Film
Before becoming a dark parable about the dangers of lustful ambition, 1999’s The Talented Mr Ripley plays like a beautiful painting in which gorgeous people – Matt Damon, Jude Law (above) and Gwyneth Paltrow, all in their late 20s – frolic against the sumptuous backdrop of the late 1950s Italian riviera. Law in particular is a bronzed god, whose Dickie Greenleaf employs his opulent lifestyle and patrician charm as weapons, turning his friends against each other, and ultimately himself in the process. This may be a film about a series of gruesome murders but it’s the beautiful clothes, beaches and the rendition of Tu Vuò Fà L’Americano that live longest in the memory. AM
