The Talented Mr Ripley Analysis

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The Talented Mr. Ripley is a crime fiction novel by Patricia Highsmith that was adapted into a movie in 1999 by director Anthony Minghella. Both the book and movie follow Tom Ripley through Europe after he is asked by Richard (Dickie) Greenleaf’s father to convince Dickie to return home to America. The most crucial aspect of the story’s plotline is the exposition because in order to truly understand Mr. Ripley and his actions throughout the novel the audience has to have a strong background knowledge to his character. Both versions of the story provide an adequate introduction, however due to the time constraint the movie is missing important information that contributes the atmosphere presented in the book. To make up for this the director …show more content…

The movie introduces Tom and the story but lacks in creating a strong foundation for the story to build upon. It also lacks in presenting Tom as a character that the audience can identify with. In the movie Mr. Greenleaf does not have a reason to ask Tom specifically to go to Europe for him and Tom does not have a true motive to say yes. Also Tom’s personality is only presented briefly and this hinders the audience’s ability to sympathize with his actions. In contrast Highsmith creates a strong base for the story and a full personality for Tom. She does this in writing about how he lives in a grotesque house and doesn’t have a job as well as how he is impersonating George McAlpin. She writes about Tom in a way that forces the reader to sympathise and relate to him because if the reader were in his exact situation they would be likely to make the same decisions. As a result of this sympathy early on the reader is more likely to continue to sympathize with him later on in the novel when he commits horrendous crimes. She causes the reader to gain an understanding of how someone as sociopath as Tom thinks and feels and allows one to identify with some of his

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