Stream tonight: a suspenseful thriller starring Matt Damon in one of his best roles

If you’re in the mood for a murderous trip to Italy, where a pair of seasoned Hollywood stars plot against each other in the utmost excitement and keep you glued to the television screen under high tension, then “The Talented Mr. Ripley” is the one for you. choice for you. Matt Damon (“Good Will Hunting”) plays the title role in the film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name, following in the footsteps of Alain Delon and Dennis Hopper, who embodied the famous novel character in film adaptations by René Clemont and Wim Wenders.

Damon especially shines here as a cunning but seemingly innocent con man and even delivers one of the best performances of his career as Tom Ripley. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you can currently watch Paramount+, where ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ is available as a streaming subscription.

There is also the thriller of it Anthony Minghella (“The English Patient”) can be seen on the Paramount+ channel on Amazon Prime Video, which you can add to your Prime Video subscription for 7.99 euros per month. A seven-day trial period is also offered for the channel.

That’s what “The Talented Mr. Ripley” is about

Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) supports himself with odd jobs in expensive New York City and often plays as a booked pianist at major events. For example, he meets the wealthy manufacturer Herbert R. Greenleaf (James Rebhorn), who, because of his blazer, thinks he has graduated from Princeton University and is therefore a former student of his son Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law). Dickie has been wandering aimlessly through Italy for years, which his father doesn’t like at all. He quickly offers Tom $1,000 to track down Dickie in Rome and bring him back to New York City.

Always in need of money, Tom agrees and travels to Italy, where he tracks down Dickie and his fiancée Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Patrow) and befriends them under false pretenses. Tom quickly develops a fondness for the lives of the rich and famous, as well as Dickie himself, whose attention he desperately seeks. When an argument drives him to a reflexive and momentous decision, Tom becomes increasingly entangled in the construction of his own lies and assumes the identity of Dickie.

A story that has been told many times, but rarely this well

If this description of the content also reminds you of Emerald Fennell’s psychological thriller “Saltburn”, then you are not far wrong. “The Talented Mr. Ripley” undoubtedly served as the inspiration for Fennell’s streaming hit on Amazon Prime Video, starring Barry Keoghan in a Tom Ripley-esque role.

Although the ‘Eat the Rich’ fable with homoerotic undertones has been told several times in film history, it has rarely been as successful as Minghella, who in Damon’s Ripley draws neither a strange caricature nor a one-dimensional murderer, but a complex character that 1999 was way ahead of its time.

The picturesque images of the Italian coast combined with the turbulent city life of Rome take you into a backdrop of longing that sometimes strikingly underlines or sometimes dramatically contrasts the events. Jude Law (“Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets”) and Gwyneth Patrow (“Iron Man”) are only slightly behind Damon in their acting performances, while Cate Blanchett (“Tár”) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (“The Big Lebowski”) can also shine in supporting roles.

Tom Ripley – coming soon to series

We can’t wait to see how Steven Zaillian’s (“Verblendung”) Netflix series “Ripley” will adapt the popular material. It stars Andrew Scott, star of Sherlock and All Of Us Strangers, as Tom Ripley. Dakota Fanning (“Eclipse”) and Johnny Flynn (“Lovesick”) embody the couple Marge Sherwood and Dickie Greenleaf. The series will be released on Netflix on April 4, 2024.