It is clear in the movie that Tom was attracted to Dickie. But it is unclear whether or not Tom was also attracted to women. Everybody on this board is calling
Tom gay, but isn't it possible that he was bisexual?
I think he could feign attraction to women, as he did with Meredith, but was fundamentally gay. He and Peter were genuinely in love with each other.
"I am always happy to engage in POLITE discourse."
De gustibus non est disputandum.
i don't believe he was gay, tom was a chameleon who would have flirted with a cat, to get where he wanted. tom puts himself into this situation with every character on screen. he flirts with tom and talks about his "feelings" he then has a relationship with meredith, he then has a relationship with peter, he even says to marge in a very sexual way "you're shivering marge, come here". he flirted with every character apart from dickies parents and freddy miles. because he wanted an "in" to that life.
the film/book that comes after the talented mr ripley is ripleys game, in which he's married, content and theres no thought of him being gay nor flirting with men, even though he spends 99% of the film/book with 2 men.
in the talented mr ripley tom kills dickie and freddy, the idea most people have is that tom was gay and loved peter, peter being the only person he could open up to, if this was true, after already killing 2 people, he could have killed a couple more on the boat, meredith, her parents...
but he didn't, he prefered meredith to peter. tom simply used his sexuality as a way to get closer to people, you have to look at what tom wanted, he wanted money, status and to belong "better a fake somebody than a real nobody" he tried everything he could to get into that circle. he tried flirting with dickie has a means to get into that world and when it didn't work he became dickie.
he wasn't gay, just an opportunist.
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I agree with everything but this
he prefered Meredith to peter.
when i say he prefered meredith, i think it wasn't because it was easier, it was a mixture of a few things, meredith smelt of money, shes was rich, her family was rich, so rich that it was an embarasment for her, she hid her name and travelled under another.
peter while he didn't seem poor wasn't rich, more than likely he was from a middle class family, and thanks to hard work found himself in a top university where he could mix with people like marge and dickie.
in the last scene, it's meredith whos "looking down" on tom from a higher deck, status....
he then goes back to a pretty simple cabin to be with peter, who while he is educated and not poor, he isn't rich like meredith, he hasn't got her status. also from what we see tom had a good time with meredith, he seemed happy.
in the first scene with tom and meredith, he passes himself off as dickie, in the last scene, he essentially is dickie, he now has his trust fund and even meredith calls him "dickie"
but waiting for him in a rather basic cabin is someone who calls him tom, simple poor tom from new york, with no status, for tom it's an easy choice.
another clue to toms sexuality is how he was surprised by two men huging in the street in rome, he does a double take, as if it was something alien for him. but his sociopathic personality later permit him to flirt with men.
remember that we see him kiss meredith, but never peter.
IMHO he killed Peter because Meredith was with her family, a lot of people who would have asked many questions.
Can.You.Hear.Me?
Hell yes!
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As usual, I couldn't agree less with you and wonder again if you and I have seen the same film. And by the way, it would be considerate to use CAPITAL LETTERS where appropriate.
Recall Tom and Peter's first meeting at the opera. The look exchanged between them was a genuine 'coup de foudre' (look it up). Recall the scene where Tom laments to Peter that after a lifetime of living alone in the basement with his terrible secrets, he finally has met someone to whom he would love to open the door, but cannot. At last Tom had met someone who loved and accepted him, with whom he had a great deal in common. Unfortunately for Peter, he did not really know Tom at all.
From his accent and manners, Peter is clearly from an upper middle class family. My impression is that he is the English equivalent of Marge. He would have met the British equivalents of Dickie and Meredith at Oxford or Cambridge.
There is no way he could have killed Meredith and her entire family and escaped detection. Even if he had been able to manage it physically (unlikely), the link would have been made between his presence at the time of their disappearance, as well as his connection with Freddie who had been murdered and Dickie who had also disappeared. Killing Peter was the safest option, although I believe that he could have told Peter that he had pretended to be Dickie to Meredith and gotten Peter to go along with it, but obviously not about the murders. What would have happened when the Logues got off the boat and told everyone that they had met Dickie Greenleaf is unclear.
