Top 100 Movies Of The 1990's: #62 The Talented Mr. Ripley
Box Office: $81.3 Million
Oscar Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Jude Law), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design
Oscar Wins: None
MovieRankings.Net: 75/100
Available To Stream Amazon Prime (until end of April)
(This blog will have spoilers about the movie. I know it came out in 1999 so it's no great secret but there's your heads up.)
Is Matt Damon so endearing that he can never be really seen as a bad guy? As Tom Ripley, he not only has so many insecure behaviors, he's a sociopathic murderer to boot. He also played a villain in Interstellar and it was hard to really hate him in that movie as well. Tom Cruise doesn't like playing bad guys but is very good at it. But Cruise, for all of his charm isn't relatable. Even though Damon has been a movie star for over 25 years, he still remains someone who seems like he could be your next door neighbor.
This is a stunning film to watch and it uses being shot on location in Italy so well. Despite those strengths, it really is the cast that sets this movie apart. It's an older Generation X crew of all-stars: Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett and Philip Seymour Hoffman. That's 18 Academy Award nominations between them and four wins. I'm not even counting writing or producing noms. That total is from acting alone. The only person really missing from that class is Leonardo DiCaprio who was initially offered the role of Tom Ripley but declined.
The cast is so good that when Law and Hoffman die, the movie really suffers. The first two acts of the movie are so good. Jude Law is perfect as Dickie Greenlaw. He's horribly arrogant but charming enough that you can understand what Ripley and Margie (Patrow) see in him. I could have had many more see scenes with Hoffman's character who is smart enough to see through Ripley's lies almost instantly. As much as we are rooting for Matt Damon, it's oddly satisfying to see someone call him out on his bullshit.
This was directed by Anthony Minghella who had already won Best Picture for The English Patient. That was a weaker movie than this but it had also had the good fortune of coming out in a weaker movie year (for the decade anyway). The Talented Mr. Ripley wasn't as fortunate coming out in 1999 which could be the greatest movie year of all-time. Because of that tough competition, this wasn't even nominated for best picture.
Ripley was a successful movie in the box office despite some pretty decent competition. You had Toy Story 2, Any Given Sunday (#98), The Green Mile, Stuart Little and Man On The Moon all in theaters at the same time. To scratch out over $80 million domestic for a movie like this is pretty impressive, even with the great cast.
Watching Tom Ripley, it did also give a quick study on being an actor. He's always pretending to be someone else and when his true self comes out, problems arise. He'll linger too long with a stare or stay somewhere for too long. For someone to be so good at being other people, he's horrible at being an actual person. To have us spend over two hours with this violent murderer and still want Ripley to get away with it is yet another example of how great of an actor Matt Damon is.
62. The Talented Mr. Ripley
63. Tommy Boy
64. The Usual Suspects
65. In The Line Of Fire
66. My Cousin Vinny
67. Awakenings
68. JFK
69. Toy Story
70. Home Alone
71. Jerry Maguire
72. Titanic
73. Billy Madison
74. Apollo 13
75. Braveheart
76. Edward Scissorhands
77. Cape Fear
78. The River Wild
79. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
80. 12 Monkeys
81. Stir Of Echoes
82. Mission: Impossible
83. Total Recall
84. Quiz Show
85. For Love Of The Game
86. Being John Malkovich
87. Men In Black
88. Scream
89. Alive
90. Three Kings
91. Glengarry Glen Ross
92. Die Hard With A Vengeance
93. The Blair Witch Project
94. Twister
95. Dirty Work
96. Election
97. Tremors
98. Any Given Sunday
99. The Wedding Singer
100. Clerks