When I like a book, I dread possible movie adaptations - they often don't get the tone right, or change things they should leave well enough alone, or just royally screw things up in one way or another.
There are times when I've been pleasantly surprised, like with the movie adaptation of The End of the Affair, which changes just what it needs to change to make a good film out of the book; or with The Bridges of Madison County, which actually improves on a book so dull you could bludgeon the author to death with it.
On the other hand, movies often manage to pique my interest and get me to look at a book or author I would otherwise have ignored. Fight Club got me hooked in the book, for instance, but the results are not always uniformly positive.
Witness The Talented Mr. Ripley, an excellent piece of filmmaking which introduced me to both the series of books and Anthony Minghella films. A stylish, taut thriller, it somehow manages to make you root for the sociopathic Tom Ripley, who at the same time feels so alien in his actions that you simply can't figure out what may be going through his head, why he does things that make no sense whatsoever and for which he'll likely get caught, or how he somehow manages to avoid somebody detecting the monster under his skin throughout most of the film.
Being the almost obsessive reader that I am, it was only a matter of time before I ended up getting the book.
The Talented Mr. Ripley had a hard time winning me over. I had seen the movie first and enjoyed it, so it was firmly lodged in my mind. The book differs from the movie in several but non-integral parts, but one bothered me: Ripley the cypher from the movie is lost, his actions, thoughts and feelings presented and explained clearly by Highsmith. This explanation partly spoils the character's mystique - you know why he is doing what he is doing, whether it is jealousy, insecurity or just mad impulse - but that's an author's prerrogative.
Followed by Ripley Under Ground we find an older, married Tom Ripley, still up to his old criminal dealings but now on a more refined manner. This book was written some fifteen years after the first one, and it shows in the way that it feels so much like an author getting reacquainted with her character. Yes, here's our good Tom Ripley, but this time placed on a story so pedestrian and irrelevant that one can't help but feel that this book is nothing but an exercise, or maybe an introduction intended for the next book but which grew out of the author's control. The fact that most of the characters (with the sole exception of Ripley's wife) are cardboard doesn't help.
The third book in the series, Ripley's Game has a much stronger sense of character development. Easily overshadowing the recent movie adaptation, Ripley's Game actually plays with the characters as much as Ripley plays with his victim/friend, and in a subtle way we get to see him learn something, and maybe subtly change.
The Tom Ripley series may not be your glass of Claret if you're looking for moments of high tension or tense plotting (the movie is better in that regard) but it is an excellent diversion when what you want is character development and situations that, while you may not expect them to happen, make sense when they do.
And after all, it's a positive delight to watch a refined monster at work.
Posted by Ricardo at January 19, 2004 10:53 PM