Now Playing: March 2020

Thanks to social distancing, we’re all inside watching movies and TV these days. For this month’s NOW PLAYING, March contributor (and 1st runner-up in our poetry contest) Amrita Chakraborty tells us what she’s been watching.

Amrita Chakraborty

“After putting it off for a while, I found myself beginning this strange period of social distancing by watching The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and feeling simultaneously tested and enthralled by the film. As with the incredible Parasite (2019), the plot involves a person of low social status ingratiating themselves with members of wealthier classes through disguises and subterfuge, but the similarities are few beyond that detail. Despite the fact that few of the characters are very likable, the movie casts a spell with its visions of beautiful youths gallivanting in sun-soaked Italian vistas that holds the audience fast, in time to witness a rank underbelly of violence and exploitation in the world of these privileged people. But what surprised and captivated me most was how it subtly deals with latent gay desire and love in a way that feels both modern and Shakespearean, the titular Ripley emerging as a kind of hybrid of Othello and Iago the more precarious and tragic his story becomes.”