The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith is a novel with a movie adaptation. Although the movie has many themes of the book within it, it would be incorrect to say that the two are identical to each other. Several actions of different characters are starkly contrasted between the film and the novel, however, the main plotline still reaches the same resolutions despite it being in different ways. Within the movie, Tom Ripley’s chance encounters with key characters and the financial cons he committed while in America are less emphasized while Dickie Greenleaf and Marge Sherwood’s relationship is more romanticized and his “womanizing” in the movie is nonexistent in the novel. Meanwhile, Dickie’s mistress in the film is fabricated from no …show more content…
In the novel, Dickie is a painter with interests more in regards to visual art instead of music. Although this detail may seem irrelevant to the plot as a whole, it changes the personality traits of Dickie as a character with two different hobbies in either the novel or the film. The relationships of the character are also changed as a result.
Dickie and Marge’s relationship was more of a one-sided interest on Marge’s behalf, while the movie portrays the two being in mutual love with each other, despite Dickie impregnating another woman. The mistress, who drowned herself while pregnant, had previously asked Dickie for financial support after telling him the news of her pregnancy. It is important to remember, however, that none of the romantic or scandalous escapades of Dickie seen in the movie can be found in the book.
Everyone in the movie seemed to have not realized that Tom killed Dickie: everyone except Marge. She fervently pressed that Mr. Ripley murdered Dickie, although she had no proof. It was by intuition that she accused and yelled at Tom for being her lover’s murderer. Whereas in the book, she and Dickie had a more complex relationship that was platonic on one side and romantic on the other. She reluctantly comes to the conclusion that he killed himself after finding Dickies rings, unaware that it was actually Tom who had done