The Talented Mr. Ripley
May. 10th, 2003 01:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyI adore this movie. It's so... creepy, touching, and thoughtful.
I'm with Ripley every moment and that gets damned uncomfortable at times. He's a killer. The first time, it's a reaction and it's passion. The second time, it's still a reaction, and he pretty much hates the guy anyway. The third murder is what gets to me. He kills someone he cares about in order to save the lie. It's calculated and it's just horrible. And he feels it and does it anyway. He chose the lie over the guy who cared about him.
The relationships are fascinating. Ripley idealizes Dickie and Marge, and when he becomes Dickie, he cultivates his own Marge in Meredith. But who he really wanted in that was Dickie and so he meets Peter and... that's a tragedy. Especially for Peter, who loves and dies.
In a way, the movie is all about what happens when you deny who you are. It can be extended as what happens when Ripley represses his gay side, to the extent of killing it, to choose the straight lie. It's a horrible thing. And it's presented as a horrible thing. We start the movie just after the murder of Peter, and then go to everything that led up to that. And something that just hits me is that Ripley asks Meredith if she's alone. If she had been, I think that he'd have killed her, not Peter. Between killing someone who only had him on board and someone with family on board who would notice their disappearance.
Ouch. Death sentence moment: "Peter Smith-Kingsley? Haven't seen him in months. No, I'm alone." And he made it so. After he says that, he's staring into the water, and you know that he's regretting this. The mirror shakes.
And he goes back in to see Peter. And he tries to get out of killing Peter, by trying to get him to stay, by lying. And Peter saw him.
And Ripley slips. He never slips. But he's preparing himself to kill Peter. And he slips. He calls himself "Dickie".
He apologizes and mourns. He almost breaks down and he's acting like Peter isn't there anymore because he knows.
Ripley: "I always thought it'd be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody."
Peter: "What are you talking about? You're not a nobody. That's the last thing you are." And we see tears shining in Tom's eyes.
Ripley: "Peter. Tell me some good things about Tom Ripley."
We never see Tom kill Peter. We just hear it (including Tom sobbing "oh, god" over and over) and see his reaction, which we saw in the beginning. We end on Tom reflected in mirrors and then see the door swing shut, as he's trapped himself in his lie. At the beginning, Tom is slowly revealed by lines of screen stripping away the black. It's the exact shot we get near the end, while we hear Peter killed. After seeing the movie, watching the beginning is particularly haunting. You know that "If I could just go back... if I could rub everything out... starting with myself." is his response to killing Peter. He regrets it, he hates it, he does it anyway, to keep the lie alive.
The song that is sung at the beginning, Lullabye for Cain (which is played at the end), just sums everything up.
And some of the quotes just haunt me.
"Well, whatever you do, however terrible, however hurtful, it all makes sense, doesn't it, in your head. You never meet anybody that thinks they're a bad person."
Oooh, interesting trivia:
Tom kills Freddie with a bust of the Roman emperor Hadrian who had a gay lover who was killed.
I'm with Ripley every moment and that gets damned uncomfortable at times. He's a killer. The first time, it's a reaction and it's passion. The second time, it's still a reaction, and he pretty much hates the guy anyway. The third murder is what gets to me. He kills someone he cares about in order to save the lie. It's calculated and it's just horrible. And he feels it and does it anyway. He chose the lie over the guy who cared about him.
The relationships are fascinating. Ripley idealizes Dickie and Marge, and when he becomes Dickie, he cultivates his own Marge in Meredith. But who he really wanted in that was Dickie and so he meets Peter and... that's a tragedy. Especially for Peter, who loves and dies.
In a way, the movie is all about what happens when you deny who you are. It can be extended as what happens when Ripley represses his gay side, to the extent of killing it, to choose the straight lie. It's a horrible thing. And it's presented as a horrible thing. We start the movie just after the murder of Peter, and then go to everything that led up to that. And something that just hits me is that Ripley asks Meredith if she's alone. If she had been, I think that he'd have killed her, not Peter. Between killing someone who only had him on board and someone with family on board who would notice their disappearance.
Ouch. Death sentence moment: "Peter Smith-Kingsley? Haven't seen him in months. No, I'm alone." And he made it so. After he says that, he's staring into the water, and you know that he's regretting this. The mirror shakes.
And he goes back in to see Peter. And he tries to get out of killing Peter, by trying to get him to stay, by lying. And Peter saw him.
And Ripley slips. He never slips. But he's preparing himself to kill Peter. And he slips. He calls himself "Dickie".
He apologizes and mourns. He almost breaks down and he's acting like Peter isn't there anymore because he knows.
Ripley: "I always thought it'd be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody."
Peter: "What are you talking about? You're not a nobody. That's the last thing you are." And we see tears shining in Tom's eyes.
Ripley: "Peter. Tell me some good things about Tom Ripley."
We never see Tom kill Peter. We just hear it (including Tom sobbing "oh, god" over and over) and see his reaction, which we saw in the beginning. We end on Tom reflected in mirrors and then see the door swing shut, as he's trapped himself in his lie. At the beginning, Tom is slowly revealed by lines of screen stripping away the black. It's the exact shot we get near the end, while we hear Peter killed. After seeing the movie, watching the beginning is particularly haunting. You know that "If I could just go back... if I could rub everything out... starting with myself." is his response to killing Peter. He regrets it, he hates it, he does it anyway, to keep the lie alive.
The song that is sung at the beginning, Lullabye for Cain (which is played at the end), just sums everything up.
And some of the quotes just haunt me.
"Well, whatever you do, however terrible, however hurtful, it all makes sense, doesn't it, in your head. You never meet anybody that thinks they're a bad person."
Oooh, interesting trivia:
Tom kills Freddie with a bust of the Roman emperor Hadrian who had a gay lover who was killed.