Ripley (2024)

...after so many incarnations, starting with Plein Soleil/Purple Noon (1960), where Alain Delon was Tom Ripley, the Patricia Highsmith absolute spellbinding psycho-sociopath is back ! 

In black and white and extended duration ! Since y-day- 4.4.24- on Netflix  (they bought it from Showtime)!

Steven Zaillian, master screenwriter (from Schindler's List to The Irishman) and art-house director (Searching for Bobby Fisher), social activism ( A Civil  Action), unlucky remake (All the King's Men), great HBO mini-series (The Night Of, in my Top 2016), took the time (it feels and it looks) to write and direct RIPLEY, an ambitios, artsy adaptation of the NOVEL The Talented Mr. Ripley (published in 1955 and followed by 4 sequels!) set in Italy in 1960, in no less than 8 episodes, marked I to VIII (V Lucio, man, loved the pun! and the last shot, that was a genius finesse touch).  Another masterful touch and change from the novel can be found here.  Zaillian is slowly developing his painting on a vast canvas and takes his time to boil into the mind and psyche of Ripley, one of the most fascinating characters in literature and film history !  The novel has been also adapted in a highly successful film that I am not a big fan of (in 1999 by Anthony Minghella, with Matt Damon as Tom Ripley).

An older Ripley has been portrayed by Dennis Hopper in Der Amerikanishe Freund (Wim Wenders, 1977), John Malkovich in Ripley's Game (Liliana Cavani, 2002) and Barry Pepper in Ripley Under Ground (2005, Roger Spotiswoode).

Irishman Andrew Scott who did a brilliant mastermind villain in the BBC Sherlock series, namely Moriarty and recently a grand acting job in All of Us Strangers, kills (metaphorically and practically ;) as the best Tom Ripley 2 date.

And Brit Johnny Flynn (The Outfit) is a brilliant Dickie Greenleaf,  putting on both the spleen and the class. Dakota Fanning is Marge Sherwood, good part for her, but she does not shine. Well, also the      character does not in the story.  Maurizio Lombardi as Inspector Ravini is wonderful, the accent, the manierisms, a cross between Lee Van Cleef and Buster Keaton. We got also lady Margherita Buy, which I saw last in Nani Moretti's Il sol dell'avvenire . Playwright Kenneth Lonergan is Dickie's father, Herbert Greenleaf. And Eliot Sumner as Freddy Miles (Sumner is Sting's non-binary child, I learned a new word with this, (non-binary, ok, got it.)

Robert Elswit's cinematography is an homage to all greatness of black and white cinema. He and Zaillian take the time to shoot a lot of inserts and details, architectural symmetries or mathematical constructed shots. Loved the Caravaggio puns. Elswit is PTA's collaborator, he won an Oscar for There Will Be Blood and worked with Zaillian before in The Night Of. The set design, the locations, lavish production on a "no problemo" budget, period reconstruction, and great Italian casting. Jeff Russo (Fargo) does a great job with the tense music. Also a poignant sound design all over. 

Here's a Vanity Fair article on the cinematography of the project. 

and two more words: Reeves Minot ;) TBC ?