Patricia Highsmith’s novels have a long history in Hollywood. Her debut, Strangers on a Train, was adapted in 1951 by Hitchcock into a remarkable thriller about corruption among the wealthy and the weaknesses of aspiring to success, with D.C. in the background. Her most famous work, The Talented Mr. Ripley, however, was adapted in Hollywood only in 1999, in a much admired movie starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow. This is no doubt because its protagonist is a successful and unrepentant murderer. Hollywood used to censor such immorality, but we don’t live in that America anymore.
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