Script To Screen: “The Talented Mr. Ripley”

From the 1999 movie The Talented Mr. Ripley, screenplay by Anthony Minghella, novel by Patricia Highsmith.

Setup: In late 1950s New York, Tom Ripley, a young underachiever, is sent to Italy to retrieve a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy, named Dickie Greenleaf. But when the errand fails, Ripley takes extreme measures.

RIPLEY
(volcanic)
The funny thing - I'm not pretending to
be somebody else and you are. I'm
absolutely honest with you. I've told you
my feelings. But you, first of all I know
there's something - that evening when we
played chess, for instance, it was
obvious - DICKIE
(incredulous)
What evening? RIPLEY
Sure - I know, that's too dangerous for
you, fair enough, hey! We're brothers,
fine, then you do this sordid thing with
Marge, fucking her on the boat while we
all have to listen, which was
excruciating, frankly, plus you follow
your cock around like a - and now you're
getting married! I'm bewildered, forgive
me...you're lying to Marge then getting
married to her, you're knocking up
Silvana, you've got to play sax, you've
got to play drums, which is it, Dickie,
what do you really play?Dickie, furious, gets up, and lurches towards Ripley. DICKIE
(attacking him, administering
tiny slaps as punctuation to
his tirade)
Who are you - some imposter, some third
class mooch - who are you to tell me
anything? Actually, I really really
really don't want to be on this boat with
you, I can't move without you moving,
which is exactly how it feels and it
gives me the creeps.
(he goes to rev up the engine)
I can't move without - "Dickie, Dickie,
Dickie" - like a little girl. You give
me the - RIPLEY SMASHES HIM ACROSS THE HEAD WITH THE OAR. DICKIE SLIPS
OFF THE WOODEN SEAT, HIS EYES ROLLING IN GROGGY SURPRISE. RIPLEY
Shut up! Just shut up! Just shut up! The boat slows as Dickie releases the tiller. Dickie looks
up at Ripley wearily and slides onto his back. DICKIE
For God's sake. Ripley, shocked at himself, goes to Dickie, rocking the boat,
catches him up, then is horrified to see Dickie's face,
apparently unmarked, SUDDENLY SPLIT OPEN, a line of blood and
then a peeling like a fruit bursting. Ripley's appalled. A
terrible roar issues from Dickie as he launches himself at
Ripley. DICKIE (cont'd)
I'll kill you! Ripley finds himself pushing him away, picking up the oar,
kicking off Dickie's hand around his ankle. The boat is
rocking and swerving crazily as Dickie falls against the
tiller. Ripley almost loses his balance. His glasses come
off. They struggle, locked together in a life or death
wrestle to get control of the oar. Dickie's blinded by his
own blood, loses his grip. Ripley, terrified, hits Dickie again and again, the oar like
a carpet-beater banging down flat, blood on the blade, blood
on Ripley, until he's on his knees, heaving for breath,
letting his arm drop, then realizing, disgusted, that he's
let it rest in a pool of blood. He starts to sob, sprawls
there, sobbing, next to Dickie, horrified by what he's done. Nobody's in sight. The boat rocks, gently, the sun sparkling
indifferently on the waves. Ripley lies by Dickie in the
bottom of the boat, in the embrace he's always wanted. The pretty blue-and-white boat rocks peacefully. The sea
calms.

I love that last line of scene description: “The pretty blue-and-white boat rocks peacefully. The sea calms.” Meanwhile, the plot is anything but calm after this violent event.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a weekly series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

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