Revisiting 1999: The Top Ten Films of the Year, #1 --- The Talented Mr. Ripley (Anthony Minghella)
Here's what I've covered so far...
The Top 10 Films of 1999:
4- Three Kings (David O. Russell)
3- Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson)
2- Bringing Out the Dead (Martin Scorsese)
Perhaps some of you are conjuring up images from T.S. Eliot right now as you see a list end with a film that seems more like whimper compared to the 'flashier' films that precede my pick for the best film of 1999, The Talented Mr. Ripley. Anthony Minghella's Hitchcockian tale does seem a bit inert when compared to the more innovative and energetic films that challenged the Hollywood machine like Being John Malkovich, Three Kings, Magnolia, and Bringing Out the Dead; however, it is often harder to make something so seamless, so smooth, so wholly classic Hollywood that to label The Talented Mr. Ripley anything but a huge success is not only missing what it offers, but what it shares in common with those other more 'livelier' films. Here is a film that one level feels right at home in the 40's or 50's as an effective, noirish tale of jealousy and murder; but also on another level contains some of my favorite postmodern themes like doppelgangers, identity crisis, and pastiche. Sure, the film may seem static and pretentious -- too aware of what it's doing for its own good -- but The Talented Mr. Ripley is as aesthetically classic and pleasing as a film of its ilk gets. I make no apologies for my love of this brilliantly executed adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel. Every shot, every cut, every bit of pacing and acting is pulled off with a classical gusto while deeper and darker ambiguous undertones flow beneath the film's sheeny, seemingly safe, surface. It's just about as perfect as a movie experience can be.