Set in Italy in the late 1950s, Tom Ripley (Damon) craves the life led by Dickie Greenleaf (Law).

When Dickie's father, a wealthy ship builder, asks Tom to bring his errant playboy son back home to America, Dickie and his beautiful expatriate girlfriend, Marge Sherwood (Paltrow), never suspect the dangerous extremes to which Tom will go to make their lifestyle his own. After all, it's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

Anthony Minghella is the Academy-Award-winning director of The English Patient.