Greatest Movie Disappointments (Top 3 )

No. 3: Ripley’s Game (2002)

I have read Patricia Highsmith's original novel and I have seen the movie versions with Alain Delon and Matt Daimon. I love all three, including the countless differences between them, and I find Tom Ripley's character immensely fascinating, in a way even inspiring, though quite a bit chilling as well. I understand this movie – Ripley's Game – was based on a later novel by Highsmith, another instalment in the Ripley franchise, first published in 1974. This I haven't read. But I do hope it is far better than the screenplay.

It goes without saying that John Malkovich is a fine actor who would make a terrific Tom Ripley. If only he had a fine script to work on! The story here is perfectly idiotic; a five-year-old kid wouldn't buy such illogical behaviour. You want somebody dead, and whom do you hire for the job? A terminally ill and completely inexperienced picture framer. Give me a break, will you! The rushed action and the pedestrian dialogue only make the plot more incoherent – if that's possible at all.

What can one say about the cast? It’s probably unjust to blame the poor fellows. Nobody can pull off such trash convincingly, right? No, not quite. The novel was in fact filmed as early as 1977 under the title Der amerikanische Freund (1977). The story was pretty much the same preposterous crap, but the picture starred two fabulous actors, Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz, who did a truly great job and made it almost believable. Not so here. With the possible exception of Malkovich, the acting is hilariously inept. Who was this cruel person who lied to Dougray Scott that he could act at all? Any piece of wood will do a much better job.

The only thing this movie counts on is shock value. This it has. All murders – and there are many of them – are shown is the most graphic way possible, including a lovely scene of garrotting. So there is a good deal of pancake syrup around and the audience, provided that it's mentally deficient, is happy. For the sophisticated who are keen on higher pleasures, there are a few steamy soft-core scenes.

All in all, a stupendously dull and worthless movie: stupid story, weak acting, lots of unnecessary blood and gore. Even the visual side is drab to the extreme. The rating of this movie and the positive reviews it gets baffle me no end.

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No. 2 The Big Sleep (1978)

This must be one of the most horrible remakes ever made. I don't have anything against remakes in general, provided that the new approach is fresh and convincing enough, and that one thinks carefully before doing again something that has long become a classic. Neither is the case here.

The only redeeming quality of this version of The Big Sleep is that it keeps much closer to Chandler's chilling novel than the classic with Humphrey Bogart. In 1978, it was possible to show on the screen nudity, drugs, pornography and violence quite unacceptable in 1946. But this is – let me repeat – the only plus of this version. Everything else is embarrassingly inferior to the original – either the book or the movie.

To begin with, moving the whole story to England is truly preposterous. Chandler is far too hard-boiled for the prudish Britons. Seldom have I seen a better illustration of the huge difference between the English and the American mentality. I no longer wonder that Americans and British insist on being cousins, instead of brothers and sisters.

Second, Robert Mitchum is insufferable. The man is stupendously dull! Pretty much all of his lines are delivered in a way that makes you think he would fall asleep there and then, or has just been woken up perhaps. After Humphrey Bogart's debonair and charming portrayal, it is truly unendurable to watch Mitchum's tired and tedious performance. I understand he stepped in the shoes of the famous sleuth in other movies, too. I do hope he improves vastly on this soporific mess.

The rest of the cast is entirely indifferent. The only sparkle comes from the very young Oliver Reed who does manage to convey something of the sinister character of Eddie Mars. The Sternwood sisters, whatever their English first names were, are laughably inadequate to their parts. The sensual charm of the elder has gone on holiday (and boy, is she plain!), and the nymphomaniac infantilism of the younger one is grossly exaggerated beyond any reasonable limits.

Last but not least, the direction, the cinematography and the adaptation range from passable to dismal – with a strong prevalence of the latter. Though the script is fairly close to the novel in terms of events and violence, it omits much too much of Chandler's (mostly) brilliant dialogue. Apparently, as I said, it's much too tough and slangy for the fastidious crime buffs on the other side of the Atlantic.

In short, watching this junk is a sheer waste of time. Much better read the novel or see the 1946 classic with Boggie and Bacall, or both. The old movie differs from the novel is quite a few ways, including a much more light-hearted atmosphere, but on the whole it is infinitely superior to the so-called remake.

