After being released from a psychiatric institution, a man tries to redeem himself in the eyes of his now-ex wife from the events that led up to his incarceration.

Insurance executive Charles suspects his wife Hélène of playing the field, so he has a private detective locate his wife's lover, author Victor Pegala.

Servais Mont, a freelance photographer who works taking compromising photos, gets fascinated by Nadine Chevalier, a tormented low-budget movie actress married to an eccentric film photo collector.

Tom Ripley - cool, urbane, wealthy, and murderous - lives in a villa in the Veneto with Luisa, his harpsichord-playing girlfriend. A former business associate from Berlin's underworld pays a call asking Ripley's help in killing a rival. Ripley - ever a student of human nature - initiates a game to turn a mild and innocent local picture framer into a hit man. The artisan, Jonathan Trevanny, who's dying of cancer, has a wife, young son, and little to leave them. If Ripley draws Jonathan into the game, can Ripley maintain control? Does it stop at one killing? What if Ripley develops a conscience?