Tom Ripley resides in a Veneto villa with his harpsichord-playing girlfriend, Luisa. Tom is cool, urbane, wealthy, and a murderer. A former business associate from the Berlin underworld calls Ripley seeking assistance in eliminating a rival. Always a study of human nature, Ripley launches a game to transform a mild-mannered and innocent neighborhood picture framer into a hit man. Jonathan Trevanny, a craftsman who is dying of cancer, has a wife and a little boy, but leaves them with nothing. Can Ripley maintain dominance if Jonathan enters the game? Does it end with one murder? What if Ripley becomes morally conscious?