Ripley is at the center of five novels written by Patricia Highsmith between 1955 and 1991, which have inspired as many movies: Rene Clement's "Purple Noon" (1960), Wim Wenders' "The American Friend" (1977), Anthony Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), Liliana Cavani's "Ripley's Game" (2002), and Roger Spottiswoode's "Ripley Under Ground" (2004); Ripley was played successively by Alain Delon, Dennis Hopper, Matt Damon, John Malkovich and Barry Pepper.

The first four are splendid movies (based on only two of the novels; the Wenders and the Cavani on Ripley's Game and the Clement and the Minghella on The Talented Mr. Ripley). The fifth I haven't seen. "Ripley's Game" is without question the best of the four, and John Malkovich is precisely the Tom Ripley I imagine when I read the novels. Malkovich is skilled at depicting the private amusement of sordid characters, but there is no amusement in his Ripley, nor should there be; Ripley has a psychopath's detachment from ordinary human values. Malkovich (and Highsmith) allow him one humanizing touch, a curiosity about why people behave as they do. At the end of the film, when a man saves his life, Ripley can think of only one thing to say to him: "Why did you do that?"

Malkovich has the face for Tom Ripley. For the movie he has lost weight and is lighted and photographed to show the skull beneath the skin. Ripley's eyes when he is angry are cold and dead, as in an early scene where he is insulted by the host at a party. When he is not angry they are simply objective, although sometimes, even during intense action, Ripley will allow his eyes to glance aside for a second. He is like an actor glancing offstage, reminded that there is life outside his performance. When he gives pleasure, for example by taking his wife Luisa (Chiara Caselli) to buy an antique harpsichord, he regards her in an unsettling way, not sharing the pleasure but calculating its effect. Very rarely he permits himself a childlike grin, as when remembering the triumph on the face of a dying man. When involved in violence, he has a way of baring his teeth, and you can sense the animal nature beneath the cool facade.

Tom Ripley has always been an enigma in the crime fiction genre, because a thief and murderer does not usually get away with his crimes in novel after novel, and seem on most days like a considerate lover and a good neighbor. Malkovich's philosophical Ripley is closest to Highsmith's character in the way he objectifies his actions. Why is he requested to kill a man? "Because I can." He arranges for the man who insulted him, a family man dying of leukemia, to be offered $100,000 to commit murder. The man asks him why he did that. "Partly because you could. Partly because you insulted me. But mostly because that's how the game is played."