The Bastardization of Ripley

Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley series were books that were so peculiar in their day that they never really took off in the English speaking world. It took the French to constantly refer to and make movies from her novels. It wasn’t until 1999 that an English language movie was made from one of her novels.

Other slightly more conventional stories, such as Strangers On A Train were made into movies by Hithcock and others, but the Ripley character was and is so anti the tropes of heroes from the 50s that despite the character’s appeal there were no US made movies based on Ripley until 1999.

I was prompted to write this piece after trying to watch this new ‘Ripley’ – the Netflix series that would lay claim to being the ‘definitive’ Ripley on film. Hmmm.

So many people online seemed to think it was ‘awesome’, ‘gorgeous’ and ‘thrilling’.

I thought it was so bad and just so ‘wrong’ that it made me want to go back and reassess the other movies made from her Ripley novels.

Patricia Highsmith in period ‘opium den’ drag

So, as a public service to my readers here I decided that all the Ripleys needed checking out in one go.

Here’s a list of movies based on the Ripley novels. I watched all of them in one sitting except for the Barry Pepper one Ripley Underground.

One, it was hard to find a copy, two, it was described on IMDB as a sort of comedy Ripley. And Barry Pepper’s face is not something I can sit and look at for 90 mins.

The Other Movies

In reviewing this series version we need to consider the other movie versions of Highsmith.

The American Friend from Wim Wenders was supposedly based on Ripley’s Game but there we have Dennis Hopper in Hamburg – dressed as the German idea of ‘yanks’ in the 70s, cowboy hat and giant gas guzzler Thunderbird. It sort of went its own way. Highsmith famously hated it, but taken on it’s own is worth watching for the always fantastic Bruno Ganz.

Here they are in order of year of production…

Plein Soleil 1960, René Clement’s genius Ripley version

I first saw Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) at the Everyman Cinema in Hampstead in the early 90s, and loved it, the Nino Rota music, Delon looking innocent but playing evil, the blue oxfords and white jeans, the colors of everything. I re-watched many times over the years, bought the soundtrack when it came out in the 2005.

Then there was a forgotten entry in the canon with Ripley Underground. It sank without trace and I couldn’t even find it to watch last week although from the reviews I didn’t try that hard.

I saw Ripley’s Game when it came out in 2002 at a private screening. Halfway through I realized that was the supposed storyline of The American Friend but never been a fan of John Malkovitch and this was the time he suddenly became a kind of catwalk fashion addict and was wearing the most bizarre clothing in this movie. At the time I didn’t buy him as Ripley either. Things have changed but a good deal of my reappraisal comes from the fact that the Netflix series was so dreadful and that made me binge watch all the old Ripley movies in one Sunday session.

Plein Soleil may wear its Frenchiness out loud but still understands where the characters roots lie in Ivy.

The American Friend 1976

Perhaps the oddest Ripley

I saw The American Friend in 1983. It was my first introduction to the world of Ripley. It was only five years old at the time and I thought it was like a student movie. I was working at the London International Film School as a kind of runner, and almost everybody who taught or studied there was obsessed with the then current heroes of John Ford, Sam Fuller and Godard.

I was more into Terry Southern (The Loved One, Candy) and Joseph Losey (The Criminal, The Servant) and (the back then despised) Werner Herzog and so for me the Wim Wenders movie seemed like a bad student movie full of cliches, cowboy hats, the aforementioned Sam Fuller making a ‘cameo’, the Ford Thunderbird etc. Before this review I had not seen it since that time.

I do remember the story made little sense to me at the time as I wasn’t familiar with Highsmith’s source material at the time. I did watch the movie at the cinema (maybe the Academy in Oxford St?) because of Bruno Ganz who I’d loved in Herzog’s movies and who later starred as a tour de force insane Hitler in ‘Downfall’ in 2004.

A few years after I saw The AmericanFriend – I started going to Paris a lot and there everyone seemed to know and be reading Highsmith, in cafes or on the Metro.

The Talented Mr Ripley 1999

Then came this Minghella movie in 99, which I really expected to hate because of the casting (more on that below) but at the time grudgingly accepted it was a good movie.

The Anthony Minghella movie has become a classic and with such weak competition is without doubt the most thorough interpretation of the Ripley phenomenon.

Now I am not a fan of Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and least of all Matt Damon. But in Minghella’s movie we can see the charm that Dickie has, the magnetism that makes Ripley want to first emulate him, then literally become him. After all, these three are narcs in real life so their acting in these parts is literally flawless.

