Question: Maybe I missed a major plot point, but why exactly does Tom kill his lover at the very end?
Answer: He had to kill him. Tom couldn't kill Meredith because she wasn't travelling alone, and Peter was.
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.
Question: I know that Tom had to kill Peter because of Meredith's family being there and all, but what exactly does this end mean? Is Ripley caught as a liar? Does he stay as Dickie for the rest of his life? What exactly does this end suggest?
Answer: He slips back into the original lie he was telling Meredith, so he can be with her. Peter would know he was lying, so Tom must kill him.
Question: After Tom Ripley kills Freddy with the statue, how is it possible to have carried him out with Freddy being much heavier than Ripley and also without that nosy landlady seeing it?
Answer: I'm thinking that with all the adrenaline pumping through Tom's veins after having committed the murder would be more than enough to take care of the strength issue. As for the nosy landlady - she was probably asleep. Or otherwise occupied.
Question: There might not be an official answer to this, but did Dickie really have any attraction to Tom, or did Tom just want to think that he did?
Answer: Dickie forms quick, intense friendships with people, and just as quickly decides that he doesn't need them anymore. This was probably just a sudden friendship, not an attraction.
Answer: He believed that the friendship that the two had was real and genuine. And meant to last. What Marge warned him about, was very real.
Question: Does anyone know where I can find a script or transcript for this movie?
Answer: Try this. www.starpulse.com/Movies/Talented_Mr_Ripley,_The/Script/.
Question: After Marge found Dickie's rings at Tom's place and confronted him, why did he hold a razor in his pocket and cut his hand?
Answer: I believe he was going to hurt her, but when he was talking to her, he was getting too upset and frustrated, and where he would have made his hands into fists, he then cut himself. Then again, he wasn't totally sane anyway, so there could just be no explanation that we would know of.
I wondered the same thing about the razor, but he couldn't get away with killing her either.
Answer: Tom knew Marge would go to the police after discovering he had Dickie's rings. He intended to murder her with the razor that he slipped into his robe pocket. He was clutching it nervously and accidentally cut his palm on the blade. Tom was just about to kill Marge but she made a hasty exit when Peter suddenly arrived.
Chosen answer: Tom and his lover, Peter, are travelling on a boat. Meredith, who knows Tom as Dickie, is also on the boat. If they were to meet her while together, Tom's false identity would have been revealed. Peter would have been able to figure out that Tom actually murdered Dickie.
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