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No. 1: 2001, A Space Odyssey (1968)

Let me make this clear in the beginning: the extravagant praise usually accorded to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey I have always found frightfully perplexing. All the more so since Arthur Clarke’s eponymous novel is without any reservations among my all-time favourite books. The importance of Stanley Kubrick, however, ends with his stimulating effect over Arthur Clarke during the bizarre brainstorming out of which both the novel and the screenplay – written in parallel – were born. The complicated relationship between both mediums has been eloquently described by Arthur Clarke himself in his lovely little book The Lost Worlds of 2001 (1972). But it is the movie I am here dealing with.

Now, I wish there was other say to say it, but there isn’t. The movie is perfect crap! What exactly its classical status rests upon is an absolute mystery for me. It is a visual tour de force all right, but that’s just about the only asset it might possibly have. Except perhaps that some of its music is among the greatest ever composed; if, indeed, the movie has brought to more receptive ears the famous opening of Richard Strauss’ magnificent tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra, that’s something; actually, this opening is famous more because of this movie than because of anything else, I think. As for the visual side, it is not nearly as impressive today as it must have been in 1968, of course, but it has aged surprisingly well. So much for the good sides, though.

For otherwise the movie is one failure after another. To begin with, a good many people have complained that when they saw it before the book, they didn’t understand the ending at all; only later did the novel make it clear. This is as expected – for the ending is an incomprehensible mess. What’s worse, the pace is appallingly slow. Imagine a spaceship landing that lasts for full ten minutes, during which you can appreciate Strauss’ famous waltz An der schönen blauen Donau, another masterpiece from the soundtrack. But even the greatest music cannot make the scene less tedious. Never have I seen a movie that drags so obviously and so painfully.

The whole cast is downright horrible. Keir Dullea is the dullest Dave Bowman one could possibly imagine. He never so much as raises his voice above monotonous whisper or changes the mask-like expression of his face. The famous dramatic dialogue with HAL, one of the highlights in the book, is ridiculously humdrum on the screen. Instead of the mighty collision between man and machine you are right to expect, you get two technicians – crashing bores, both of them – who discuss the board manual. The bland fellow, whatever his name was, who plays Heywood Floyd cannot act to save his life, poor thing. Just take a look at the conversation he has with the others while they are traveling to TMA-1 or the soporific conference before that. These guys are about to investigate the first solid proof of extraterrestrial intelligence ever discovered by the human race. Yet they are discussing the matter with a sort of chatty indifference as if it were the latest baseball game. Indeed, they may well get more excited about baseball.

In short, the immense philosophical depth of the novel is completely, absolutely and overwhelmingly missing from the screen adaptation. So are the suspense, the mystique and the drama.

Apologists, who are usually quite scornful to anybody who dares to criticize their cherished masterpiece, have tried to justify Kubrick’s static and inept direction with an utmost search for realism. Spaceship landings are really very slow, astronauts really are boring people, and so on and so forth. This, of course, is tosh. Realism is just the last refuge of mediocrity; nothing more, nothing less. The novel is, for the most part, quite realistic, yet it never feels dragged or tedious. The movie does all the time. Nor do I find Dave Bowman or Heywood Floyd boring on paper. Once Upon a Time in the West is one of the most realistic and slow-paced movies I have ever seen. Yet, it is one of my all-time favourites as well. How could this glaring contradiction be? It’s very simple, really. In addition to Ennio Morricone’s beautiful score, the cast is magnificent, perfectly selected to the last cameo. Above all, when it comes to evocative power and dramatic intensity, Sergio Leone’s masterful direction is unsurpassed. Stanley Kubrick doesn’t even come close.

Surely the movie must have been groundbreaking visually in 1968 – and perhaps not only visually indeed – but what is there to keep it in the stores 45 years later I have not the least idea. I wonder how far it would have gone had it not been accompanied by the novel, first published a few months after the premiere. For my money, speaking of 1968 and thought-provoking science fiction, Planet of the Apes is a far better achievement. It’s not perfect, that’s for sure; many things in it could have been improved. Nevertheless, it delivers compelling and stimulating entertainment from the opening scene to the end credits. Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey, no matter how much it may parade as a profound masterpiece, delivers only excruciating boredom and exasperating mediocrity. I have seen it twice, and enough is enough. Over and out.

A Comparative Review: Plein Soleil (1960) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

Plein Soleil (1960) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999): 
A Comparative Review

For those who wonder about the first movie, this is the original title of Purple Noon, starring Alain Delon as Tom Ripley, directed by René Clément, and released a good many years ago – just a few years after novel itself, in fact. The other version is, of course, the one directed by Anthony Minghella, starring Matt Damon in the title role.

