Watching Netflix's sumptuous adaptation of crime novelist Patricia Highsmith’s classic psychological thriller "The Talented Mr Ripley", didn't just send me back to the author's original 1955 novel. It also sent me back to Anthony Minghella's equally lavish 1999 feature film, which is handily available on . The two adaptations broadly follow the same outline: amoral grifter Tom Ripley travels from New York to Italy's Amalfi Coast to retrieve the errant playboy son of a New York shipping magnate, gets a taste for the so nonchalantly enjoyed by the object of his quest, and then goes to murderous lengths to avoid giving up the high life he has come to enjoy.
Yes, the two versions are telling the same story, but to me, their approaches couldn’t be more different — and that's not just because Minghella's film is in color and lasts 139 minutes, while the Netflix series — created, written and directed by Steven Zaillian — is filmed in striking black and white, and takes eight episodes and around 440 minutes to wrap things up. No, the casting and storytelling choices taken by Minghella and Zaillian diverge enormously. Minghella's leading duo are a good fit for their characters.
Matt Damon plays opportunistic Ripley as a shape-shifting social chameleon, gauche at first but quick to mold himself into new roles; Jude Law, never more handsome on screen, is incredibly charismatic as blithely dissolute wastrel Dickie Greenleaf. Just as importantly, Damon and Law were both in their.
