Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, is a watershed thriller for its critique of class, its queer undertones, and its enduring legacy. The novel inspired multiple sequels, as well as several film adaptations, the most significant of which was Anthony Minghella’s Oscar nominated 1999 film of the same name.
Showtime commissioned a series based on the original book from writer/director Steve Zaillian back in 2021, but the project eventually went to Netflix. Now the eight episode limited series is out in full, and the new iteration is more sumptuous, more faithful to the source material, and more queer (from a contemporary perspective) than any other iteration.
All of Us Strangers’ Andrew Scott stars as Tom Ripley, an unassuming man living in a run-down shared housing project in Manhattan in the late 1950s. He doesn’t have a great deal going for him when he’s tracked down by a private investigator (Bokeem Woodbine) at the behest of Mr. and Mrs. Greenleaf (Kenneth Lonergan and Ann Cusack). They mistakenly believe he went to Princeton with their son and want to hire Tom to travel to Italy and convince their son, Richard “Dickie” Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) to come home.
So off Tom goes, first spying on Dickie and his girlfriend Marge (Dakota Fanning) before staging an awkward introduction at the beach.
All of this table setting occupies the entirety of the first episode, which is a sign that Zaillian (who writes and directs all eight episodes) is moving at his own deliberate pace. The series is methodical, bordering on laborious, but the performances, Robert Elswit’s gorgeous black and white cinematography, and the increasing tension as Tom’s lies and plans steadily unravel, offsets the slow pacing.
Zaillian’s refusal to rush his adaptation bears fruit in two stand-out episodes – both of which (ironically) focus on murders. In episode three, Tom’s relationship with Dickie fractures and the pair take one final trip before Tom will ostensibly be cut loose. Here the queerness of Tom’s parasitic relationship with Dickie come to the fore as Zaillian includes a key sequence from Highsmith’s book in which the two men have extremely different reactions to a group of gay-coded acrobats performing stunts on the beach.
This brings the sexual tension between Tom and Dickie to a head as they venture out on the open water in a small boat. The long simmering resentment and unsaid frustration prompts each man to lash out – first verbally, then physically – in a more sustained and hurtful fashion than the Minghella feature.
Unlike the feature, however, Zaillian dedicates the entire back half of “Sommerso” to Tom’s disposal of the body and the evidence. It’s a tense, dangerous back half that relies, like so much of the series, on Scott delivering an enthralling solo performance.
It doesn’t hurt that Zaillian is able to expertly wring a great deal of tension out of Tom’s fear of the water, including harrowing moments involving an out-of-control speedboat, Tom’s efforts to sink the boat and his adoption of “Dickie”s identity as his own.
Things reach a new boiling point in episode five with the return of Dickie’s curt and confrontational friend, Freddie Miles (Eliot Sumner, the non-binary child of Sting). Unlike the queer coded performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Talented Mr. Ripley, Freddie’s gay status is canonical in the series, which lends the series another intriguing avenue with which to explore identity fraud and doppelganger status.
Like episode three, nearly all of “Lucio” is dedicated to the duo, but Zaillian’s insistence on repeated visual motifs (Tom going up and down the stairs; a long haired cat warily observing his passage in shadow; taxis going back and forth, etc.) helps to distinguish the action from “Sommerso.” It also provides a really enjoyable amount of (unexpected) black humour.
Circling Tom like sharks throughout the series is Marge, as well as Inspector Ravini (Maurizio Lombardi), the police officer assigned to the case when “Tom” (Dickie) goes missing after the boat ride. Both Marge and Ravini act as antagonists to Tom’s anti-hero and although Marge isn’t afforded much to do other than act wounded and be suspicious of Tom, Fanning excels at delivering Marge’s barbed accusations. Ravini is more objective, though it is evident early on that he finds “Dickie” (Tom)’s behaviour abrasive and his answers evasive.
Audiences familiar with Highsmith’s source material and Minghella’s adaptation know that the story’s pleasure is derived less from what happens than watching Tom struggle to stay one step ahead while finally living a life of luxury. In addition to the gorgeous chiaroscuro cinematography, Ripley acts as a compelling travelogue of Rome (and later Venice): even when Tom’s palazzo is coated in blood, or the rain washes away evidence on cobblestone streets, the European setting is undeniably beautiful and enticing.
It’s easy to get swept up in Tom’s desire to be part of this opulent world, much of it thanks to Scott’s performance. The Irish actor effortlessly delivers a performance that vacillates between sociopathic, entitled, desperate, and infantile. It’s a cunning balance; one that anchors the slow burn series and sustains it across eight episodes.
For those willing to buy into the fantasy, Ripley is an escapist vacation worth sinking into.
The post Netflix’s ‘Ripley’ Series Is a Gorgeous, Methodical Adaptation [Review] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.