By Joshua Hudes
Staff Writer
In spite of the legions of adaptations — either direct or indirect — of the beloved Patricia Highsmith novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” writer and director Steven Zaillian confirms with his new miniseries “Ripley” that the heavily ingrained can still be mined for something fresh and audacious.
While this eight-episode crime noir and murder mystery odyssey, which released on Netflix April 4, could be simplified down to the tale of a basic con man’s successes and blunders, the miniseries’ presentation begs the viewer to think bigger than the main character himself.
However lush the picturesque intersections of Italy’s entombed stone pathways are, there resides an inkling within the audience that they are comprehending a certain beauty which this con man fails to take in.
This con man, named Tom Ripley, craves to be an indelible figure within a Renaissance dreamscape to the point where he sees little to nothing else more important than achieving that objective, not just literally but figuratively. Comparisons throughout are even made to the Baroque painter Caravaggio, whose highly authentic renditions of historical tragedies and problematic conduct overlap and diverge with Ripley in many astute ways.
The main plot of this miniseries follows Ripley as he is secretly dispatched to Atrani, Italy, by the shipping magnet Herbert Greenleaf. The mission is to persuade his son Richard “Dickie” Greenleaf to end his soul-searching and come back to New York. Having been an able grifter in New York, he sees an opportunity to go rogue and take Dickie’s artistically free and highminded persona for himself through deception.
Ripley is someone who, without question, covets the abstraction of Dickie and his partner Marge Sherwood rather than what differentiates them as persons in their own right. The miniseries does a brilliant job in sanctioning long stretches of time for daily humdrum and human relationships to be executed without too much copious editing. Elements which would normally be considered folly on the surface are welcomed with open arms here. Because of this, the first three episodes are afforded the opportunity to have the viewer regard these landscapes and character bonds through Ripley’s eyes.
A relaxed style of filmmaking is becoming much more abundant in the era of streaming services. Consequently, a miniseries like “Ripley” can make its vast number of thematic preoccupations more pronounced and effective through not just what is shown on screen but by how many times these components are stressed.
Since this miniseries follows minute routines of Tom going to any lengths necessary to both get what he wants and to not get caught, its format can allow for shots to be repeated like clockwork for comedic effect. Because he is longing to metaphorically become a romanticized figurine through shallow force, gorgeous frames of Roman and Venetian statues existing in perpetuity are littered within every episode to further assert what he is candidly made of.
The miniseries’ emphasis on what people do with their hands places the viewer into the perspective of someone like Ripley who, deep down, yearns for the creative touch. Every frame appears to have been curated within the mind of Ripley.
All of these visually presented aches and wants paint Tom into a personal corner which he seems destined to never emerge from. This is not just because his sociopathic predispositions sequester a rich inner life. The hilarious yet tragic scenes which falsely persuade others of his painterly skills makes that clear enough. It is also because his paranoia, childish mindset and hints of emotional honesty conjure two irreconcilable philosophies on life that seem destined to be in contention.
In a short yet piercing scene in the second episode, Dickie and Ripley are listening to a performance by an Italian singer in a club. The singer's voice appears to, at one moment, cry out towards Tom himself as a result of him keeping such keen focus on her at the expense of others. The expression of unfeigned admiration carved within his teary eyes transmits towards her emotions that supersede words. Her response is nothing short of impassioned shock at the place this seeming patron of the arts was inhabiting just then. Both shared in a singular union of art and humanism which never could have existed without each other.
A scene such as this proves that at his core, Ripley knows that which he not only covets but also that which he feels is a necessity. He understands that he truly wants to feel beauty and that he needs to have one share in that experience. This bout of emotional honesty is one of the only in the whole miniseries. Yet up to that point, the audience saw himself being powered by his egotistical and sociopathic inclinations. Every scene afterwards is then tinged with a disconcerting and irresolute vibe. Even though Ripley is held back from emotional self-awareness, someone pure of heart exists latently.
What this apparent lack of emotional confrontation has done is to make him into someone who lacks as much of a resemblance to the prior adaptations of the Ripley character. In those prior stories, Ripley is either much more cunning and cold-hearted or more quick-witted. Resemblances overlap in each one, yet “Ripley” makes for one whose removal from others and dormant self is the most tragic and cringeworthy to take in.
In another notable scene, Dickie and Sherwood speak about the fact that they are getting a new refrigerator. Ripley explains how refrigerators pin individuals down and reduce freedom while Dickie immediately counters back by stating how practical and freeing owning one’s own food is. Both the couple and the audience come to realize that Ripley’s façade of high-mindedness in order to fit in causes him to spout pompous nonsense.
By the miniseries’ end, a noteworthy segment makes light of what attracts Ripley towards the work of Caravaggio so fervently. Yet, it is also made to show how one is plainly just a dedicated and pedestrian imitator of the other. Caravaggio used his skills to make the real more palpable, while Ripley used his pettiness to make the artificial more contrived.
The combined strength of Zaillian, cinematographer Robert Elswit and the rest of the cast and crew have made for a miniseries bursting with enough novel finesse to make Highsmith proud.
