Game for anything
Tom Ripley (John Malkovich): You’re not planning on singing me through the door, are you?
Reeves (Ray Winstone): I’ve got the Carregio in here.
Tom Ripley: Well, you’re not coming in.
Reeves: I’m fucking coming in.
Tom Ripley: No, because it’s not a Carregio, it’s a Correggio. Just like it’s not tacco but ta-a-cco. Not pasto but pasta, see? Your entire education comes from Classic Car magazine and you dress like you’re on a condom run for the mob. By the way, it isn’t a Correggio, it’s a fake Rembrandt and until you know that, you’re not coming in with me.
Reeves: Don’t fuck me over here, prat.
Tom Ripley: Don’t threaten me. I’m not the one wearing an earring.
And with this truly wonderful piece of verbal badinage (it could only be Malkovich versus Winstone), we are back in the shadowy, elegant and quite deadly world of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley, previously encountered in Anthony Minghella’s enjoyable but far less adept take on our hero’s younger days, The Talented Mr Ripley (1999).
Liliana Cavani, who writes and directs, takes us into the cold heart of darkness that is Ripley – an utterly charming, erudite and wealthy gentleman of leisure, presently living in Italy with his beautiful partner Maria (Evelina Meghnagi), a talented harpsichordist. But there are irritations on the horizon; his former ‘partner’ Reeves (Winstone), a sleazy Berlin night-club owner, is looking to remove some of his local competition and, figuring that Ripley owes him a favour, turns up unanounced, demanding that an ‘innocent’ be located to do the job for a large sum of money. Ripley might just have the man; local picture-framer, Jonathan Trevanny (Dougray Scott), who made the mistake of insulting our Tom when he was in earshot, and who also happens to be dying of chronic myloid leukemia. The game is about to begin…
A large part of the film’s fascination lies in the fact that, as with James Bond, most men would probably want to be Ripley, if only for a day. Malkovich’s preternatural calm, even when engaging in vile atrocities, is simply captivating, and together with Cavani’s tight, literate script, captures at once the sense of charming amorality and disdain for unrefined people that is at the character’s core.
“You know the most interesting thing about doing something terrible? After a few days, you can’t even remember it.” Or how about this one? “I’m a creation. A gifted improviser. I lack your conscience and when I was young that troubled me. It no longer does. I don’t worry about being caught because I don’t believe anyone is watching. The world is not a poorer place because those people are dead – it’s not. It’s one less car on the road. It’s a little less noise and menace. You were brave today. You put some money away for your family. That’s all.”
Although playing to well-honed type, Ray Winstone, too, is immaculately cast as the boorish thug that’s the fly in Ripley’s ointment. Interesting, too, is the story’s approach to ‘buddy-buddy’ – Dougray Scott’s strung-out performance would initially appear to make bonding with Ripley unlikely, but the story really does go off in all sorts of unexpected directions.
Don’t make Ripley angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.
110 mins.
Patricia Highsmith (RIP) was my favourite female writer. So, when The Talented Mr Ripley (a remake of Plein Soleil (1960)) was filmed, starring Matt Damon as Tom Ripley (a perfect piece of casting – I thought) I looked forward to the second and third stories of Highsmith’s Ripley Trilogy. Ripley’s Game was good, no doubt (despite Peter Bradshaw’s slating in The Guardian) but what spoiled it for me was Malkovich; as good an actor as he undoubtedly is, he’s not Highsmith’s Ripley. He aged the part too much. Damon should have been reused. It must be about time that the third story was filmed. Who’ll we get next as Ripley, Jack Nicholson?
PS: It has been said by some that I am adopting Highsmith’s style of writing…
Hello Bryan. I just thought I’d chuck in my 2 euro cents’ worth. Having never seen The Talented Mr Ripley, I can’t comment about the similarities or otherwise, but I liked Ripley’s Game quite a bit. I found him (Malkovich) to be strangely adept at playing an amoral force of nature. Coupled with his funny and disturbing interplay with Ray Winstone, it made for an entertaining movie all round. One of these fine days I’ll get around to seeing the original – but I suppose I’ve already got Malkovich as Ripley stuck in my head. How much better could Damon be?
Hello Bryan. Picturenose is revealing the lacunae in its education, isn’t it? To add to Colin’s admission, I myself have not read Highsmith’s original novels – I only know them by reputation. So, I obviously defer to your stance concerning Damon as Ripley in Minghella’s film. However, I really was chilled by Malovich’s take – perhaps the film is best viewed as a stand-alone piece, rather than a sequel to The Talented Mr Ripley?