As fictional antiheroes go, Patricia Highsmithâs deliciously amoral Tom Ripley is simply irresistible.
First crushing on, then crushing, sneering dilettante Dickie Greenleaf, Ripley casually assumes his identity (and careless wealth). We should be repulsed by such a repugnant character. Instead, we mentally egg him on. Why? A lot of his inexplicable appeal has to do with class. When we first meet Ripley in Highsmithâs 1955 novel, heâs cruising seedy New York bars, on the lam from cops and debtors pursuing him for petty theft and fraud charges. A man down on his luck, we understand his hustle.
Jumping at shadows, the appearance of an impeccably dressed Greenleaf senior, Herbert, startles Ripley. Is the older man an unusually well-dressed detective, or even, *gasp*, a âpervertâ?
Crashing through the class barrier, Ripley seizes on Herbertâs presumptuous approach with an offer too good to resist: an impossibly well-paid gig, tasked with retrieving Herbertâs recalcitrant son from fictional Italian beach town, Mongibello
How could Ripley say no? Once there, how could he let go? A provocation to seize a world well beyond his means. Better the devil we know, weâre on Ripleyâs side as he claims his slice of this indulgent life from mean-spirited one percenters. After all, Highsmith borrows Mongibello from the Italian for active volcano Mount Etna, and Ripleyâs here to blow shit up.
Whoâs involved in this latest adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley?
The suspenseful, smoky...
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