LYT's Weblog

The deal with the Ripley books, for those who don't know, is that they're murder mysteries from the point of view of the murderer, with the mystery being how he'll get away -- since there are numerous other books about him, you know he will. RIPLEY UNDER GROUND has a lot of fun with the premise, playing up the humor of Ripley having to deal with crazy bits of evidence that keep showing up right when he thinks he's gotten rid of it all. Author Highsmith is dead now, but she apparently approved the script before leaving us.

The setting here is the London art scene, with Ripley attending a show by his friend Derwatt (Douglas Henshall), an arrogant Irish drunk and the designated next big thing. Alas, at the after-party, Derwatt makes the mistake of proposing to longtime girlfriend Cynthia (Claire Forlani), who's grown tired of him. Dismayed by her "no" answer, Derwatt goes on a drunk driving spree and kills himself. And much to the chagrin of his agent Jeff (Alan Cumming, amusing as always), he's not yet famous enough to have his death make his work valuable. So Ripley and friends hatch a plan to hide the body and not tell anyone the man is dead, at least not yet.

But then a crazy American collector (Willem Dafoe) shows up wanting to spend big bucks on Derwatt's next painting. The plot thickens when Ripley and friends discover that their buddy Bernard (Ian Hart), is able to paint in Derwatt's style, and with a bit of sexual incentive from Cynthia, he starts painting forgeries. All goes well for a while, until the collector begins to suspect something. Meanwhile, Ripley's in France, romancing rich heiress Heloise (LADDER 47's Jacinda Barrett, unrecognizable and smokin').

Suffice it to say that Derwatt isn't the only corpse in the film.

Pepper's got the right balance of blankness and charm for the role, and his reapartee with Scotland Yard inspector Webster (Tom Wilkinson) is priceless. Spottiswoode's dark humor really kicks in in the second half, so if you feel like the first half is trailing, just hang on. My complaint with him is that the sex scenes have that Hollywood vibe where you know they're being carefully shot so that the actresses don't have to show anything. Forlani's enough of a name that she can pull that crap, but Barrett? She's good, but there are others who could have done what she does, and gotten naked -- like a real French actress would.

It has been suggested in other films that Ripley is bisexual, but no evidence of that here. Hell, even Alan Cumming gets a scene near the end that proves his character likes girls.

Lord knows I'm not a big animal person, but wait until you see the dogs in this movie, and how they're used to further the plot. I haven't enjoyed canine performances this much in a long time.

I'm surprised there's no distributor on this yet -- maybe because amoral protagonists are a tough sell. Indeed, Ripley is a bit blank at first, but he's meant to be. Still, it's a very fun flick, and I recommend it.