Even if Matt Damon doesn’t receive an Oscar or even a nod from the Academy for his turn as “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” he’s already made great strides toward being recognized as a real actor instead of just The Flavor of the Month.

In “Mr. Ripley,” a take-off of Patricia Highsmith’s series of novels about the murderous sociopath, Damon trashed his pretty-boy image, and any moviegoer who sees his performance won’t think of Damon as “Good Will Hunting” anymore.

The story takes place in the 1950s. Damon plays Tom Ripley, a loser who plays piano bars. As the ads proclaim, Ripley’s a real nobody, and he’d rather be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

Although Ripley doesn’t appear to have any future to look forward to, he’s not without his gifts: The perfect charlatan, he can imitate voices and virtually “change” from his shy, nebbish young man into anybody he wants.

His fakery starts when he meets the father of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law, “Gattaca”). The young Greenleaf is a notorious playboy and has taken off to Italy, where he spends his days drinking, listening to jazz and getting the local ladies pregnant.

Ripley convinces the senior Greenleaf that he went to Princeton with his son (of course, he didn’t), and Ripley is commissioned to go to Italy and try to bring Dickie back, away from his posh lifestyle and back to the real world.

When he arrives in Italy, Ripley finds Dickie, who with his too-cool-for-school attitude and Rat Pack-style suits, is indeed living the high life. Despite Dickie’s philandering ways, he’s got a beautiful girlfriend named Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), who’s a kind-hearted soul, as well as being totally besotted with Dickie.

Ripley doesn’t mask his plan: He almost immediately tells Dickie that he was sent to bring him back to America. Of course, Dickie’s not having any part of that plan, but he takes an affectionate and somewhat bemused shine to Tom, who (horror of horrors) only has one ugly brown suit and clunky, Clark Kent-style glasses.

So Tom starts living the good life with Dickie and Marge. They fund new clothing for him, and Dickie introduces Ripley to jazz and all the luxuries he never knew existed.

The two form a tight friendship, (Ripley refers to it as a “brotherhood”), and although Ripley denies his blatant homosexuality to Dickie, it’s obvious that he’s not only in love with his lifestyle, he’s in love with him.

Unfortunately, Ripley soon wears out his welcome, and Dickie accuses him of the worst crime — being “boring.” But Dickie hasn’t realized how deep Ripley’s infatuation is, and in the heat of passion, he kills Dickie.

And if that isn’t enough, Ripley takes Dickie’s passport and money, and decides to permanently “become” Dickie Greenleaf. But for Ripley, the murders don’t stop there.

Matt Damon took a huge career risk to play “Mr. Ripley.” Despite how liberal Hollywood may seem, for a young heartthrob to play a gay man, and one with psychotic tendencies at that, is a very admirable career stretch. Damon succeeds in making Ripley a sympathetic character, one who’s so self-loathing he will kill even the people with whom he’s in love.

Watching Damon’s transformation from the ineffectual Mr. Ripley to the very-smooth Mr. Greenleaf, simply by removing his glasses and putting on a better suit and smirk, is positively creepy.

Law, although his role isn’t extensive, is also being touted for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Law is the perfect playboy, and even goes the extra mile to, in a few scenes with Ripley, show Dickie’s humanity behind the icy cold veneer.

Last year’s critical darlings Paltrow and Cate Blanchett (“Elizabeth”), who plays a socialite who’s in love with Ripley as Dickie, don’t have too much to do, but Paltrow shines in the later scenes, as she starts to figure out Ripley’s secret, and her Grace Kelly sweetness descends into frustration and madness.

Although “Ripley” has a Hitchcock-flavor, toward the end, parts of the movie start to drag, and it becomes more of a psychological study than a feature film. But good performances and wonderful direction by Anthony Minghella (“The English Patient”) make it one of the most interesting movies of the holiday season.

4 Stars

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Kate Kompas is a junior in journalism and mass communication from LeClaire.