Films Based on Patricia Highsmith's Novels

Tom Ripley Series (3 Films Set in Italy)

1) The Talented Mr. Ripley
Plot Synopsis: The 1950s. Manhattan lavatory attendant, Tom Ripley, borrows a Princeton jacket to play piano at a garden party. When the wealthy father of a recent Princeton grad chats Tom up, Tom pretends to know the son and is soon offered $1,000 to go to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf to return home. In Italy, Tom attaches himself to Dickie and to Marge, Dickie's cultured fiancée, pretending to love jazz and harboring homoerotic hopes as he soaks in luxury. Besides lying, Tom's talents include impressions and forgery, so when the handsome and confident Dickie tires of Tom, dismissing him as a bore, Tom goes to extreme lengths to make Greenleaf's privileges his own.

    Purple Noon - This French film is based on the book The Talented Mr Ripley...

Plot Synopsis: Tom Ripley is sent to Europe by Mr. Greenleaf to fetch his spoiled, playboy son, Philip, and bring him back home to the States. In return, Tom will recieve $5,000. Philip toys with Tom, pretending he will go back home, but has no intentions of leaving his bride to be, Marge, and honoring his father's wishes. After some time passes, Mr. Greenleaf considers the mission a failure and cuts Tom off. Tom, in desperation, kills Philip, assumes his identity, and lives the life of a rich playboy. However, people begin to miss Philip, and start searching for him, but the trail keeps leading to Tom. Soon, a family friend catches on, and Tom finds himself commiting another murder to cover his tracks, and slowly but surely, the police are closing in...

2) Ripley's Game

The slippery protagonist of The Talented Mr. Ripley returns in another deadly guise in Ripley's Game, a well-appointed star vehicle. The star this time is John Malkovich, whose older Tom Ripley has settled into an Italian villa and a life of aesthetic contemplation (a little like Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal). A former partner (Ray Winstone) drags an innocent frame-maker (Dougray Scott), dying of leukemia, into the role of unexpected hit man. Ripley, for his own enigmatic reasons, helps. Liliana Cavani, of The Night Porter notoriety, directed this handsome if nebulous film (which has no connection to the Matt Damon picture, other than a Patricia Highsmith source novel). Malkovich exudes his usual oily disenchantment with the world; Lena Headey, like the location footage, is gorgeous.