This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend. Read the full disclosure here.
“Ripley’s Reviews” is an ongoing series where I will review every book in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” Series, as well as multiple screen adaptations of the novels. I will post my reviews on the first Thursday of the month, and delve into the twisted mind of one Tom Ripley and all the various interpretations that he has come to life within. Up next is the fourth film adaptation of a “Ripley” book I’m covering, the 2005 film “Ripley Under Ground”.
Film: “Ripley Under Ground” (2005)
When I was doing my research on adaptations on the Ripliad, one of the films that was mentioned was the movie “Ripley Under Ground”, though many times it was also mentioned that it wasn’t easy to find. I had NEVER heard of this adaptation of a Tom Ripley book, which intrigued me. I was even more intrigued when I saw that Barry Pepper was playing Tom, as I know him from films like “The Green Mile” and “Crawl” and the thought of him as Ripley was interesting. This film came out to very limited release in 2005, and yes I can confirm it wasn’t an easy film to find on streaming (I couldn’t even find a trailer that wasn’t in German, hence the lack of link above). But I did find it, and committed to watching it as part of the Ripley series on the blog. After all, just because it was kind of lost to time, it had some promise. It’s a Ripley story! It has a cast. Wellll…. sadly, it’s the weakest adaptation yet, and it’s not even close.
I’m going to spoil some things in this, because without doing so I can’t fully explain some of my issues with the film. Fair warning!
It’s a very…. confusing adaptation. Firstly, this movie has basically treated this story like a standalone story, erasing “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and therein completely shifting Ripley’s backstory, history of violence, and desperation to keep up appearances. Instead he’s a poor wannabe actor (no Dickie Greenleaf murder, no money to inherit from his parents) who does have a history of conning people (after all, he cons his way out of paying rent, and has conned his way into his theater school), but has NO history of the murder and sociopathy the original character has. We’ve seen a standalone film of a sequel before, as “The American Friend” is very much a standalone and a very different Ripley. But for this kind of change to work, I REALLY need a, well, TALENTED Mr. Ripley to make up for it. Dennis Hopper brings that. Barry Pepper, unfortunately, does not. He barely has anything of a personality to speak of, and because of that is not compelling at all. It also removes a lot of his darker impulses, basically changing the one very clear murder Ripley commits in the book to an accident that Ripley has to clean up after. And to make things even more strange and confusing, the movie decides that Heloise… yes, Ripley’s naive and generally harmless wife Heloise… has to be something of a femme fatal and become a HUGE accomplice to him in his crimes, even going to far as to suggesting that they murder her father for his fortune right before the credits roll.
I’ve been kind of mean to Barry Pepper, and but it’s warranted because I would say he’s probably the weakest member of the cast. Everyone else does a pretty good job. Willem Dafoe chews the scenery as art collector Murchison, even if at times it’s a little over the top. I quite enjoyed Alan Cumming as Ripley’s co-conspirator Jeff Constant, and we got a bit of a gender bent other co-conspirator with Claire Forlani as Cynthia, Derwatt’s girlfriend at the time of his death. Tom Wilkinson is the detective on the case, and I always like seeing him in things. But the stand out is Ian Hart as the guilt ridden and unstable Bernard, the friend that Ripley et al pressure into forging the paintings after they all witness Derwatt’s death. It’s a shame because I did enjoy the ensemble (OH AND ALSO we have a small role for Simon Callow of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Amadeus” fame!), but with the lead being so lackluster it really brought the rest of the movie down. You really have to have an engaging Tom Ripley for a Tom Ripley film to work.
“Ripley Under Ground” was a baffling and disappointing adaptation. It’s pretty clear there is a reason that it has fallen by the wayside when compared to other films that strive to tell the Tom Ripley story. Up next I’m going to do something a little different. There isn’t a film adaptation of “The Boy Who Followed Ripley”. But there IS a BBC Radio Program adaptation, with Ian Hart (yes the same Ian Hart from above) as Tom Ripley, and Nicholas Hoult as Frank! So that’s up next!
The Library Ladies 