Cinema has really struggled with bringing Patricia Highsmith anti-heroes to the screen. Tom Ripley has consistently been misunderstood, most prominently in The Talented Mr Ripley, where the asexual sociopath became a homosexual social climber (with movie-star abs), although even Alfred Hitchcock struggled with the child-like Bruno in Strangers On A Train. The misrepresentation is built on a fundamental misunderstanding of Highsmith; her characters aren't bad. Their moral compasses are simply skewed from north, which over-time sees them diverge further and further from the good path, but they still retain an acute sense of what's right and wrong (even if they choose to ignore it). So what a relief it was to see The Two Faces Of January, Hossein Amini's directorial debut, finally get it right. Initially playing things ambiguous over who exactly the film's dark personality is (Oscar Issac's Rydal initially appears to be the nefarious one), it's slowly unravelled that Viggo Mortensen's Chester is merely presenting the image of a happy-go-lucky tourist, with extreme moral confusion lying underneath. And, getting right to the heart of Highsmith, for all his questionable actions, it's impossible to not sympathise (and even root) for him until the end. Everything else in the film is spectacular - the suffocating heat of Greece and Chester's drunken haze are palpably realised - but it all plays second to just how spot-on the characterisation (finally) is.
