Conversations with death row inmate Michael Perry and those affected by his crime serve as an examination of why people and the state kill.

Plot: The 1950s. Manhattan lavatory attendant Tom Ripley borrows a Princeton jacket to play piano at a garden party. When the wealthy father of a recent Princeton grad chats Tom up Tom pretends to know the son and is soon offered $1000 to go to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf to return home. In Italy Tom attaches himself to Dickie and to Marge Dickie's cultured fiancee pretending to love jazz and harboring homoerotic hopes as he soaks in luxury. Besides lying Tom's talents include impressions and forgery so when the handsome and confident Dickie tires of Tom dismissing him as a bore Tom goes to extreme lengths to make Greenleaf's privileges his own.