REVIEW: ‘Ripley’ Shows Andrew Scott’s Dynamic Range

Tom Ripley is a cornerstone of conmen media. Charismatic and conniving, Tom is a hero for all accounts despite his deeds. He always gets away, and he always makes you root for him. Yes, this is a psychological thriller, and the tension closes around you like a tourniquet. And with Andrew Scott as this generation’s Tom, the trend continues. An adaptation of the Tom Ripley novels by Patricia Highsmith, the story gets a new look in Netflix Original Ripley (2024). It stars Andrew Scott in the titular role of the enigmatic and shapeshifting conman, mentioning violence when things don’t go his way.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Tom Ripley novels, Tom is a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York. He makes phone calls to steal checks and is ultimately living out of what seems to be spite. A chance of a lifetime to travel across the world, a wealthy man hires Tom to travel to Italy to try to convince his vagabond son to return home. It serves as his first step into a complex life of deceit, fraud, and murder.

Shot in black and white, Ripley (2024) is gorgeous. Writer-director Steven Zaillian has effortlessly created a time capsule of a limited series. From ice trays to notes and tiles on the wall, old Italy feels frozen in the 1960s in an almost whimsical way. Repeatedly across the episodes, the camera pans in on art and Italy itself, making everything feel otherworldly.

The romantic approach to Italy exploits the audience as much as Tom does. The calm nature of a monochromatic palette makes everything feel more subdued when looking at the series as a whole. When Tom snaps, the beauty corrodes.  In those moments, he erupts from the scenery. Often presented as a small piece of a large landscape, it’s when the camera pulls in tight on Tom that we see him taking up the space his charisma deserves.

It’s here that Zaillian’s directorial eye captures the tension in the world around Tom as much as the character himself. A porcelain bust can be ominous. A giant arch framing a small black silhouette. And there is the attention to sounds. The cracking of ice cubes and the creaking of steps all contribute to a setting and vision that is Hitchcockian in the subtlest ways.

As the titular character, Tom Ripley is magnanimous in one moment and spiteful in the next. Oscillating between petty and thoughtful, Scott’s performance lingers just enough inside each of the skins he wears to make the audience fall for him. And over and over again, we’re betrayed. His face transforms from handsome to creepy, from creepy to vulnerable, from vulnerable to intimidating. He is everything at once, and self-preservation is the only sense of self that prevails. Despite the way he is enamored with Dickie, Tom is also truly a creature that thrives when alone, even if he craves to be near others.

Next to Ripley, Dakota Fanning plays Marge Sherwood. Her performance is measured and reactive at the same time. Johnny Flynn‘s Dickie Greenleaf is someone that the series paints with contempt. Even as Ripley’s inevitable victim, Dickie is frustrating to see, often making you question who is manipulating who. A story we’ve seen before, Ripley’s take on the story doesn’t use queerness as a prop, it investigates it.

As for the extended cast, Eliot Sumner, Maurizio Lombardi, Margherita Buy, John Malkovich, Kenneth Lonergan, and Ann Cusack round out a phenomenal take on a well-worn tale. Scott’s Ripley embodies a legacy that the novels carry, having been adapted many times over the years. Tom Ripley is Andrew Scott, and to define an iconic character is something few actors can hold.

Never in the shadow of the existing adaptations, Ripley (2024) is chilling, romantic, and tense in cinematic ways. There is a beauty to the ripples of chaos the methodical Tom Ripley causes, and Scott grounds it all.

Ripley (2024) is streaming now, exclusively on Netflix.