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The Notorious B.O.Z. takes an early looksee at THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY!
Alrighty folks, here's a look at a VERY early test screening of THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY. Having read the script I can tell you that Minghella's material was superb, and here in this early test screening, the reviewer liked the film but had problems with the length of the film, the pacing of scenes... that sort of thing. Well... That's exactly why they screened the film. Undoubtedly this film will be trimmed significantly, fine tuned here and there. So this review should in NO WAY be used as a final judgement on the film, but merely as a look at the film in it's current work in progress state. Anthony "THE ENGLISH PATIENT" Minghella is a fantastic filmmaker and I have faith that this film which the following reviewer commends the performances and twists and turns will tighten up and be benefited by a score, which on this evening, it was without. Mark my words, this will be one of the KEY films to look for this fall/holiday season. Them folks at Miramax and Minghella know what they're doing. BEWARE, THE FOLLOWING REVIEW HAS SPOILERS WHICH CONCERN THE FIRST 3/4 of the movie. Read only at your own risk...
I attended a test screening of "The Talented Mr. Ripley," which is Anthony
Minghella's latest film. It stars Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, and
Cate Blanchett among others. The screening was last Monday night in San
Rafael, CA. It was the first time the film had been shown to an audience,
and was a very rough cut. Several folks in limos and suits were there...
Anyway, on to the film...SPOILERS BELOW!
THE PLOT:
Matt Damon plays Mr. Ripley, a poor scam-artist who goes to retrieve Dickie
Greenleaf, the son of a rich American. Dickie is gallivanting about Europe,
and his father would like Dickie to come back home to the good ol' USA.
Ripley eventually locates Dickie, and the two of them seem to hit it off
right away. They end up spending a lot of time hanging out, sailing,
traveling, etc. The beautiful and charming Gwyneth Paltrow plays Marge
Sherwood who is Dickie's girlfriend-become-fiancé. One would normally assume
that Ripley would fall in love with Marge and this would cause a conflict
between Ripley and Dickie. WRONG! Turns out Ripley is an obsessive
homosexual, and ends up killing Dickie because Dickie rejects him for Marge.
Ripley then takes on Dickie's identity, and goes around posing as Dickie.
However, several people know that he is really Ripley, so Matt Damon has to
constantly switch identities depending on who he is talking to. Ripley ends
up killing Dickie's friend Freddie (great performance by Philip Seymour
Hoffman) because Freddie figures out what happens. I won't say more than
this...I don't want to give away the ending in complete detail (yes, believe
it or not, the paragraph above is only about the first 2/3 of the film).
THE PERFORMANCES:
Across the board, they are all pretty strong. Damon plays a VERY convincing
homosexual, even though he is fairly low-key about it. Jude Law is fairly
new to the big screen, and he plays a very believable cloddish playboy.
THE PROBLEMS:
-Time! The roughcut was almost 3 hours long and unnecessarily so
-Timing! Some scenes took FOR EVER. Others went TOO FAST.
-Confusing! The opening 30 minutes are some of the most confusing minutes
ever filmed! I literally had NO idea what was going on (and neither did the
folks around me in the theater). As the story unfolded, I started to
understand a little about the opening of the film, but still not much.
THE POSITIVES:
-The story is entertaining once it gets going. There is a shocking amount of
blood in this film, and because there was no score to set the mood, it was
often unpredictable. Several in the audience got up and left at a few points
in the film.
-Great ending! Talk about an unconventional story--this one takes the cake!
That's all for now...this film is slated for a Fall 1999 release, so
hopefully it will be improved upon between now and then...I know I filled my
survey with tons of suggestions!
THE NOTORIOUS B.O.Z.
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+ Expand All
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Jul 09, 1999 3:47:43 AM CDT
i am the first to put a response or what u call a "TALK-BACK" on
by baff
i am so sorry for doing the 'im first' crap but i couldnt help it. i am always the 700th person to talk back and this was my one chance. anyway, this movie seems interest and has all of these stars that i think are so talented. lets cross our fingers!-baff
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This actually sounds pretty good. It has definite possibilities and is bound to be improved greatly by release time. I thought The Engilsh Patient was magnificently presented and all that, but it lacked a decent story. It kept promising that it was building up to something special but ultimately, well, didn't. This on the other hand, seems crammed with plot. It will be a sure fire money earner too, with all the Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon haters turning up to hurl stuff at the screen. I see it's being lined up for awards season. Can I state here and now that I wish they would just do away with the whole 'awards season'. It turns the whole film-making and film-going experience into a big stupid competition and ends up pissing everyone off. God, maybe if they just spread the different awards out more during the year so we wouldn't get this big load of shit ruining our enjoymment of movies at the turn of every year.
