character, and one which the audience feels for, despite resorting to murder. It is a standout performance which deserves far greater recognition. Jude Law confirms his status as the new star in the sky (remember Joseph Fiennes?) and delivers his dark prey to the willing Ripley. And Gwyneth Paltrow confirms her status as the new Grace Kelly - so bright at the beginning of the film but by its end her mood is much more sombre as she tries to expose Ripley. The rest of the cast are uniformly excellent with Cate Blanchett adding to her CV with another brilliant turn.

This is a superb movie and I advise anyone who hasn't seen it to do so immediately. A thought-provoking supremely literate and at times, bloody scary film.