Talented Mr Ripley

It feels appropriate, somehow, that Tom Ripley, the ever-chameleonic con man created by author Patricia Highsmith, has proven a bit of a chameleon on screen. Over the years, the character has been played by the likes of Alain Delon, Dennis Hopper, John Malkovich and (perhaps most famously) Matt Damon. The last, in 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley directed by Anthony Minghella, cemented Ripley in contemporary minds as a sexy, sun-dappled anti-hero, indulging in misplaced romance, murder and mystery on Italy’s Amalfi Coast: Eat, Slay, Love, if you will.

Now along comes Steven Zaillian, screenwriter of Schindler’s List and The Irishman, adapting the same original Highsmith book as Minghella, bringing an entirely new flavour to an old psychological thriller. It’s a fascinating exercise in interpretation and execution: the plot and narrative are near-identical to all the previous takes on this material, but the look, feel and tone are wildly dissimilar.

Most strikingly, Zaillian — who writes and directs every one of these eight episodes, a rare TV auteur — has swapped the warm, glowy colours of Minghella’s Mediterranean sunsets for some severe, stunning, black-and-white cinematography, courtesy of Paul Thomas Anderson’s former director of photography, Robert Elswit. In an era where huge TV budgets often equate to cheap-looking visuals, Ripley is staggeringly, starkly beautiful.

Here he is, then: every ounce of his talent, ineffable charm and lightly reptilian hotness on display. Andrew Scott steps up to play Patricia Highsmith’s titular antihero in Netflix’s eight-part adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley.

When we first meet him, Tom Ripley is living in a borderline flophouse in New York and scratching an inelegant living as a petty, white-collar criminal; diverting people’s post and cheques, and running fake debt collection agencies. But you can’t keep a bad man – or a good fraudster – down for long. When Dickie Greenleaf’s father offers him the job (the only one of Dickie’s friends who will entertain the idea) of heading out on an all-expenses paid trip to Italy to try to persuade his son (played by Johnny Flynn) to give up his wastrel life in Europe and come home, he grabs the opportunity.

Soon, Tom has inveigled his way into Dickie’s life, gaining his trust and gently moulding himself around his friend’s personality and needs, while the golden boy’s coolly appraising girlfriend, Marge (Dakota Fanning), watches with increasing suspicion from her increasingly sidelined position. Fans of the book and what has come to be seen – until, possibly, now – as the definitive screen version of it, Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley (released in 1999, starring Matt Damon as Tom, Jude Law as Dickie and Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge), will know the plot. But its fresh execution is quite something.

Ripley is shot entirely in black and white, and the noir element is not soft-pedalled. Rainy nights abound. If there are puddles, we will see Ripley reflected in them. We hear every hiss and crackle of every cigarette, and watch every plume of smoke from those resting in (occasionally fateful) ashtrays. It looks, as we swan around Italy, utterly gorgeous.

It also moves incredibly slowly. For those who can lean in and appreciate the capture of a sensibility summarised in Graham Greene’s description of Highsmith as a “poet of apprehension”, this will be one of the best things about it.

The careful mapping of Tom’s every move, whether in furtherance of his deceit or the covering up of his crimes, allows the tension to mount exquisitely. That’s even before Inspector Ravini (Maurizio Lombardi) arrives to investigate the death of Freddie Miles (Eliot Sumner).

Doubts and shadows gather in corners. The details of massed lies accumulate, any one ready to be plucked out by an astute girlfriend, police officer or bank teller, bringing the teetering pile down. Malevolence bleeds into everything. Every moment of beauty ultimately ends up poisoned. It’s wonderful.

At the heart of it all, and in virtually every scene, is Scott. Scott’s Tom is everything and nothing, and mesmeric either way.

The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, too. Flynn’s Dickie is not a mere spoilt brat; rather, he is a weak but still warmly likable man. We may hope that Tom gets away with everything, but not because his victim deserves his fate. Fanning’s Marge radiates intelligence of the specific kind that tells her not to move against Tom until she can be sure of winning. And Lombardi is compelling, going toe-to-toe with Scott in their many scenes together. You can’t take your eyes off either of them.

Inevitably, this is a less obviously inviting take on this tale. It is darker, literally and figuratively, and Tom Ripley — so often the scoundrel you love to hate — is less paradoxically likeable here than ever. But it is rare to find television this genuinely ambitious or finely tuned. Throughout the series, Zaillian makes references to Caravaggio, one of Dickie’s favourite artists; he and Ripley visit his grisly painting ‘David With The Head Of Goliath’: a baroque, beautifully crafted vision, much like this adaptation.

A picturesque portrait of a serial killer, this is less romance-with-a-sting-in-its-tail than it is pure sting. It’s rare to see film noir this exquisitely crafted on TV.

With those who find it initially slow, stick with it; allow yourself to yield to both and let Ripley seduce you. There is magic at work here.