TV Review: "Ripley" is a Gorgeous, but Disappointing, Remake
Saturday, April 6, 2024 at 10:00PM
by Christopher James
Andrew Scott takes on the titular role of Tom Ripley in Steve Zaillian's latest rendition, "Ripley," on Netflix.
There’s something sacred about a favorite movie. Anthony Minghella’s 1999 masterpiece The Talented Mr. Ripley is a seminal film, burned into my brain as canon. Thus, there’s a certain amount of bias that is hard to overcome when judging a remake. It runs the risk of being so close to the original that it is redundant, or swings far enough away that it pales from the original.
The new Netflix limited series Ripley wisely distances itself from other renditions of the Patricia Highsmith novel, primarily through its gorgeous black-and-white cinematography and new approaches to casting. Writer-director Steve Zaillian has a clear, distinct vision of the tale that feels distinct. However, it prioritizes style over substance. Though filled with haunting beauty, this Ripley lacks personality and tension - sexual or otherwise...
Tom Ripley (Scott) heads to Italy to bring rich boy Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) home.Our first episode of this eight episode series introduces us to con artist Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott) in New York, running small tricks to get by. After a chance encounter with a private eye (Bokeem Woodbine), Tom tells some strategic lies that puts him face to face with shipping magnet, Herbert Greenleaf (Kennenth Lonergan). He dispatches Tom to go to Italy on the Greenleaf dime to convince his son Dickie (Johnny Flynn) to come home from gallivanting around. Upon his arrival, Tom ingratiates himself in Dickie’s life while he bleeds the Greenleaf family of their money. Dickie’s writer girlfriend, Marge (Dakota Fanning), is suspicious of Tom as he metaphorically and literally moves into their lover's paradise.
The cinematography by Robert Elswit recalls the Cinecitta Italian films of the 60s era where the story is set. This look informs every part of the DNA of this piece. Every character is framed almost like a portrait, foregrounded to show their true selves, whether that be beautiful or betraying some ugliness beneath them. There’s a sparseness to the visuals that is haunting. Tom Ripley is oftentimes shot from far away in very empty streets or squares - no matter where he goes, loneliness follows. This coolness and remove often keeps the audience at arm's length. Unfortunately, Zaillian underestimates our willingness to lean in for eight consecutive episodes.
Dakota Johnson, Johnny Flynn and Andrew Scott all create specific renditions of their characters that differ greatly from the 1999 version.The actors also have fresh takes on their characters, providing some unique, new windows into familiar roles. Andrew Scott is a more subdued Ripley, approaching him as a cold-hearted and jaded man. Right when we meet him, there seems to be this contempt for the world that informs his capacity for violence we see unfold. Scott’s Tom isn’t necessarily slick, but he knows how to disappear. As the series moves forward, we don’t necessarily get further humanization of Tom. Instead, he becomes a more confident and detached psychopath.
Since the show focuses less on understanding and empathizing with Tom, it directs that energy towards mocking the entitled couple of Dickie and Marge that are doomed as they are caught in Tom’s web of lies. Dakota Fanning takes an interesting take on Marge. Rather than embrace Gwyneth Paltrow’s warmth that turns cold and questioning, Fanning is always on guard. She sees Tom as a curious outsider trying to muscle in on “her Atrani.” This essential change is felt all the way down to Marge’s wardrobe. She’s a cold, mod, fashion girl who carries around a certain amount of apathy to the world around her, preferring to spend her time naval gazing by writing a book that the series mocks. Fanning sells us on this change well, but not all character revisions are as novel or interesting.
