The Talented Mr. Ripley

Oh my God!  I just saw this movie tonight and it's still got me freaked out hours later-especially the ending.  The ending is key.  Tom (Matt Damon) and Peter are talking, and then it fades into a voiceover as Tom comes into his room, and we hear the rest of the conversation as he just sits there...  I saw it coming but could hardly believe it.  Great use of voiceovers-throughout the movie, too.  I also liked the beginning, the way they made the background story so unintrusive.  An acquaintance of mine summed this movie up by saying "bad movie with bad acting", but I don't agree at all.  Jude Law did pretty well-considering that he's English, the accent was quite good.  Matt Damon was unremarkable, though he certainly did just fine.  Gwyneth Paltrow was great; I feel so sorry for her character.  I also feel sorry for Peter, who got attracted to Tom through music and got a hell of a lot more than he bargained for.  I don't feel so sorry for Dickie-well, he was quite screwed up even though he was an asshole, so I'm a little mixed.  There was a strong undercurrent of the guys being gay.  I just caught the obvious stuff, like Peter and the bathtub scene, but I've been told about some deeper undertones, like Freddy and Dickie-Tom's comment during the handwriting analysis was far from a throwaway line, obviously.  If I could watch this slowly on video I could write a whole essay about it.  Hell, maybe I will.  I recently read Heart of Darkness and I can't help comparing Ripley to Kurtz-both found themselves delving into human nature and found nothing good inside themselves.  This movie has also been compared to The Great Gatsby, which I can see-lying to raise your social class in order to find happiness.  And in both cases they fail.  This was also more gory than I had expected, and far creepier.  If you see it at night, don't let yourself be alone afterwards.  Well, maybe that's just me.  Oh, and the soundtrack is incredible, with all kinds of great jazz and classical and opera-just a treat to hear.

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