Ripley's Game (film)
Encyclopedia
Ripley's Game is a feature film
based on the 1974 novel of the same name
, the third in Patricia Highsmith
's "Ripliad," a series of books chronicling the murderous adventures of con artist Tom Ripley. John Malkovich
stars as Highsmith's anti-hero
, opposite Dougray Scott
and Ray Winstone
.
The director is the veteran Italian
filmmaker Liliana Cavani
, whose career dates back to the 1960s and includes one of the 1970s' most controversial movies, The Night Porter
.
Highsmith's novel was previously adapted in 1977 as The American Friend
by director Wim Wenders
, starring Dennis Hopper
and Bruno Ganz
.
and is involved in an art scam in Berlin
, partnered with Reeves, a thuggish British
gangster whom he orders to remain out on the street as the deal goes down. A violent argument breaks out in which Ripley kills one of his "customers." He gives the money to Reeves but takes the artwork for himself, curtly informing Reeves that their partnership is over.
Three years later, Ripley is extremely wealthy, living in a lush venetian villa with his wife Luisa, a beautiful harpsichord
ist. One day, a neighbor invites him to a party, and has a pleasant time until he overhears the host, Jonathan Trevanny, insulting his taste and making a guarded reference to his questionable past. Ripley briefly confronts him, then sullenly leaves the party.
Reeves resurfaces, much to Ripley's annoyance, asking him to eliminate a rival mobster. Remembering the slight, Ripley recommends that an amateur do it — Trevanny, a law-abiding art framer who is dying of leukemia
. Reeves offers a bewildered Trevanny the job, which he turns down. He is tempted by the money, however, which he could leave to his wife, Sarah, and son, Matthew, upon his death. He eventually goes through with the job, a hit in Berlin, which he assumes will be a one-time-only assignment. Reeves has other ideas, however; he blackmail
s Trevanny into taking on another assassination, this time a complicated one on a train.
Trevanny panics and freezes up on the train, but Ripley intervenes in the nick of time. After the two of them dispatch three hoodlums in the W.C., Trevanny forms an uneasy friendship with Ripley and returns home. He then vainly attempts to persuade Sarah that the money he suddenly possesses is the result of gambling wins in Berlin.
The victims' associates come to Italy
seeking revenge; they storm the villa and kill Reeves, leaving his body in the boot of their car. Ripley has set traps for them, however, and terminates each, with Trevanny's increasingly eager assistance.
Trevanny comes home to find two more thugs holding his wife captive. Ripley spots the killers' car outside in the bushes and doubles back in time to save the day, but in the end Trevanny sacrifices himself to save Ripley from a wounded assassin. Genuinely puzzled by Trevanny's selflessness, Ripley tries to give Sarah her husband's share of the blood money, but she only spits in his face in reply. That night, Ripley attends Luisa's concert as if nothing has happened, but smiles briefly at the memory of Trevanny's bravery.
. Roger Ebert
added Ripley's Game to his "Great Movies" list, calling it "the best of the four" Ripley films he had seen (Purple Noon, The American Friend
, The Talented Mr. Ripley
, Ripley's Game) and Malkovich "precisely the Tom Ripley I imagine when I read the novels," praising what he felt to be "one of [his] most brilliant and insidious performances." Ebert criticized the decision not to release the film theatrically in North America
, writing: "The failure to open it theatrically was a shameful blunder."
Peter Travers
of Rolling Stone gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, writing: "Malkovich oils himself around the plot — icy cool one moment, blazingly violent the next — with a master's finesse. Highsmith wrote five Ripley novels, and other actors have played the part, most recently and most blandly Matt Damon
in The Talented Mr. Ripley
. But Malkovich owns the role. He plays it for keeps." David Rooney of Variety
wrote, "Malkovich's elegantly malicious performance gives Ripley's Game a magnetic center, complemented by Liliana Cavani's efficient direction and an enjoyable retro feel that recalls the British Cold War
thrillers of the 1960s. Despite some pedestrian plotting and a final act that could be tighter, this is suspenseful adult entertainment that should find a receptive audience."
Other critics were less favorable, such as Peter Bradshaw
of The Guardian
, who gave the film two stars out of five. Some critics compared the film unfavorably to the 1977 Wim Wenders
adaptation, The American Friend
. Nathan Rabin
of The Onion
' s A.V. Club
remarked, "Ripley's Game fatally lacks the squirmy, desperate humanity that made Wenders' take on the same material so hauntingly tragic. Like Malkovich's suavely generic international criminal, it's all craft and no soul, with complexity and depth functioning as collateral damage for its slick thriller mechanics." Neil Young's Film Lounge, giving Ripley's Game a score of 6 out of 10, called the film a "largely uninspired" adaptation by a "pedestrian" director, calling The American Friend "brilliant" by comparison, feeling that "any viewer who is a fan of Highsmith and/or The American Friend will have major problems with this version."