Law, Paltrow and Damon are super convincing in their roles as narcissistic characters. Damon’s Ripley is a narcissist as are Marge and definitely, Dickie. Watching the three of them dance around what we the audience know will happen, is truly awesome casting from Minghella. 

I’ve always believed that even actors I dislike intensely have at least one great performance in them. Hugh Grant as Jeremey Thorpe, Tom Cruise in Rain Man, Alan Cummings in … well nothing.

I remember when I first went to see the 1999 movie I went into the cinema (with my phone on and eating my dinner – joke) with a clenched jaw and fist fully expecting to hate the movie for having this cast, but I was so wrong. They were all perfect. It all made sense. Jude Law was arrogant and entitled and with total confidence, Damon was edgy and jealous, Paltrow the epitome of rich sorority girl of the time.

Ripley wearing a pair of chasse here, although later on the soles look suspiciously modern. Still correct style for late 50s.

Today we tend to think of this style as French because of JM Weston and Paraboot, but those brands were simply copying the ‘algonquin’ or ‘norwegian split toe’ models that were popular in the USA from the 1940s on.

Ripley’s Game 2002

We can’t forget also the 2002 version of Ripley’s Game in which John Malkovich was perhaps strangely cast as being way too old and too bald for the Tom Ripley character.  Italian veteran Liliana Cavani helmed this odd entry, but the score is by the always excellent Ennio Morricone.

Ray ‘Sexy Beast’ Winstone pairs up with Malky for an OK-ish thriller with Malkovitch looking all the time like he has a mouthful of bees he can’t swallow.

Oooh Betty! Malkovich channeling Frank Spencer sans irony

Ripley 2024
The Netflix Series

First off, kudos where it’s due, the two Italian designers have recreated an Italy that is pretty perfect. The fact that they filmed during Covid meant that the locations really appear deserted in the true Italian style. If you’ve ever turned up to a small Italian town and thought everyone must have closed up and left only to magically reappear for the ritual evening ‘passiagata’ then you will recognise the veracity of the set pieces. 

But back to Highsmith. Far from being straightforward, her characters were sometimes opaque, often morally suspect, sneaky, manipulative but overall never, ever boring.

However, somehow the makers of this Netflix series have managed to take these characters and lobotimize them entirely, and pickle them in an aspic of admittedly stunning 1950s Italian scenes, but to no purpose that I can see, other than black&white eye candy to discuss at dinner parties.

‘Oh you must watch Ripley! It’s so teddibly good’

Highsmith was very specific in her description of her characters. True, a lot is left unsaid, elements of homoerotica for instance that may or may not be suggested because of the times (at least for 1955’s ‘The Talented’ – less so for the 70s books) or because Highsmith liked to suggest a lot of the motivations of her characters leaving the reader to fill out the blanks in his or her mind. But, there’s a lot of information in the books that exists for any would-be adaptor in order to build up the characters for a dramatic adaptation. 

So why did this adaptation entirely miss the plot? Pun intended.

What? No Ivy?

First off, kudos where it’s due, the two Italian designers have recreated an Italy that is pretty perfect. The fact that they filmed during Covid meant that the locations really appear deserted in the true Italian style. If you’ve ever turned up to a small Italian town and thought everyone must have closed up and left only to magically reappear for the ritual evening ‘passiagata’ then you will recognise the veracity of the set pieces. 

But back to Highsmith. Far from being straightforward, her characters were sometimes opaque, often morally suspect, sneaky, manipulative but overall never, ever boring.

However, somehow the makers of the recent Netflix series have managed to take these characters and lobotimize them entirely, and pickle them in an aspic of admittedly stunning 1950s Italian scenes, but to no purpose that I can see.

Highsmith was very specific in her description of her characters. True, a lot is left unsaid, elements of homoerotica for instance that may or may not be suggested because of the times (at least for 1955s ‘The Talented’ less so for the 70s books) or because Highsmith liked to suggest a lot of the motivations of her characters leaving the reader to fill out the blanks in his or her mind. But, there’s a lot of information in the books that exists for any would-be adaptor in order to build up the characters for a dramatic adaptation. 

So why did this adaptation entirely miss the plot? Pun intended.

In reviewing this series version we need to consider the other movie versions of Highsmith as we’ve seen above.

The American Friend from Wim Wenders was supposedly based on Ripley’s Game but there we have Dennis Hopper in Hamburg – dressed as the German idea of ‘yanks’ in the 70s, cowboy hat and giant gas guzzler Thunderbird. It sort of went its own way. Highsmith famously hated it, but taken on it’s own is worth watching for the always fantastic Bruno Ganz.

OK, so what else did the Netflix series get right?

