Ironizingirony nostalgianostalgia for 1960s ItalyItaly, Ripley both appeals to transnational middle-class microaudiencestransnational middle-class microaudiencesand critiques their modes of consumptionconsumption and identityidentity construction. TomRipley, Tom Ripley curates European artefacts and practises murder and forgeryforgery to construct his identity, subverting moralmorality structures. Italian charactersItalian characters and institutionsItalian institutions provide the frameworks in which the American and English characters are judged in Ripley, both in terms of sympathysympathy and in terms of moralitymorality. Unlike other adaptations, Ripley portrays ItaliansItalian characters as well-developed characters with whom Ripley enjoys warm relationships, encouraging sympathy for TomRipley, Tom rather than his American and English victims. TomRipley, Tom truly appreciates Italian music and art, but values artists who subverted, as he does, the normative moralitymorality, normative imposed by Italian institutionsItalian institutions like the lawlaw and the churchCatholic church.