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
based on the 1974 novel of the same name
Ripley's Game
Ripley's Game is a psychological thriller by Patricia Highsmith, the third in her "Ripliad" series.-Plot summary:In the third Ripley novel, Tom Ripley is a wealthy man in his early thirties. He lives in Villeperce, France, with his French wife, Heloise...
, the third in Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist and short-story writer most widely known for her psychological thrillers, which led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951...
's "Ripliad," a series of books chronicling the murderous adventures of con artist Tom Ripley. John Malkovich
John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
stars as Highsmith's anti-hero
Anti-hero
In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...
, opposite Dougray Scott
Dougray Scott
-Early life:The son of Elma, a nurse, and Alan Scott, an actor and salesperson, Stephen Dougray Scott was born in Glenrothes, Fife and attended Auchmuty High School...
and Ray Winstone
Ray Winstone
Raymond Andrew "Ray" Winstone is an English film and television actor. He is mostly known for his "tough guy" roles, beginning with that of Carlin in the 1979 film Scum and as Will Scarlet in the cult television adventure series Robin of Sherwood. He has also become well known as a voice over...
.
The director is the veteran Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
filmmaker Liliana Cavani
Liliana Cavani
Liliana Cavani is an Italian film director and screenwriter. She belongs to a generation of Italian filmmakers that came into prominence in the 1970s and includes Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Marco Bellochio. Cavani became internationally known after the success of her 1974 feature...
, whose career dates back to the 1960s and includes one of the 1970s' most controversial movies, The Night Porter
The Night Porter
The Night Porter is a controversial 1974 film by Italian director Liliana Cavani, starring Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling.- Synopsis :...
.
Highsmith's novel was previously adapted in 1977 as The American Friend
The American Friend
The American Friend is a 1977 film by Wim Wenders, loosely adapted from the novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. The film is of the neo-noir genre, and features Dennis Hopper as career criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley...
by director Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
, starring Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
and Bruno Ganz
Bruno Ganz
Bruno Ganz is a Swiss actor, known for his roles as Damiel in Wings of Desire and Adolf Hitler in Downfall.- Early life :Bruno Ganz was born in Zürich to a Swiss mechanic father and a northern Italian mother. He had decided to pursue an acting career by the time he entered university...
.
Plot
Tom Ripley is living in VenetoVeneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
and is involved in an art scam in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, partnered with Reeves, a thuggish British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
gangster whom he orders to remain out on the street as the deal goes down. A violent argument breaks out in which Ripley kills one of his "customers." He gives the money to Reeves but takes the artwork for himself, curtly informing Reeves that their partnership is over.
Three years later, Ripley is extremely wealthy, living in a lush venetian villa with his wife Luisa, a beautiful harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
ist. One day, a neighbor invites him to a party, and has a pleasant time until he overhears the host, Jonathan Trevanny, insulting his taste and making a guarded reference to his questionable past. Ripley briefly confronts him, then sullenly leaves the party.
Reeves resurfaces, much to Ripley's annoyance, asking him to eliminate a rival mobster. Remembering the slight, Ripley recommends that an amateur do it — Trevanny, a law-abiding art framer who is dying of leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
. Reeves offers a bewildered Trevanny the job, which he turns down. He is tempted by the money, however, which he could leave to his wife, Sarah, and son, Matthew, upon his death. He eventually goes through with the job, a hit in Berlin, which he assumes will be a one-time-only assignment. Reeves has other ideas, however; he blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
s Trevanny into taking on another assassination, this time a complicated one on a train.
Trevanny panics and freezes up on the train, but Ripley intervenes in the nick of time. After the two of them dispatch three hoodlums in the W.C., Trevanny forms an uneasy friendship with Ripley and returns home. He then vainly attempts to persuade Sarah that the money he suddenly possesses is the result of gambling wins in Berlin.
The victims' associates come to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
seeking revenge; they storm the villa and kill Reeves, leaving his body in the boot of their car. Ripley has set traps for them, however, and terminates each, with Trevanny's increasingly eager assistance.