Broadly and very roughly speaking, strange as this may sound, it seems to me that Anthony Minghella’s version is slightly closer to the book in terms of minor plot details, whereas René Clément’s adaptation is much truer in terms of characters. But this is surely an oversimplification, for both movies could hardly have been more different; apart from the names of the main characters, I think all scenes they share are the two murders and Tom’s having fun with Dickie’s clothes in his room and in front of his mirror, and even here there are many small differences. Curiously, in both cases the director is also the author of the screenplay, though René Clément is actually a co-screenwriter. This is all for the better. Adaptation of a novel for the screen is largely a matter of personal vision, and so is the final movie. If, then, the director and the screenwriter are the same man, or at least different sides of the same man, we may expect an excellent collaboration between them.

Matt Damon as Tom Ripley

I have to admit that Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley has been growing on me. The first time I saw it, a good many years ago, I didn’t like it at all. Later I was swept off my feet by Plein Soleil, and I still think it is the better movie, but now I also have a great deal of admiration for Minghella’s version. I still don’t like Matt Damon’s horse face and I still think he is by way of being miscast, but his performance is not without merit. He has some haunting lines which he delivers in a memorable way:

  If I could just go back... if I could rub everything out... starting with myself.

I always thought it'd be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

Don't you just take the past and put it in a room in a basement and lock the door and never go in there? That's what I do. [...] And then you meet someone special and all you want to do is to toss them the key and say; open up, step inside, but you can't, because it's dark, There's demons and if anybody saw how ugly it is. I keep wanting to do that, fling the door open just let light in and clean everything out.

Well, whatever you do, however terrible, however hurtful, it all makes sense, doesn't it, in your head. You never meet anybody that thinks they're a bad person.

Stirring lines. I don’t remember any of them in the novel, so I guess Anthony Minghella should be given credit for them. And not a negligible one, either. His adaptation also has few additional original touches that are delightful. The passion for music – jazz for Dickie, classical for Tom – is ever more convincing than the original painting in the novel. The scene in the opera house is one of the most dramatic and brilliantly done in the whole movie; the excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is beautifully staged, deeply moving and more than relevant. Minghella also makes an excellent use of the rather sketchy in the novel Peter Smith-Kingsley and introduces Meredith who seems to be a completely original character yet fits the action to perfection. So is the episode with Silvana, for that matter.

The fascinating thing about Minghella’s version is that the character of Tom Ripley which Matt Damon has to recreate is vastly different than the one in the novel. He is certainly not the cold-blooded murderer calculating everything with frightening calmness; indeed, the killing of Dickie is almost an accident, a kind of self-defence. This Tom Ripley is more vulnerable and sensitive а creature than the one in Patricia’s book. He manages adroitly the deceiving game and he kills swiftly when he has to, as in the case of Freddie Miles, but he still seems to me a rather pathetic creature more worthy of sympathy than of fear. The only drawback of the character, as far as I am concerned, are the hints about homosexuality. It is very briefly mentioned in the novel and entirely missing from Clément’s version. Rightly so, since the sexual orientation has nothing to do with the most fascinating sides of Tom Ripley’s character.  

The endings are hugely different, yet both are in their own way chilling. The Talented Mr Ripley finishes with Murder No. 3, conveyed only by sound, and an ingenious shot showing the transformation of Matt Damon’s profile from brightly lit to pitch dark and then closing a door until the whole screen turns black, certainly a stroke of genius on Minghella’s part. The murderer gets away but I can’t help feeling sorry for him. How long can he go on like this, knowing not who he really is, under the constant danger of arrest, with wrecked nerves and full of paranoid obsessions? Is the price too high for him? Will he get away next time? Is it worth it? Difficult questions, all of them.

By contrast, in the end of Plein Soleil Tom Ripley is caught by the police. This ending has been much disparaged, including by Patricia herself, as unnecessarily changed to satisfy the popular taste that the criminal must be punished and all that sort of thing. I don’t see it that way. To begin with, Rene Clément’s idea how to get Tom caught, not to mention his directing the scene, is nothing short of perfect. Who would have thought that, having apparently won everything, Tom would fall in the hands of the police because of such a tiny detail? The scene of his arrest is carefully prepared but the arrest itself is completely missing, substituted by a lovely picture of beach and sea. The sun is shining brightly but you feel cold inside – and by you I mean of course I.

