Netflix’s ‘Ripley’ deftly revives noir classic as eight-episode miniseries
Texas-born crime writer Patricia Highsmith, who died in 1995 at the age of 74, specialized in sketching characters of dubious morality and questionable sexuality whose appeal continues to reverberate through the generations.
Her first novel, “Strangers on a Train” in 1950, became one of Alfred Hitchcock’s signature films the following year. Her second novel, “The Price of Salt,” was turned into the 2015 film “Carol” starring Cate Blanchett. But it’s her five Tom Ripley novels that have been her most enduring, having been turned into a number of movies, the most well-known being Anthony Minghella’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1999) with Matt Damon as the supremely shady titular character.
Now, “The Talented Mr. Ripley” lives again as “Ripley,” director-writer Steven Zaillian’s beautifully rendered, years-in-the-making eight-part miniseries on Netflix (debuting Thursday) that may, at first, seem unnecessary. After all, Minghella’s film appeared to be the ultimate translation of Highsmith to the screen, having been a mainstream, critically lauded box-office smash that was nominated for five Oscars.
Yet Zaillian, the screenwriter of “Schindler’s List” and director of such films as “Searching for Bobby Fischer” and “All the King’s Men” as well as the outstanding miniseries “The Night Of,” has more on his mind than merely aping Minghella’s success. Firstly, Zaillian’s version hews closer to the plot contours of the book and, because it’s roughly eight hours instead of two, is much more of a psychological slow burn.
Yet, beyond that, there’s the way it looks. Whereas Minghella chose to shoot his “Ripley” in vivid colors, Zaillian opts for a gorgeous black-andwhite palette that, thanks to cinematographer Robert Elswit (“Magnolia,” “Good Night and Good Luck”), is almost a character of its own, one that throws the story into a sharp, film-noir relief.
Finally, there are the ages of the actors, constituting the largest shift from the book and the previous film. Damon was in his late 20s when he played Ripley, and now comes 47-yearold Andrew Scott — so persuasive as the writer suffering a middle-age crisis in the 2023 film “All of Us Strangers” — and that age difference lends the story and the underlying sexual tension a deeper sense of desperation.
Whereas Damon’s con man had a bit of the impetuousness of youth, Scott’s Ripley is more mature and more calcified in his criminal life. He’s a two-bit, low-life hustler in early ’60s New York barely surviving by bilking medical patients out of 20 bucks here, a few more bucks there.
So, when he’s approached by a private investigator (Bokeem Woodbine) about a wealthy man who has a business proposition for him — go to Italy to find his errant, trust-fund son, Dickie ( Johnny Flynn), and bring him home — Ripley leaps at the opportunity. But once Ripley gets to the ramshackle but idyllic town in southern Italy and sees how easily he can worm his way into the lives of aimless Dickie and his girlfriend, Marge (Dakota Fanning), he begins plotting his biggest grift yet.
Scott captures Ripley’s cold, calculating and reptilian charm, and his performance alone is enough to carry the miniseries, even through some of the slower parts of the second half. When Dickie’s equally ruthless friend, the dapper Freddy Miles (Eliot Sumner), shows up, he and Tom take an immediate dislike to each other because, as the saying goes, game recognizes game. And poor Dickie is the prize that only one of them can have.
All of this is framed by exquisite production design in which some shots seem like paintings (it’s perhaps no accident that the works of 16thcentury Italian artist Caravaggio play an integral role in the plot). The result is one of the most unique thriller miniseries of the season, one that finds its strength in subtlety and understatement rather than more predictable approaches to suspense and over-the-top action sequences.
Back in 2022, when this project was still slated to debut on Showtime, Zaillian said he planned to film the remaining four Ripley novels. Let’s hope he still has those plans.