Though Ripley is the titular character, what becomes clear is that the heart of the story is Dickie Greenleaf. In the original film, Paltrow’s Marge says that when Dickie looks at you, “it's like the sun shines on you, and it's glorious. And then he forgets you and it's very, very cold.” Johnny Flynn is a talented actor, but his aloof portrayal of Dickie Greenleaf presents the most massive plot hole in the series. This is not a character that inspires obsession, longing or anger. There’s a very modern apathy to his Dickie, always in sunglasses half-trying a new hobby, like painting. With Jude Law in the film, we understand the fundamental truth about how he can attract the attention of everyone around him, keeping them close by snapping back and withholding his energy. By not getting Dickie right, it invalidates Ripley’s murderous actions. His violence should be a recoil from Dickie playing games with his heart, seducing him and pulling away. We see longing in the eyes of Andrew Scott’s Ripley, but never does it seem like Flynn’s Dickie is feeding or reciprocating any sort of feelings.
In addition to not quite nailing the character dynamic, there’s other more ungenerous critiques of our leading men. Watching these 40 year old men play a dexterous con man and feckless trust fund kid is a bit like watching Stockard Channing play a teenager in Grease. Sure, they have the skill to play the notes, but it’s hard to suspend disbelief that people at this age would find themselves in this situation, seemingly having just arrived to the adult world moments before the series starts.
The Italian landscape looks glorious, yet haunting, in this new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel.Fans of Highsmith’s novel may have a good time basking in the monochromatic beauty of Zaillian’s rendition. It certainly does provide something additive and additional to the 1999 film, a new way into a familiar tale. Yet, the additional time spent in the world of Ripley doesn’t necessarily lead us deeper into the plot. Daffy heiress Meredith Logue (iconically brought to life by Cate Blanchett), who always walks in at the exact right (or wrong) time to stir up drama, is deeply missed, as is sweet composer Peter Smith Kingsley (played by Jack Davenport in the film).
Also disappointing is the revisioning of suspicious lush Freddie Miles, who was a threatening but exciting lightning rod with the great Phillip Seymore Hoffman. In this retelling, Freddie is a Gen-Z walkabout, played by singer Eliot Sumner, who barely registers as a character that is supposed to be integral in pushing Tom further down his path of darkness. This underlines the central problem with the new Ripley. While Scott and Fanning provide interesting new calibrations to their characters, Flynn and Sumner drolly showcase the emptiness of the upper class. Yes, that’s a new take and very different from the sun-drenched aspirational view of the 1999 film. Unfortunately, it’s not dramatically compelling, especially over the course of a series.
One of the better additions is the focus on art, specifically the work of Caravaggio. It provides a beautiful anchoring point to our story, tying the themes of beauty and destruction together in an engaging way. There is a lot of beauty in this new haunting Ripley, if only it had nailed some of the other elements that made this story such a timeless epic that bears revisiting. C
All eight episodes of Ripley are currently streaming on Netflix.
Andrew Scott, Dakota Fanning, Johnny Flynn, Netflix, Ripley, Steve Zaillian
Reader Comments (11)
Agree about the lack of Meredith, but otherwise couldn't agree less, This version is very Highsmith-esque, super chilly and super creepy. And gorgeous, of course, that cinematography. I had to start rewatching the whole thing after I was done. (I also prefer Sumner's take on Freddie, although there's no denying PSH's superior acting skills.)
I am trying to like it but the problems you have with it so do I.
The 1999 version is so emblazoned on my brain I kept wanting to watch the 99 version side by side with it.
Law creates such a perfect Dickie i'm having trouble with Flynn plus Law in 99 was at his peak handsomeness and Flynn whilst fairly attractive is not someone who would emit a glorious sunshine on you.
I do like the more reserved take by Scott but again Damon is Tom.
Peter Smith Kingsley is the character who humanizes Tom slightly and he is sorely missed.
I even miss James Rebhorn as Dickie's father.
Dakota came over a bit Emma Watsonish but i'm liking her a bit more but Paltrow is superb in the 99 version and is probably unmmatchable.
A friend of mine called the other day and was passed hyperventilating with exciting news about a new show called Ripley and knowing I was a big Sigourney fan had called eagerly with this exciting news and was devastated when finding out it was this show and not a drama about the life of Ellen Ripley.
