Ripley's Game

Tom Ripley, a wealthy and cultured art dealer, lives quietly in a villa in Italy's Veneto region with his partner, a musician. His past catches up with him when a former associate from Berlin's underworld asks for help eliminating a rival. Rather than act himself, Ripley turns the request into a private experiment, targeting Jonathan Trevanny, a modest local picture framer who has shown him disrespect. Trevanny is seriously ill and worried about providing for his wife and young son, which makes him vulnerable to an offer of money in exchange for a killing. Ripley's manipulation draws the ordinary man into a criminal world, and events soon move beyond his control.

Liliana Cavani directed this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel, working from a screenplay she wrote with Charles McKeown. It came roughly three decades after her best-known features, The Night Porter and Francesco, and is followed in her filmography by The Order of Time. John Malkovich plays Ripley, with Dougray Scott as Trevanny, Ray Winstone as Reeves, Lena Headey as Sarah Trevanny and Chiara Caselli as Luisa Harari. The production cost about 30 million US dollars and returned around 6 million worldwide, a poor result. On IMDb and TMDB, audience ratings sit around the middle range, while a smaller group of critics rated it noticeably higher.