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I haven't seen the film yet, nor am I a fan of Damon or Paltrow, but just knowing that Jude Law and Philip Seymour Hoffman are in it makes it worth the anticipation...and thanks for not giving all of the story away!
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Matt Damon is a decent young actor, I'll conceed that. But his talent is EXTREMELY overrated. Personally, his face is way to 'smug' for me to even look at on film, which really keeps me from enjoying GOOD WILL HUNTING every time I put it in the VCR. Gweneth Paltrow is definitely equally overrated as an actress. Ripping off Cate Blanchette at the Oscars was Hollywood's way of saying "Gweneth is America's little golden girl for the new millenium." I don't think the two are enough to ruin a movie (especially that of an Oscar-winning director like Minghella), but I'm just so sick and tired of everyone in the movie business going on and on about these two.
(Matt Damon couldn't hold a candle to my main man Ed Norton) -
After hearing about the movie, I read Patricia Highsmith's excellent novel last spring, and my first though after finishing it was, how will they make this in the ultra-PC Nineties? The cast, production team, and source material all sound like a class act, but who knows? This might become controversial once word gets out about Mr. Ripley. Is anyone else wondering about this?
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This is the second stab at the novel turned into a film. The first being PURPLE NOON, which is a fantastic film mind you. I took a look at The screenplay for The Talented Mr. Ripley and although intigueing, I still don't know if this version will hold a candle to PN. That film starring ALAIN DELON was amazing. Was RIPLEY homosexual in the novel???? I never read it and am wondering if they cut that out for the original or simply added it to be a little more cutting edge or PC if you will. Either way though.....i just can't see Matt Damon holding a candle to Alain's performance....it also had a killer ending.
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My question for any advance screener of Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley" would be: Does the ending close off the character, as was the case in "Purple Noon," or is Ripley left to go his way, as in the novel? Patricia Highsmith wrote several Ripley books: the third, "Ripley's Game," was filmed as "The American Friend" by Wim Wenders. (I always thought "The Boy Who Followed Ripley" would be good screen material.) As per the homosexuality angle, I think that was something that became an undercurrent in "Purple Noon." (Only natural, given Alain Delon's presence.) Highsmith painted Ripley as a psychopathically selfish and resentful figure who decided he was more entitled than anyone else to Dickie's entire lifestyle. A lot of Highsmith's better known stuff -- e.g., her first book, "Strangers on a Train," filmed by Hitchcock -- turns on some obsessive relationship and exchange of identities.
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I like when gay people come out (no pun intended) against movies that portray homosexuals in anything but a positive light. Did you see
Big Daddy? I didn't think so. The gay characters in that movie were funny, positive, and not angry bitches like Grunter. Not everyone gives a shit that this group
or that group is portrayed positively or negatively. How do you watch movies? Doesn't that big chip on your shoulder get in the way? -
I really like Damon. Whether or not you like his "smug" style, you must admit he has charisma. Charisma counts for a lot in film and the camera loves Matty-boy. Same with Gwen, too, but I do not find her near as charming. They are two talented people, though, perhaps not the BEST, but talented, as are Cate Blanchett (my hero) and Jude Law. I think that Damon is very smart to go against his pretty-boy image by playing a deranged homosexual killer. If he can pull it off, maybe he will keep trying for more risque roles, unlike Ben Affleck, who seems to want to be the new Bruce Willis. The arguement could be made that homosexuals are protrayed unfairly as a whole by the media, but this is the way the book was written. It's an adaptation, and if you're going to complain, complain to the author. The problem is that you have two factions in the gay community. You have the Ellen and Annes, who I think do a disservice by shoving their relationship in everyone's face; then you have people that are content to keep their relationships on a personal level, without overhyping it. Who really cares if someone is gay? Does anyone in this forum, in this day and age, really care if someone is gay, provided that that person is not providing them personal details of their sex life or unwanted advances? I doubt it. If I want to know who you're screwing, I'll ask. Please, don't volunteer it. That goes for anyone, gay or straight. Anywho, that's my rant. Sorry...