I actually laughed out loud when these long in the tooth actors were compared with Stockard Channing’s miscasting in Grease. An on the nose observation!
A friend of mine called the other day and was passed hyperventilating with exciting news about a new show called Ripley and knowing I was a big Sigourney fan had called eagerly with this exciting news and was devastated when finding out it was this show and not a drama about the life of Ellen Ripley. My Indigo Card
Source material is source material and I suppose anyone can get the rights to do their thing with certain intellectual property. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should, lol.
When I think of the 1999 version, I think of youth, beauty, color…none of which seems to be on offer here. What’s the point?
“Let’s remake Carol but this time with ugly clothes…”
Agree with Finbar and DK. Andrew Scott is just too old to play Ripley in this story. Part of the magic of the 1999 film is that it cast all these beautiful huge stars when they were young.
They could have made a different Ripley story with him in the lead, a la The American Friend or Ripley's Game, and they wouldn't have suffered as much from the comparison. I would've been more interested in that.
Am I the only viewer who has a problem with the fact that no one, including the detectives, have ever seen a photo image of Dickie or Tom Ridley until the very last scene in the film?
A good companion piece to the Ripley films would be Ava du Vernay’s latest film, “Origins”, based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book “Caste: The Origins of our Discontents”.
Ripley is a caste-jumper. He looks at the rich and at trust fund babies and thinks “I would be so much better at being rich than you” (and he succeeds, and the story is labelled “subversive”).
The 1960 “Purple Noon” (“Plein Soleil”) directed by Rene Clément had the young gorgeous Alain Delon as an exquisitely beautiful Ripley. Of course you could understand how such a rare being really belonged in an upper class.
The rich in “Purple Noon” are greedy, cruel, slobbering, domestic abusers who perpetuate violence against the lower orders, the women of their own class, and all women everywhere. The creation and maintenance of their wealth is a crime.
Despite this French Revolution legacy of the rich as unworthy blood suckers, Ripley still has to die in the film, instead of successfully living for another 4 books.
40 years after “Purple Noon”, in 1999, Anthony Minghella directed the film “The Talented Mr. Ripley”. This sunlit film is rightfully lauded for its wonderful cinematography.
Here the rich are golden gods, inherently more charismatic, sexy, talented, stylish. They cannot be emulated by the lower classes. The exceptionally beautiful male here is not Ripley (Delon) but Dickie (Jude Law).
In standard 1990’s style, attention is diverted from class warfare and its inherent violence, and recast as individual issues of personality and sexuality.
The characters written especially for this film underline Ripley’s incompetence and unfitness to rise to a higher caste.
Ripley cannot protect or save his lover (Jack Davenport). And the very odd creation of Meredith (a luminous Cate Blanchett) is like a remnant from a D.W. Griffith film, “Watch out for those caste-jumpers, they’re coming for the flower of our women).
So Ripley must die.
The 2024 version of “Ripley”, directed by Steven Zaillian, strips away the extraneous additions and gets back to the subversive darkness of Patricia Highsmith’s 5 Ripley novels.
The continuous little tiny questions, like needle pricks, erode the viewer’s usual easy categorization. We are off-balance.
The cast is so great. They each bring something off-putting to their characters, demanding your attention in an uneasy sort of queasy way.
I love Andrew Scott’s subtlety and precision in the gradual polishing of Ripley into an upper class aesthete. Oh, the grind of the grift! The tedium, the repetition, the hard physical labour, the intellectual concentration.
The highlighting of Maurizio Lombardi as Inspector Ravini, emphasizes the “Crime and Punishment” aspect. The addition of the Caravaggio references, and their ideas of art, transgression, and violence, extends the arena of questions.
Like the novels, Ripley lives and succeeds.
John Malkovich appears at the end of the series as Reeves Minot. Malkovich had a turn at playing Ripley in the 2002 “Ripley’s Game” directed by Liliana Cavani. Since Minot is a future Ripley collaborator in crime, I am primed for season 2.