THE TALENTED MR.RIPLEY

About the show

Created in 1954 by Patricia Highsmith, Tom Ripley, Highsmith's hero in five novels, is a contemporary of Felix Krull, with whom he shares a penchant for charlatanism, social climbing, a likeable amorality, and a homosexual subtext. Anyone attempting to characterize him will struggle, as he is more of a virus than a character. Sent to Italy by an American shipyard owner, posing as a friend to rescue the untalented son of a bohemian artist, Ripley, like a chameleon-like body snatcher, insinuates himself into the lives of Dickie Greenleaf and his girlfriend Marge. Then, his chance at a better life threatened, he summarily kills him and replaces him with a passport, money, and anonymity. From today's perspective, his parasitic wasp-like behavior points less to Thomas Mann's irony than it does to the alien experiences of Sigourney Weaver's third officer, Ripley, on the spaceship "Nostromo."