("The Talented Mr. Ripley")

[fiefoe]

I have been unfair to Matt Damon. His Tom Ripley is repulsive, but that is exactly what Patricia Highsmith intended him to be. The question is for Highsmith then: ur, why? Personally, I prefer my villians sunnier.

• Now he could be maniacally polite for perhaps another whole hour, if he had to be, before something in him exploded and sent him running out the door.
• A friendly, personal chuckle generally worked wonders.
  
• That had been the only time tonight when he had felt uncomfortable, unreal, the way he might have felt if he had been lying, yet it had been practically the only thing he had said that was true.
  
• Tom had gotten angry enough, for once, to stand up for himself and talk to him back.