Bovie Movie

Anthony Minghella wrote and directed this award-winning adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s novel about a doomed and tragic romance set against the backdrop of World War II. In a field hospital in Italy, Hana (Juliette Binoche), a nurse from Canada, is caring for a pilot who was horribly burned in a plane wreck; he has no identification and cannot remember his name, so he’s known simply as “the English Patient,” thanks to his accent. When the hospital is forced to evacuate, Hana determines en route that the patient shouldn’t be moved far due to his fragile condition, so the two are left in a monastery to be picked up later. In time, Hana begins to piece together the patient’s story from the shards of his memories; he’s actually Count Laszlo Almasy (Ralph Fiennes), of Hungarian nobility and an explorer working with a group mapping uncharted territory in North Africa. An Englishman, Geoffrey Clifton (Colin Firth), soon joins Almasy’s team; travelling with him is his lovely and spirited wife, Katherine (Kristin Scott Thomas). Katherine and Laszlo soon fall in love, which leads Laszlo to betray his friend, his country and all that is dear to him. Meanwhile, Hana and the Patient are joined by Kip (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh with a gift for defusing mines, and Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), an intelligence agent who knows some of Laszlo’s most shameful secrets. The English Patient won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actress (Juliette Binoche).

After the Oscar-winning The English Patient, writer/director Anthony Minghella attempted another tricky literary adaptation with The Talented Mr. Ripley, which features heartthrob Matt Damon cast against type as a psychopathic bisexual murderer. Tom Ripley (Damon) is a bright and charismatic sociopath who makes his way in mid-’50s New York City as a men’s room attendant and sometimes pianist, though his real skill is in impersonating other people, forging handwriting, and running second-rate scams. After being mistaken for a Princeton student, Tom meets the shipping tycoon father of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), who has traveled to the coast of Italy, where he’s living a carefree life with his father’s money and his beautiful girlfriend, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow). Dickie’s father will pay Ripley 1,000 dollars plus his expenses if he can persuade Dickie to return to America. As Ripley and Dickie become friends, Tom finds himself both attracted to Dickie and envious of his life of pleasure. In time, he decides that he would rather be Dickie Greenleaf than Tom Ripley, so rather than go back to his life of poverty, Ripley impulsively murders Dickie and assumes his identity. The Talented Mr. Ripley was based on the first of a series of novels featuring Tom Ripley written by Patricia Highsmith; the story was previously filmed in 1960 as Purple Noon, with Alain Delon as Ripley.

A petty thief is the link between a well-to-do businessman and a single mother struggling to get by in his edgy, emotional drama. Will Francis (Jude Law) is a successful landscape architect who runs an upscale business with his friend Sandy (Martin Freeman) in the King’s Cross section of London, a neighborhood that has long been plagued by crime and poverty but has lately become the target of a major gentrification program. Will’s longtime girlfriend is Liv (Robin Wright Penn), a lovely woman troubled by a lack of communication between herself and her husband and emotional problems with their teenage daughter, Bea (Poppy Rogers), who can’t sleep and is obsessed with gymnastics. A thief has broken into Will and Sandy’s office not once but twice, taking Will’s laptop and the company’s computer equipment, and Will begins spending his evenings at the shop in hopes of catching the culprit in action. The burglar strikes a third time, and while giving chase, Will sees him make his way into a shabby apartment building. Will learns the criminal is Miro (Rafi Gavron), a 15-year-old refugee from Bosnia. Without revealing what he knows, Will makes the acquaintance of Amira (Juliette Binoche), Miro’s widowed mother — a Bosnian refugee who makes a living as a seamstress. As Will begins bringing Amira business on a regular basis, the two begin an affair which continues even as Will maintains his relationship with Liv. Breaking & Entering was written and directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Anthony Minghella; it was his first project made from his own original script since Truly, Madly, Deeply in 1991.