Murder with Taste

Some things get better with age. When I was 14, I saw The Talented Mr. Ripley and thought I'd enjoyed it. Seeing it again today made me realize how many references and codes I missed. A stylized summary is de rigeur.

Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) leaves the grotty Meat Packing District in New York with a leather tote bag (right now the same bag is being carried by trendy gays in the equally trendy MPD)...

...and goes to Sicily to befriend Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow) and hold her bag, while she struts around like a waspy Sophia Loren. 

But Tom has his eyes set on firmer things. Dickie's butt, for example. (Supplied generously by Jude Law, Marge's boyfriend).



Unsurprisingly, Tom ingraties himself with the couple. Even Ripley sees that dandy trumps corduroy.

But when Dickie rejects Tom's advances and tells him he's a bore, heads roll.

Marge suspects that Tom might have murdered Dickie. Yet she is too busy picking out a fabulous leotard outfit to stop Ripley from covering his traces and eloping with her gay best friend, Peter. 

The End.