The new RIPLEY (2024) limited series, based on Patricia Highsmith‘s bestselling Tom Ripley novels, follows the story of the titular character, a struggling grifter in 1960s New York, who is plunged into a life of deceit, fraud, and murder after being hired to bring back a wealthy man’s wayward son from Italy. Launching on Netflix today, the new series is somewhat banal in its first few episodes. The storytelling and the black-and-white shooting (while beautiful) almost feel too clean—sanitized. At the start, this may leave viewers longing for more texture. Something rougher. Or at least a hint of roughness. Yet this is purposeful, a hidden hook that yanks us in deeper.
Performances by Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood, Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf, and Eliot Sumner as Freddie, give us more grounded versions of the old-money set that can also be found in Saltburn, a The Talented Mr. Ripley scion. In them, we see the wealthy as cavalier innocents with targets painted on the backs of their elegant silk-dressing robes. Sumner also gives more fullness to the queerness in the Ripley world, as his Freddie is a transgendered man living freely in Italy.
The friction remains slight until the truth inside of Tom Ripley suddenly bursts forward, injecting a jolt into the narrative. Leaving us uncertain about where the final few episodes will take us. Will this new RIPLEY, who is played with psychopathic chill and subtle magnetism by Andrew Scott—trace the same lines as Patricia Highsmith’s influential novel? Or will writer/director Steven Zaillian swerve more toward the rhythms of Anthony Minghella’s film? This keeps us watching RIPLEY with intrigued uncertainty, despite the smoother subtleties of the beginnings.
