If you were to splice the modish neo-noir of Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive with the manipulative chicanery of Henry James’ The Wings of the Dove, you may find yourself arriving at this latest Patricia Highsmith adaptation by the Talented Mr. Amini, screenwriter of er… both Drive and The Wings of the Dove.
Amini’s directorial debut mines a similar elegant tone as Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley with its well-heeled American tourists falling prey to greed and desire under the Mediterranean sun of 1960s Greece.
A wealthy handsome couple, Chester (Viggo Mortenson) and Colette (Kirsten Dunst), are approached by grifter Rydal (Oscar Isaac) who offers to act as a guide while quietly fleecing them at every opportunity. But Chester is not all that he seems, and soon Rydal finds himself out of his depth and on the run across Greece with his American friends.
Taut, playful and very seductive, this latest Highsmith adaptation delivers exactly what we hope and expect from Highsmith’s misanthropic, suspenseful world.
Chester and Rydal feel at times like incarnations of Tom Ripley played at different ages as themes of avarice, greed, manipulation, duplicity and homoeroticism unfurl in this potent package orchestrated to controlled perfection by Amini.