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"Will Smith plays a convincing black cowboy who kicks butt and beds babes." WHAT?! Are you saying that all black men are cowboys who enact violence and have premarital sex?! DIE! DIE! DIE! -- What's the point of all this? Grunter, go away. Yup, that's the gist of my comments. It's all fine and dandy to make fun of Catholics, Christians, and folks like that, but once you show men who decide they don't want to have kids or love women, and proceed to jam their reproduction-tool in a hole designed for excrement, as something other then *GREAT*, you get railed on. Is no one concerned about fair consistancy?
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I read all 5 Ripley books when the fifth one came out about 6 or 7 years ago. I love 'em. He's completely amoral. Is he gay? I don't know...there are definately homoerotic undertones to the whole thing, but if he is gay he doesn't know it. I don't think he is capable of figuring it out because the man does not care much about people, he cares about how he is preceived. Also, I could be wrong, but I thought Patricia Highsmith was gay. A couple of her books made the list of most influential gay/lesbian authors/books. Heck, Ripley is married to a woman in the following books although it is a weird relationship. I totally see want grunter is complaining about, the review makes it sound bad. Grunter read the books, which are really good (I love an antihero). I'll worry along with you that the studio made him an obvious homosexual when that wasn't the point.
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I just read my talkback and it sucked. Let me rephrase.
1) Ripley is too messed up to know how he feels emotional about anyone.
2) If you have a problem with an amoral Ripley being gay, I think the author is.
3) Let's hope the adaption doesn't screw up a wonderfully wicked book. -
I agree with Salka -- I don't believe that the novel ever explicitly portrays Ripley as gay [although in 1955 few novels could have been published that depicted anyone as gay unless they were also a psychopath!]. Certainly the movie shows him obsessed with the Dickie character, but for a wide variety of reasons, including wanted to be loved the way Dickie is. (It's very much a fan stalker kind of relationship.) I think Damon is just right for this character. And I hope they start making more Highsmith novels into films ...
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Like some of the above posters, I hope they don't try to make an obvious or overt thing out the hints of homosexuality in Highsmith's book. Not from any squeamish feelings, but because I'd rather have something more subtle and complicated. But I do think this is a part of Ripley's character -- people are right, nothing's explicitly said or referred to, and Ripley is an unreliable narrator, but the thing that made me sense these things came mainly from Ripley's reaction to Marge, who will be played by Paltrow. He seems so jealous of her relationship and intimacy with what's his name (the guy played by Jude Law), and very much seems to be competing with her for his attention, and even his feelings. Also, Ripley is depicted as being very much in denial, and full of self-loathing and repression which, while not very politically correct or anything by today's standards, could certainly be understandable during the time period in which the story takes place.
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I adore the Ripley novels. Tom is one of my favorite characters in fiction. He is also the most thoroughly amoral of all figures -- who else literally gets away with murder in book after book, and has the audience rooting for him to get by with it! Patty Highsmith was one of the best; unfortunately, she died in the last year or so. And yes, she was a lesbian, rather closeted about it for much of her life but more open in the past few years. She was from Ft Worth TX but expatriated herself to France and Switzerland for many years. Anyway, there have been so many interesting responses to this article. Grunter, I completely sympathize with your fears that this will be one more stupid cliched Hollywood representation of queers. But I hope not.
The thing to keep in mind when watching this flick, however, is the fact that Tom happens to be a terribly not-nice individual, albeit fascinating as hell. And I'm not sure I would categorize Tom as gay, per se, anyway. Not so much because he has that marriage of convenience in the later novels (they have separate bedrooms and she's always away traveling), but because I think he's too much of a narcissistic monster to have a sexual preference, or, heaven forbid, to be able to care about anybody of any gender.
In the novels his point of view is frequently taken, and one of the things I love is how Tom will plot and connive over various scenarios and then turn around at the last moment on impulse and do the exact opposite of what he had decided to do all along.
I do, however, think he's kind of turned on by Dickie, but that's really more narcissism than sexual desire -- Tom, as he proves later, wants to BE Dickie, not to love him. And Tom and the girlfriend ARE definitely at odds, jealous of one another, and for good reason.
The novels are great, esp. for lovers of the outrageously perverse, and the earlier version of the film, the heavenly Purple Noon with the god-like Alain Delon, will be damned hard to top.
