Weekend Buff
"Ripley." Did we really need this remake?
Any cop who’s worked a “fixer” knows the feeling. You’re on a fixed post for eight-to-nine hours, standing in one spot with nothing much to do but show your presence. As NYPD cops used to say, it’s an assignment that “makes you a statue.”
I always considered it the most boring thing imaginable. Then I saw the new Netflix series, Ripley.
But first: a recommendation. I read the Patricia Highsmith “Ripley” novels some years ago. They run out of steam a bit by the end of the series, but the first one, The Talented Mr. Ripley is an undeniable gas. It’s an unapologetic portrayal of a nasty little sociopath who gets his way and then some. Written in the 1950’s, what likely made the book so unique at the time was that the “good guy” doesn’t win – Ripley literally gets away with murder. And yet somehow, we root for him.
(The original 1955 Highsmith novel -- click the image for the link)
In 1999, the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley was released, starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Blanchett, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Visually, the movie was gorgeous, with sun-splashed Italian beaches and Vespas galore in post-war Italy. The movie looks like a travel ad.
(The picturesque 1999 film)
With a cast like that, you would expect the acting to be first-rate, and it is. Damon is subtly conflicted and gradually psychopathic as the striver we realize would rather kill the object of his envy and affections (Law) than return to a desperate New York life.
Cate Blanchett is also very good, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is pitch-perfect as a wealthy young dissipate whose own animal cunning has him suspicious of Damon’s Tom Ripley from the start.
The film captures what I recall of the book admirably, with a good slow burn that leads towards the inevitability of Ripley’s true nature emerging.
As for the new Netflix series Ripley – it stinks. Much-hyped, the show is plodding, pretentious, and simply dull (a pretty neat trick, with material like this). Shot in a sort of odd-angled chiaroscuro reminiscent of the Sin City movies — which is undeniably atmospheric — the series takes entire episodes to show what The Talented Mr. Ripley portrays in a few scenes.
Coastal Italy, which is supposed to bedazzle not only the lead character but all the other characters (and us), looks drab and depressing. If you can make the Amalfi coast look depressing, you are really doing something wrong.
(Ad for the new streaming-series remake)
The acting doesn’t come with enough energy to fire a lightbulb. For a lead character whose most important struggle is supposed to be internal, Andrew Scott could’ve been AI-generated for all the inner conflict he conveys.
Johnny Flynn (Johnny? Really?) as Greenleaf doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself in Italy very much – despite that being the story line – and he has none of the requisite glamor Law brought to the role. In the Paltrow role, Dakota Fanning spends most of her on-screen time looking like she wants to teleport back to the 1999 movie — or to anywhere else, actually.
But perhaps the biggest acting disparity with the original is someone called Eliot Sumner as Freddie Miles, the wealthy lounge lizard expertly played in the earlier film by Philip Seymour Hoffman. The Miles character is predatory and hyper-male, whose own jungle sense trips him to Ripley’s game before anyone else.
In what must have been a spasm of political correctness, this character in the Ripley series is played by… a woman. Now, before anyone screams “transphobia!”, understand that the actor’s arrival on-screen is so jarring and unconvincing, I looked up who she was to try to figure out what exactly was going on – only to discover that “Eliot Sumner” is rock star Sting’s “gender neutral” daughter.
Now, how “Eliot Sumner” lives her life is her business (and yes, I’m aware that author Highsmith was herself a lesbian). But don’t ask the audience to look at one thing and see another. To be convincing is not our job – it’s the show’s job. And it fails.
Sumner, however, is but one of a series of production mistakes here. This is at least the third remake of the first Ripley book (the first was the French, Purple Noon), and put simply: there was really no reason to do it again. By attempting to tell the same story in “a different way,” this series proves that.
Watch the original film, The Talented Mr. Ripley, instead. It’s available on Amazon Prime, Paramount+, and other streaming services. Or read the book, available here.
You’ll be captured by both. And you’ll save yourself hours of wondering why someone thought remaking Highsmith’s crime-caper classic over eight spiritless episodes was a good idea.