Trevanny comes home to find two more thugs holding his wife captive. Ripley spots the killers' car outside in the bushes and doubles back in time to save the day, but in the end Trevanny sacrifices himself to save Ripley from a wounded assassin. Genuinely puzzled by Trevanny's selflessness, Ripley tries to give Sarah her husband's share of the blood money, but she only spits in his face in reply. That night, Ripley attends Luisa's concert as if nothing has happened, but smiles briefly at the memory of Trevanny's bravery.
Cast
- John MalkovichJohn MalkovichJohn Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
as Tom Ripley - Dougray ScottDougray Scott-Early life:The son of Elma, a nurse, and Alan Scott, an actor and salesperson, Stephen Dougray Scott was born in Glenrothes, Fife and attended Auchmuty High School...
as Trevanny - Ray WinstoneRay WinstoneRaymond Andrew "Ray" Winstone is an English film and television actor. He is mostly known for his "tough guy" roles, beginning with that of Carlin in the 1979 film Scum and as Will Scarlet in the cult television adventure series Robin of Sherwood. He has also become well known as a voice over...
as Reeves - Lena HeadeyLena HeadeyLena Headey is an English actress. Headey's performance in a one-off show when she was 17 caught the attention of a casting agent, who took a photo and asked her to audition and eventually she got a supporting role alongside Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke in the 1992 British drama film Waterland and...
as Sarah - Chiara CaselliChiara CaselliChiara Caselli is an Italian actress. In 1994, Caselli won the Nastro d'Argento Best Actress award as well as the David di Donatello for Best Actress award...
as Luisa
Reception
The film has earned mostly positive critical reviews, rating 95% on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
added Ripley's Game to his "Great Movies" list, calling it "the best of the four" Ripley films he had seen (Purple Noon, The American Friend
The American Friend
The American Friend is a 1977 film by Wim Wenders, loosely adapted from the novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. The film is of the neo-noir genre, and features Dennis Hopper as career criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley...
, The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Talented Mr. Ripley (film)
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 American psychological thriller written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella. It is an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith 1955 novel of the same name, which was previously filmed as Plein Soleil .The film stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, Gwyneth...
, Ripley's Game) and Malkovich "precisely the Tom Ripley I imagine when I read the novels," praising what he felt to be "one of [his] most brilliant and insidious performances." Ebert criticized the decision not to release the film theatrically in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, writing: "The failure to open it theatrically was a shameful blunder."
Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
of Rolling Stone gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, writing: "Malkovich oils himself around the plot — icy cool one moment, blazingly violent the next — with a master's finesse. Highsmith wrote five Ripley novels, and other actors have played the part, most recently and most blandly Matt Damon
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...
in The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Talented Mr. Ripley (film)
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 American psychological thriller written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella. It is an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith 1955 novel of the same name, which was previously filmed as Plein Soleil .The film stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, Gwyneth...
. But Malkovich owns the role. He plays it for keeps." David Rooney of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
wrote, "Malkovich's elegantly malicious performance gives Ripley's Game a magnetic center, complemented by Liliana Cavani's efficient direction and an enjoyable retro feel that recalls the British Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
thrillers of the 1960s. Despite some pedestrian plotting and a final act that could be tighter, this is suspenseful adult entertainment that should find a receptive audience."
Other critics were less favorable, such as Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw is a British writer and film critic. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he was President of Footlights.Bradshaw is a film critic for The Guardian...
of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, who gave the film two stars out of five. Some critics compared the film unfavorably to the 1977 Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
adaptation, The American Friend
The American Friend
The American Friend is a 1977 film by Wim Wenders, loosely adapted from the novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. The film is of the neo-noir genre, and features Dennis Hopper as career criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley...
. Nathan Rabin
Nathan Rabin
Nathan Rabin is an American film and music critic. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Rabin was the first head writer for The A.V. Club, a position he continues to hold today....
of The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
remarked, "Ripley's Game fatally lacks the squirmy, desperate humanity that made Wenders' take on the same material so hauntingly tragic. Like Malkovich's suavely generic international criminal, it's all craft and no soul, with complexity and depth functioning as collateral damage for its slick thriller mechanics." Neil Young's Film Lounge, giving Ripley's Game a score of 6 out of 10, called the film a "largely uninspired" adaptation by a "pedestrian" director, calling The American Friend "brilliant" by comparison, feeling that "any viewer who is a fan of Highsmith and/or The American Friend will have major problems with this version."
External links
- Filmografia di Liliana Cavani
- Two Faces of Ripley, filmbrain.com comparison of The American FriendThe American FriendThe American Friend is a 1977 film by Wim Wenders, loosely adapted from the novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. The film is of the neo-noir genre, and features Dennis Hopper as career criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley...
and Ripley's Game