Ripley

A solid adaptation, almost slavishly true to the book, with a nod or two to the second book, one of which is frankly silly (sorry dude, that disguise ain’t fooling anyone). Eliot Sumner, progeny of Sting, playing Freddie Miles doesn’t really work for me, though I have to appreciate the stunt casting of a nepo baby in the role of an old money bon vivant, and they do successfully render the character as deeply unlikable, as does Dakota Fanning’s Marge Sherwood. Andrew Scott is absolutely impeccable in the title role, and incredibly, he’s not even the best thing the series has going for it. That would be the breathtaking cinematography—every sumptuous black and white shot of one or another impossibly photogenic locale is meticulously framed by a camera seemingly welded in place—which fully understands that Patricia Highsmith was as much a travel writer as a crime novelist. If you come away from Ripley without a yearning to teleport yourself into a life of fraud and murder in 1960s Italy, you’re made of sturdier stuff than I. (The sound design is really great too.)

My macro complaint is that the series is just too long. I can understand how certain aspects of plot and character development benefit from marinating in certain moments, and I especially appreciate how it frames a murderer’s work as a real hassle, but much of the back half drags. My micro complaint is that it makes excessive use of newspapers for exposition, including an annoying trick of translating headlines and key passages from Italian to English with on-page wipe transitions. The effect is rarely seamless and often typographically fraught; it sticks out like a sore thumb amid the production’s otherwise elegant visuals and is an uncharacteristic failure of trust in its audience.