The casting in this piece strikes me as a bit off, particularly Gwyneth as the girlfriend (who in the book is a clinging whiny dowdy unlikeable frump -- I pictured Kathy Burns in the 70s). And, although I adore Cate Blanchett so much, I would watch her do anything, what part is she playing? I don't recall another female character of note in the novel. Hoffman is perfect as Freddie. Jude Law just has to run his fingers thru his hair and look slightly-decadent playboyish, but Matt's got a big job cut out for him. I know he can't fill Alain's loafers, but can he transcend that (earlier poster's word) "smug," cute little straight american boy thing?
I can't wait. -
Yes, Dr. X said it best. Boys, don't play with yourselves. Girls, don't be molested or be butt-ugly cock-teases, if possible. Grunt, can't you see the err of your ways when it is so eloquently pointed out? Let's under no circumstances understund each other, take it easy and let it be. Later, I think I'll go rub my bad haircut in someone's nose. Or play.
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...When it was called PURPLE NOON (Alain Delon, Marie Laforet, Maurice Ronet), and read Patricia Highsmith's novel THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY before that. So it's not a NEW Matt Damon/Gwyneth Paltrow project. It's a Matt Damon/Gwyneth Paltrow project based on a classic of crime literature. Not all movie (and book) titles start and end with STAR WARS...
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'Matt Daman plays a convincing homosexual'. Yet again more crap spewed forth from someone who may believe they part of the caring, sharing, liberal 90s, but is actually nothing more then a bigot.
Tell me folks, help out an Englishman, What is a convincing homosexual? I've yet to meet one amongst all the gay bankers I know and teachers and lawyers and accountants and politicians and actors and artists and musicians and shop assistants and air force men and doctors and well, just about every other profession known to mankind. You see for the benefit of all you folk out there who can't see further then your damn prejudices, we are everywhere. You may not think you know a gay man or woman, but in reality, you do.
Hollywood is as guilty as most of you are for the continual prejudices that most gay men or woman have to suffer on a day to day basis. Continually presenting gay men as weak, corrupt, screwed up or just there to get on somebodies nerves.
Our problem is not that Matt Damon has no right playing this part. Our problem is that Hollywood refuses to balance things out ever, we're always the ones portrayed as the victim and we are so pissed off with it all. I also very much doubt that Matt Damon does play a 'very convincing homosexual' as I doubt very much that we get to see him kissing another man or god forbid!!! Actually in bed with another man. Gee, how that would make all you red necked americans barf your popcorn up over your GAP pullovers.
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What is with this "gays as evil killers" stereotyope thing? The last time I checked the stereotype was the "My best Friends Wedding" type friendly gay person. I think it's good that a gay guy is being shown as a psychopath or whatever. Regarldless of how some people think that that is a negative veiw, guess what: there are WAY more movies with straight people as the psycho. Both gays and straights can kill people. Quite making such a big friggin deal about it.
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Matt Damon IS (for me) the epitome of sexuality! Whether he is simply acting the part or letting his own sexuality show through....his eyes express sexuality in a way that I haven't seen in other actors.
I know that others see it...the expression in his eyes is both compelling and inviting in an erotic sort of way. Whenever I see that look in his eyes, I just wanna take a bubble bath with him!!
Hey Matt-- I'll bring the bubbles if you'll draw the bath!! :o)
Affectionately,
Laurie -
Now, I'm looking forward to this film more than any other this year (like the pre-Phantom Menace feeling doesn't even compare). Anyone who's read the book will know how far short 'Plein Soleil' fell, despite Alain Delon and all that...you may as well have done what we call a 'Sliver' and totally chucked out the original book. I gather that Anthony Minghella, however, is being faithfully to Patty Highsmith's original Ripley, in which case we won't be getting an out-and-out gay Rippers, but certainly a murky, ambiguous groovy dude from Mister Matt Damon. HOWEVER, I was flicking through crappy UK mag 'OKAY!' the other day and read the most awful, bitchy article about Matt and Winona supposedly splitting up and WORSE! that apparently first word on Ripley has been awful and, as they put it, with the usual waffly 'to quote an insider' bollocks, "the movie just doesn't work and nobody can work out why".
THIS CAN'T BE TRUE. With so much refined and subtle talent on board, please someone tell us it's WOEFULLY not true! Admittedly I first felt Damon and Law had been cast in the wrong parts (Law has wound up playing a sparkly American, and Damon a shady subversive) but c'mon, this film still rocks, especially with the wonderful Cate and Gwyneth involved. I can't wait. I just can't wait. Let's have some more chat about it, please Harry! -
Fun to go back and read this now. I miss San Rafael!
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