Alain Delon as Tom Ripley

Now, Tom Ripley in Plein Soleil is Tom Ripley from The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, only considerably simplified for the screen of course. He doesn’t kill Dickie almost by accident but after serious planning and with stunning audacity. It is not for nothing that the weapon is changed here – it is indeed a weapon, a large knife, instead of the oar used in both the other movie and the book. The performance of Alain Delon, absurdly young and even more absurdly beautiful at the time, is superb at all fronts, infinitely superior to anything Matt Damon is capable of; then again, as mentioned earlier, the latter has quite another fish to fry. But Delon conveys the ruthlessness and the especially the charm of Tom Ripley in a way that may well freeze your blood. Pity, indeed, that his amazing beauty often leads to gross underestimation of his acting skills, which are considerable. Some of the most unforgettable scenes are Tom’s training Dickie’s signature or forging his passport and their conversations on the yacht immediately before the murder. All these plot details are strokes of genius, superbly acted and perceptively directed. Moreover, such nuances add verisimilitude that is missing in Minghella’s adaptation or Patricia’s original. The presumption that Tom and Dickie are so much alike that one can use the passport of the other, even under the scrutiny of a police officer, is a trifle too fanciful to be believed by the demanding reader, or the even more demanding viewer.

Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf

The main advantages of Minghella’s movie are the absolutely gorgeous sets, both in San Remo and in Rome (the former is omitted in Clément’s version), and especially the marvellous supporting cast. Gwyneth Paltrow is a fine and suitably vacuous Marge – but not that stupid, after all; the looks she shots Tom when she realises the truth are unforgettable. Jude Law gives a powerful performance as the flippant and gay Dickie Greenleaf, though his character is perhaps a trifle overdone in this respect. Philip Seymour Hoffman as the vulgar and bumptious Freddie Miles, Cate Blanchett as the silly, pretty and mentally unstable Meredith, and Jack Davenport as the handsome, homosexual and charming Peter Smith-Kingsley are all excellent. Interestingly, the last two characters are missing from the other movie (and Meredith is missing from the book, for that matter). The only slight disappointment is James Rebhorn as Dickie’s father and Philip Baker Hall as the detective, the former largely missing from and the latter less important in Clément’s version.

Perhaps the most serious flaw in Minghella’s screenplay (as well as in the book) is indeed the episode with the detective. It is difficult to believe that such a smart guy, who has discovered so much from scratch, should really fail to see and find proof that it was exactly Tom Ripley who killed both Dickie Greenleaf and Freddie Miles (in defence of the book, the detective there strikes Tom as only “moderately bright”, which he apparently is). But the sets are truly incomparable! The glittering glamour, the dolce vita that American expatriates led in Italy from the 1950s, is captured to perfection.

Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge

This is what Plein Soleil most painfully lacks: visual glamour. Not only is the San Remo episode skipped, but the sets in Rome and Naples are as drab as anything and the camera work is rather poor most of the time; perhaps one is unwise to expect more from a French movie released in 1960. Those shaking shots during the yacht scenes are vividly realistic, to be sure, but the Roman philandering of Tom and Dickie (here called Philip) is rather amateurishly done. That said, the only real disappointment among the cast is Billy Kearns as Freddie Miles; he is sufficiently arrogant, but not quite as tasteless as this particular Princeton graduate is expected to be. Marie Laforet is an excellent Marge – common and cute – and her quarrel with Philip makes his disappearance later much more plausible; the change of heart that Minghella and Highsmith try to make us believe just does not carry conviction. After Alain Delon’s magnificent performance, my personal Oscar for best actor goes to Maurice Ronet who is an outstanding Philip Greenleaf, way superior to Jude Law and indeed much more suitably presented in the screenplay, not as somebody determined not to go back, but as an eternally vacillating fellow not quite serious enough to make up his own mind, perhaps unconsciously seduced by the easy life in Southern Italy.

Maurice Ronet as Philip Greenleaf

The only drawback in Clément’s screenplay is the populist attraction of Tom to Marge. It has the same detrimental effect as the homosexuality in the Minghella’s movie. It is entirely out of character, indeed it detracts from the character, and is rightly never mentioned in the book. Minghella’s version makes only one short and insignificant mention of it (in that great scene when Tom was about to cut Marge’s throat). Apart from that, it would perhaps have been nice if the first part of the movie – until the first murder – had been extended a little bit, especially considering the great performance of Maurice Ronet.

At any rate, the two movies are so vastly different that both are well worth watching. Though they, I suspect, can make the book less compelling than it might otherwise be, Patricia’s novel remains a very enjoyable read. Despite occasional tedium and clumsiness, it has at least two major advantages over either of the movies. It gives greater insight into Tom Ripley’s confused yet fascinating mind, and the plot is a great deal more complicated and suspenseful.