The Talented Mr. Ripley

Continuity mistake: A far ways into the film, when Gweneth Paltrow is leaving on the boat, Matt Damon is standing on the dock watching her leave. At one point, it cuts to a far shot showing him pulling his hair back with his hand, but then it shows a shot from behind, and his hands are down at his sides. It's not very likely he could move his hands that fast.

Revealing mistake: The letter which is typed on the Olivetti portable typewriter (certainly an accurate model for this period) is obviously a modern laser-printed letter, not from a manual typewriter.

Factual error: The opening scene is shot on a rooftop on Central Park West in New York City. The movie takes place in the 40s or 50s, but there are several modern buildings in the background.

Continuity mistake: Dickie's extra lover, Silvana, turns up dead, during a religious ceremony, and before anyone can get to her, she is face down, but when they do get to her, she is face up, without anyone touching her or from choppy water - the water is flat, no chop.

kh1616

Continuity mistake: When Sylvana's body is found during the "Festival of the Madonna," her body floats up on its stomach; there are no waves and she is in fact dead, so how then does her body get from her floating on its stomach to floating on its back in one shot?

Continuity mistake: When Dickie and Tom go out on the boat, Dickie is wearing his white jacket. When Tom swims back to shore, the white jacket is dry on the rocks as if Dickie hadn't taken it with him.

Continuity mistake: When Tom is with Peter on the boat sailing to Greece and Tom says he's going to watch the sunset, the sun is just above the horizon. When Tom goes into Peter's room after talking with Marge, you can see the sun in the exact same position out the porthole window in Peter's room.

Cynthia Gurski

Continuity mistake: From the viewpoint of a boat behind Dickie's boat "The Bird", when Dickie gives the tiller to Freddie, so he can go below with Marge, there's hardly any wind, both sails are flapping around, but when we get the view from midships, the front sail, which was on the starboard side, is now, suddenly, on the port side and full of wind, no flapping around at all.

kh1616

Tom Ripley: You're the brother I never had. I'm the brother you never had. I would do anything for you, Dickie.

More quotes from The Talented Mr. Ripley

Question: At the end of the movie, when Tom finds out that Meredith is on the boat, he wants to kill either her or Peter because they both believe different stories about him and might run into each other. Is there any reason why he chose to kill Peter?

Answer: After running into Meredith, Tom's plan was to stay in the cabin with Peter the entire trip to avoid them seeing one another. But after Tom makes that suggestion, Peter tells Tom that he seen him kissing Meredith. He couldn't avoid or kill her since Peter already saw her. Family members also saw Tom with Meredith. If Meredith suddenly vanished or was killed I'm quite sure there'd be an investigation. Peter was the only option. No one is on board to report Peter missing. Once the boat docks, Tom will be long gone before they discover Peters body. Unlike Meredith, her family would be looking for her immediately since they're traveling together. I'm quite sure he'd much rather have killed Meredith, she meant nothing to him.

Answer: Meredith was travelling with many other people and he can't kill all of them, so he has to kill Peter. Anthony Minghella discusses this in the audio commentary of the film.

Answer: I saw a lot of reviews saying killing Meredith would be harder because she traveled with a lot of people on the ship. Considering that Tom was able to figure out the old trick where he made Meredith to coincidentally meet up with Peter and Marge in a cafe, I'm pretty sure he could up with the same plot to tell Meredith to meet him somewhere around the corner of the ship too, say in the middle of the night to look at the moon etc. Peter beforehand can be exhausted due to consumption of alcohol or had steamy session of coitus so he could never find out that Peter went out to see Meredith. I don't know how the cruise ship of the 50s worked out at the time but there must be a range of dinner time where people go to a hall for their meals - therefore Tom could persuade Meredith to have some alone time at her cabin while the rest of her Cos were having dinner. Since Meredith was infatuated of him, anything what Tom could have said or planed something with her she would have agreed.

More questions & answers from The Talented Mr. Ripley

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