Ripley series review: Netflix show an ‘intriguing’ take on Highsmith novel

Andrew Scott plays the title character in Netflix's new limited series, Ripley.

Ripley (M), eight-episode mini-series, streaming on Netflix

Directed Steven Zaillian

Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), a poser, a small-time forger and scammer living humbly in New York is sent to Europe by shipping tycoon Herbert Greenleaf (Kenneth Lonergan) to persuade his son Dickie (Johnny Flynn) to leave his self-indulgent life in Italy and come home to America.

But when Tom arrives at Dickie’s villa in Atrani, the tables turn.

Mesmerised by Dickie and all he stands for, Tom is immediately ready for his next step.

An obsession to be Dickie and take on Dickie’s lifestyle takes him over.

Dickie’s girlfriend Marge Sherwood (Dakota Fanning) sees through Tom, distrusts him, and may even fear him, while Dickie at first enjoys Tom’s company but soon tires of him.

Out in a hired dinghy, Dickie tells Tom he’s fed up with him, for being ordinary and beneath him.

Tom can’t stand his rejection but at the same time, recognises that here in front of him is his greatest opportunity ever.

If he can kill Dickie, he can steal his identity. He’s on his way.

It’s an extremely clever story, devised in 1955 by Patricia Highsmith as the novel The Talented Mr Ripley.

In some previous screen adaptations, Tom gets caught, in others he gets away with impersonation and murders. Plural.

Poor interfering snobbish Freddie Miles (Eliot Sumner) becomes another of Tom’s victims.

In Zaillian’s mini-series, Tom’s murder of Dickie comes out of the blue, even to Tom.

Marginally out of control, he botches things, and manages to cover up just in time.

When he tries to dispose of Dickie’s body and then the dinghy, it’s almost as if he expects to be exposed.

Also streaming on Netflix is the 1999 film The Talented Mr Ripley, directed by Anthony Minghella, in which Jude Law is Dickie, opposite Matt Damon as Tom and Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge.

Unlike Andrew Scott’s Tom, who’s a bit of a bungler, Matt Damon’s Tom commits crimes that are all premeditated.

Zaillian’s mini-series is in film noir style, with a suitably creepy atmosphere. Photo / Netflix.

Jude Law’s Dickie is metrosexual, fitting for the nineties, comfortable in his skin, while Johnny Flynn’s Dickie is a privileged malcontent, like a contemporary trust fund kid, turning his back on his upbringing by escaping to Italy where he plays jazz badly and tries to be an artist.

Minghella’s film has azure skies and tanned bodies while Zaillian’s mini-series is in film noir style, with a suitably creepy atmosphere.

Robert Elswit’s exquisite black-and-white cinematography makes every scene worth watching. Shots of Atrani, Rome and Venice belong in an art gallery.

Andrew Scott portrays Ripley as enigmatic, fallible, disliking himself, compelled to take on the identity of another man, but unable to stop his own tendencies from coming with him.

It’s complex stuff, intriguing. Is he gay? Is he capable of forming any kind of relationship with a person, or is it all about things for him?

He’s drawn to a malevolent painting by Caravaggio, to opera, and to Dickie’s pen, watch, ring and his Picasso, but not to people.

Cynicism, pessimism and menace pervade the mini-series, as they did Highsmith’s classic novel. Ripley is in every way a work of art.

★★★★★