My opinion is that had Meredith and her family not been on the boat, Tom and Peter could have been happy together. It would seem that Tom had escaped detection and punishment for the murders, and he now had a permanent source of income. But as the late P. D. Ouspensky said, 'chief habit becomes chief weakness,' and Tom's fatal penchant for subterfuge, fantasy and self-aggrandisement trapped him in a hole from which there was no escape
"I am always happy to engage in POLITE discourse."
De gustibus non est disputandum.
i don't believe he was gay, tom was a chameleon who would have flirted with a cat, to get where he wanted....
he wasn't gay, just an opportunist.
dont lie, if tom was gay why was he married and living in italy in the film that followed the talented mr ripley? ripleys game
Three years later, Ripley is extremely wealthy, living in a lush villa in Veneto with his wife Luisa, a beautiful harpsichordist. Invited by a neighbor to a party, Ripley has a pleasant time until he overhears the host, Jonathan Trevanny, insulting his taste and making a guarded reference to his questionable past. Ripley briefly confronts him, then sullenly leaves the party.
The film doesn't necessarily follow anything in the sequel novel. Meredith, the character played by Cate Blanchett, doesn't even exist in the original novel. So even if Ripley is not gay in the sequel novel or other films it doesn't mean that he is not gay in Minghella's film.
Besides which, you can't be so naive as to think gay men never got/get married to women (and gay women never got/get married to men), especially in the 1950s.
The whole story (in the film) is about a person who so desperately wants to fit in and be accepted by people he thinks he should be among that he goes to extraordinary lengths to convince them that he is someone that he isn't really. If that doesn't define passing (just as in a gay man passing as heterosexual), I don't know what does.
highsmith created a character, tom ripley, that has all the same traits in every book and every film, only in one, does he flirt with men, and by coincidence, he also flirts with every other character on screen. in the talented mr ripley he flirts with dickie, meredith, peter and he even tells marge that he loves her. does that seem like someone who is gay? or someone who is using his sexuality to get him in and out of situations.
the books are linked because it's the same character. funny enough when the struggle for status and money is over, and he lives in a mansion in northern italy, he seems to stop flirting with men, funny that isnt it?! tom ripley is tom ripley. you should watch ripleys game or read the book, although i doubt it would fit in with you projecting yourself onto a character.
but like i've said, surely it makes me a homophobe eh? a quick look at your profile tells me everything i know, nice answer there on the LGBT films question. why wasnt i surprised to find that? you're projecting yourself on to a character. and surely for doubting that a character who flirted with everyone on screen is gay, well i'm already a hate crime with legs, right? (another thing minghella said in the commentary, surely)
Thank you, quicksilver19, for your summary.
shareWhile Tom is an opportunist and flirted with Meredith and Marge for his own reasons, it's very obvious that Tom has an attraction to Dickie and is hurt by his rejection. It is also very obvious that he had true romantic feelings for Peter. You can tell throughout the film that he wants to open up to Peter and show him the real Tom but is too deep in his lies that he can't. So while Tom easily manipulates everyone around him, especially the women, it is very obvious that he is genuinely attracted to men. This is inferred quite often in the movie. Tom is definitely gay. A reason that he would be living with a wife in the other book is simy because its the 1950s and he can't exactly live with a man, out and proud. Many gay men in that time had a wife and kids because they couldn't be out. So in order to keep up appearances, they married women. They also might have married them to have some sort of companionship instead of being alone or judged harshly for being gay.
shareIt's hard to tell, but when all said and done after he gets away with everything and even gets like a reward from dicky's father for keeping quiet, instead of getting g the hell out and back to NY he's in a boat suite with Peter on his way to Greece . He uses his sexuality like a true con but if he wasn't gay he would have been not with Peter and on his way the hell out of Italy. Dicky just keeps tom around to use the money his father is giving tom bcuz he resents that fact. Tom clearly was attracted to dicky but after getting used and embarrassed then humiliated he whacks dicky in the head.I think he did like Meredith, he risks taking her to the opera but I think he was gay. He gets addicted to the lifestyle of the upper class
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