Ripley ***** (2024, Andrew Scott, Dakota Fanning, Johnny Flynn) – Classic Movie Review 12,882

Steven Zaillian’s 2024 American neo-noir psychological thriller TV series Ripley is based on Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels. Ripley is a gorgeous looking art work in glorious black and white, and Andrew Scott is quietly sensational as Tom Ripley. 

Writer-director Steven Zaillian’s 2024 American neo-noir psychological thriller TV series Ripley is based on Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels and stars Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley, with Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood and Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf. The programme is a surprise, as the first time anybody has tried to adapt Highsmith’s novels as a series. The other surprise is that Ripley is beyond virtuoso.

It is a gorgeous looking art work in glorious black and white, and Scott, more than two decades older than Highsmith’s character though the TV show adjusts this from his twenties to his thirties, makes the role his own. He really owns it. He is quietly sensational. The show builds and builds as it purrs mesmerisingly along its eight riveting episodes of around 50 minutes, up to its nail-biting final extended episode of 76 minutes, a movie in itself.

Veteran American cinematographer Robert Elswit (Oscar winner for There Will Be Blood) is the inspired cinematographer of all eight episodes, shooting with Arri Alexa LF digital cameras. He manages the impossible trick of turning the glossy, touristy Italian locations into brilliantly fitting backdrops for neo noir. Each frame is an individual art work. Gasp!

And the black and white? Zaillian explains: ‘The edition of the Ripley book I had on my desk had an evocative black-and-white photograph on the cover. As I was writing, I held that image in my mind. Black and white fits this story and it’s gorgeous.’ The miracle is that Netflix had the courage to agree and allow him to do this.

Maybe Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood and Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf don’t really have much of a time with their roles. Zaillian doesn’t seem very interested in them, but Maurizio Lombardi has a marvellous time as Inspector Pietro Ravini and Margherita Buy is a standout as Signora Buffi, Ripley’s landlady. Eliot Sumner plays male character Freddie Miles, but can’t really erase the memory of  Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Talented Mr Ripley (1999). Nor can Kenneth Lonergan really erase the memory of James Rebhorn as that film’s Herbert Greenleaf. But John Malkovich, who plays Ripley in the 2002 film Ripley’s Game, is an inspired choice at the series end as Reeves Minot, so we eagerly await series two.

Scott recalls: ‘I found it mentally and physically really hard, Certain things I can understand, but other things… it’s actually the blankness that’s sometimes hard to engage with.’ He does blank great. He’s caught the essence of Ripley. Odd that. In person he seems such a nice man and here he seems like a deadly snake about to pounce (do snakes pounce? well this one does). It’s called acting, dear boy, and Scott is one fine actor.

Steven Zaillian explains that adapting the material as a series rather than a feature film ‘allowed me to be more faithful to the story, tone, and subtleties of Highsmith’s work. I tried to approach my adaptation in a way I imagined she might herself.’

Steven Zaillian and Andrew Scott and Robert Elswit have done a grand job, though of course they have had the finest of help, and other assets include the dazzling production design and Jeff Russo’s super score.

It premiered on Netflix on 4 April 2024.

The cast are Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley, Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood, Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf, Eliot Sumner as Freddie Miles, Margherita Buy as Signora Buffi, Maurizio Lombardi as Inspector Pietro Ravini, Kenneth Lonergan as Herbert Greenleaf, Ann Cusack as Emily Greenleaf, Bokeem Woodbine as Alvin McCarron, Vittorio Viviani as Matteo, Louis Hofmann as Max Yoder, Fisher Stevens as Edward T Cavanagh, and John Malkovich as Reeves Minot.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,882

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