Ripley is a new limited series that’s coming to Netflix. What’s it about?
Just recently, I referenced The Talented Mr. Ripley – but really I mention it all the time as it’s absolutely brilliant – in the best 1,000 albums ever piece on Charles Mingus’ Mingus Ah Um (#254):
…I caught a movie called The Talented Mr. Ripley in the theater. I had no background on the (also excellent) novel by Patricia Highsmith at the time, and so I was completely taken with the dark and stylish tale of a young, troubled con artist named Tom Ripley (Matt Damon, in one of his best ever performances) and his obsession with a spoiled, debonair young man named Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law). Gwyneth Paltrow, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Law are also incredible in it.
The Talented Mr. Ripley takes place in late 1950s Italy – 1958, in fact, one year before the release of Mingus Ah Um – and the film just looks spectacular, like it’s been generated in a genAI/ChatGPT/Holodeck thing for “make late 1950s Italy look like absolute heaven” engineering prompt.
And then, the music! There’s a tactile feel to the vinyl records that appear in the film, as the names of jazz giants are thrown around and also appear on album covers: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis.
So therefore, I was all kinds of interested to learn that that there will be a new version of this story coming to Netflix, told by way of a limited series called Ripley. It stars Andrew Scott (the “hot priest” of Fleabag fame) as the titular Tom Ripley, Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf, and Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood.
To say the least, Ripley has a very high bar to pass to surpass the greatness of the film. Beyond what I mention above, the movie version boasts some of the best performances that Damon, Paltrow, Law, and Hoffman have ever given.
The Ripley trailer looks visually interesting, but it seems to lack the cool stylishness of the film, directed by Anthony Minghella. And while there’s no doubt that Andrew Scott is a great actor, I find the glimpses we get of him in the trailer to be somewhat concerning. He comes off more like an enigmatic serial killing weirdo and much less like the charming yet confused, vulnerable yet dangerous masterclass that Matt Damon puts on.
Now, that being said, I’m going to watch the hell out of every episode of this thing, and I’m hoping that I’ll be happily surprised on route.
A few other interesting tidbits:
- The IMDB page for Ripley says that this version of the story takes place in the 1960s, versus the ’50s-set film. Not sure why they updated the setting slightly, and then also obviously made a bold choice to film it in black-and-white (perhaps to clearly differentiate it from the breathtaking and splashy color of 1950s Italy we get from The Talented Mr. Ripley).
- Johnny Flynn, who plays Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law’s role in the film), is absolutely spectacular in a romcom TV show called Lovesick (in fact it’s #38 on Pop Thruster’s Best 100 TV Shows Ever). We barely see Flynn in the trailer, so I’m super curious and yet somewhat concerned about the casting here as well.
Ripley: when and where can I watch it?
Ripley will premiere on Netflix on Thursday, April 4th, 2024. The limited series comprises eight episodes.