PURPLE NOON (PLEIN SOLEIL)

This French adaptation was made just five years after The Talented Mr. Ripley was published and proved to be a breakout hit for actor Alain Delon. It’s easy to see why: he’s absolutely dripping with charisma in the role. While the homoerotic subtext isn’t quite as pronounced as the 1999 film, glimmers of it still shine through in moments like the famous sailboat peeping scene. But what rockets Plein Soleil up the gayness charts is Tom Ripley’s overall aesthetic. This is certainly the twinkiest take on Ripley, which is not really an adjective I’d apply so readily to Matt Damon’s performance. And throughout much of this movie, Delon’s Ripley rocks a French tuck, the look that Queer Eye’s Tan France basically turned into a religion.

***** NOVEMBER: RIPLEY *****

Who is the gayest version of Ripley ever put on screen? Given the (…) TV series, and all the Saltburn-adjacent interest in homoerotic class climbing in a dark academia setting, I have been immersing myself in the Ripley-verse to find out if we’ve been sleeping on any of the lesser known portrayals. None of these movies are officially connected to each other, and some of them present radically different versions of the character, but they all treat us to the simple pleasures of watching a handsome man do terrible things. You might think the bathtub scene in the ’99 version is about as queer as Ripley can get (and yes, Saltburn’s bathtub scene was almost certainly inspired by that one), but that’s not necessarily the case.

(Samantha Allen, Them)

*** TICKETS: 100SEK ONLINE or AT THE DOOR ***