Ripley: Patricia Highsmith's Sociopathic Social Climber Gets a Noir Netflix Upgrade

By Karen Gordon

Rating: A

If there is any doubt that the Netflix mini-series Ripley is meant to be understood as a modern noir, then the choice by creator/writer/director Steven Zaillian to film it in black-and-white is a big tell. And what a noir it is! 

Driven by a sublime performance by Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley, the eight-part Netflix mini-series is a fascinating character study of a quiet psychopath who develops a taste for the finer things in life and will do what it takes to sustain his acquired lifestyle. 

Ripley is the latest screen adaptation, and the first made for TV, of novelist Patricia Highsmith’s character, the center of several psychological thrillers starting with The Talented Mr. Ripley.

He’s as far away from a hero as it gets. But something about this character has intrigued filmmakers since the book was published:  There have been several movies featuring the character, including 1960’s Purple Noon, with Alain Delon, and John Malkovich in 2002’s Ripley’s Game. 

Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley

My point of reference is the 1999 film, The Talented Mr. Ripley, written and directed by Anthony Minghella, with Matt Damon as the title character, Jude Law as the charismatic and elusive Dickie Greenleaf, and Gwyneth Paltrow as Dickie’s girlfriend, Marge, all living an idyllic life in a town on the sun-dappled Amalfi coast.

Damon’s Ripley was young and awkward, a skilled liar, impressionable and idealistic. He became entranced with the unattainable Dickie, envious of his life, and found his violent streak when he was unmasked and rejected.

Although the bones of the story are similar, Zaillian and Scott take the character of Ripley in different directions.  Scott’s Ripley seems older, jaded, his face a fairly expressionless mask with a simmering anger lurking just below the surface.  This Tom Ripley is a loner and a  grifter who, when we first meet him, is living in New York in 1961, barely eking out a living with a fraudulent scheme.

He’s hired by a ship magnate Mr. Greenleaf, (Kenneth Lonergan) whose son Dickie Greenleaf is living in Italy on a trust fund. Dad wants his son back in New York, but hasn’t had any success convincing him to return. He’s been looking for a messenger to go to Italy.  So, somehow believing that Ripley was a school friend of Dickie’s, he advances a few months of pay and expense money for Ripley to make the case in person. 

Dickie (Johnny Flynn) has been living in Atrani, a fishing village on the Amalfi coast.  Unlike Law’s extroverted Dickie, Flynn’s is a much softer person, content to take painting lessons, and spend time with his writer girlfriend Marge (Dakota Fanning). 

Tom presents himself first as an old acquaintance, before he comes clean about the reason he’s there. Dickie makes it clear that he’s not going back, but he invites Tom to stay at his place for the short term.  Dickie seems fairly relaxed about the whole thing, but Marge is deeply suspicious.

Tom falls into Dickie’s life in Atrani quite easily, and looks for ways, mostly illegal, to find a way to make money to stay.  Dickie is a dilettante, able to afford what he wants because of his trust fund, but he isn’t ostentatious. Still, Tom takes note of what he has with quiet envy. And when his money starts running out and Dickie asks him to leave, Tom keeps an outwardly calm demeanor, but, as Scott plays him, you can see the anger rising inside.  

As per the talent alluded to in the Highsmith novel, Tom is always adapting and game-playing.  As the series continues, and he moves from small-time grifter, forger and fraudster to murderer, he starts to grow as a person, picking up confidence and outward panache, all in service of maintaining his lifestyle.  Half way through the series, he tangles with the Roman police, playing a cat-and-mouse game with the canny Inspector Pietro Ravini (Maurizio Lombardi).  

There are other threads running under the story of Ripley: a man who presseshis nose against the glass window of life.  Life in Italy, with its seductive beauty, gives him what he wants. But it's not just money that’s a barrier. Issues of class stand in his way.  As well, people are suspicious of his sexual orientation, disapprovingly wondering if he’s “queer.” Envy, rejection and thwarted desires are the buttons that push him.

All of this is handled with deliberate subtlety by writer/director Steve Zaillian. 

Zaillian is arguably the best screenwriter working in Hollywood. His credits include scripts for two Scorsese movies, Gangs of New York, The Irishman, as well as Moneyball, and his Oscar winner Schindler’s List. He wrote and directed the mini-series The Night Of. He’s especially good at the psychological intricacies of relationships between men. 

None of this would work without the performance of Andrew Scott, who has consistently turned out work of the highest quality project to project, most recently in 2023’s All of Us Strangers, for which many, myself included, thought he should have received an Oscar nomination.

His performance is riveting. Ripley is a man who appears to be void of emotions, his face fairly neutral. There are times when we’re seeing through to what’s really going on in Ripley, by noticing a slight tightening of the jaw, or the way his expression stays calm, betrayed by a quick reaction in his eyes.  

He’s constantly manipulating people, aiming to blend in. easygoing if the situation calls for it, perfunctory and professional when dealing with the police. But if you look closely you get a glimpse of his truer nature.  Every so often a cold, cruelty comes to the surface. It’s fascinating. 

But that doesn’t mean the series is  bleak.  

There are moments of sometimes mordant humour. The series has a terrific cast and captures a flavour of Italy from small towns to major cities circa 1961. The casting of John Malkovich in a small role is a lovely nod to the previous Ripley movies.   

Italy in black and white, filmed by the Oscar winning cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood), is entrancing, and gorgeous.  But it's the way Zaillian has structured the series, and Scott’s impeccable performance that holds us. 

CLICK HERE to read Bonnie Laufer’s Q&A with Ripley director Steve Zaillian and actor Maurizio Lombardi.

Ripley. Written and directed by Steve Zaillian, starring Andrew Scott, Johnny Flynn, Dakota Fanning and Maurizio Lombardi. Now streaming on Netflix.