Pretty much nothing.

Let me start by mentioning something that readers will know is dear to my heart. Ivy style.

Highsmith left us in no doubt that Ripley was someone who went to good schools and to Princeton (if he ever actually did and it was not just another lie) and who used the ivy league uniform of the day to appear to be the same as his peers. In the Minghella version we see Matt Damon in patch and flap blazer with Princeton badge on the pocket, button down shirt, rep tie and loafers hob-nobbing with ivy leaguers by playing piano as a stand in for a friend.

These are the clothes of any young man aspiring to hobnob with the bright young things of the Ivy League schools. If Ripley had dressed any other way at that time he would not even have been accepted as the pianist in those college events. The apparently casual but actually very strict rules of how to dress if you went to an Ivy school were very distinct, and totally de riguer for all participants.

So, now I have to ask the question: why in the New York section of Episode 1 was Scott dressed as some kind of proto Lou Reed? Or maybe even Nick Cave’s Dad? 

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I stopped the episode to look up who in the hell did the costume design and when I found it was a couple of Italians it made sense (although it also makes sense why the Italian locations are so stunning). But these guys missed a massive clue to showing Ripley’s character – the ivy league uniform.

Minghella clearly understood this in the early part of his movie. It could not be clearer that Ripley has a bit of a chip on his shoulder and really, really wants to belong in a place where money and position helps to add prestige. And to get there, even to be taken seriously by Greenleaf Sr Ripley would have needed to at least look the part. Poverty could be forgiven, but a certain breeding and ivy dress, not.

And what’s with Andrew Scott’s plucked eyebrows and the ridiculous dyed haircut? In 1962 no one would have let him in the Yale Club on at 44th St  for looking like a West Side Story greaser.

I mean there are stylistic choices and then there is just plain wrong.

Now you may say ‘oh the designers just took a decision to make Ripley’s clothes more gothic in the current series’. But there is a clue in one scene in the series after Ripley is contracted by Mr Greenleaf Sr that he goes to Brooks Brothers to outfit himself in order to be fit to encounter the wayward Dickie in Italy.

So what do we see in this scene at the venerable Madison Avenue store?

Ripley being handed some peculiar evening dress white shirts with spread collars. Something an Italian may not even notice, with their decades’ long predilection for spread collars but which is a faux pas of enormity in this story. I actually felt sorry for Brooks Brothers. They get a big mention but not for the famous models – for shirts that look like they came from Cerruti 1881.

You may think ‘Weejun, you’re being obsessive about something that is only of interest to twenty weirdos on some out of date forum’.

Well, if this was a story about something that took place in the late 50s or early 60s there was of course a wide difference in styles. If it was Soho London in 1960 the look would have been beatnik or bum freezer Italian influence mod. It’s hard to really understand how radical it was to have hair that was not swept back and this helps Delon look modern still (Adam Faith was another who sported a ‘modern’ haircut but was extremely unusual for his day). But Ripley is a character who is defined by his status and by the way he desires so much to be that privileged Ivy League person that later in the story he is prepared to commit multiple murders to achieve it.

You may also point out that Plein Soleil had a distinctly more Italo-French style, what with Delon’s loafers being short fronted driving slippers and cardigans tied over the shoulders not really an American thing, but it’s a French movie, made in French; highly stylised and of the period. It was normal that French movies about American subjects had their own interpretation of what America was, Westerns, chewing gum, big gas guzzling cars, etc.

So much for episode 1

Episode 2 brings Ripley into contact with Dickie and Marge. So now the story should start to take its delicious twists and turns – Ripley being a story that shouldn’t matter if you already know the plot, the delight is in watching the squirming, twisting manipulation.

So, in order for the series makers to set up Ripley’s future behaviour of first mimicking then becoming Dickie Greenleaf they introduce us to …

Two robots. Two slabs of nothingness with absolutely no charm or style whatsoever. 

Now I am not a fan of Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and least of all Matt Damon. But in Minghella’s movie we can see the charm that Dickie has, the magnetism that makes Ripley want to first emulate him, then literally become him. After all, these three are narcs in real life so their acting in these parts is literally flawless. I’m sure that for all three actors they could have sleepwalked into their respective parts and still done them justice, for they are them.

Law, Paltrow and Damon are super convincing in their roles as narcissistic characters. Damon’s Ripley is a type B personality as are Marge and definitely, Dickie. Watching the three of them dance around what we the audience know will happen – this is truly awesome casting from Minghella. 

I’ve always believed that even actors I dislike intensely have at least one great performance in them. Hugh Grant as Jeremey Thorpe, Tom Cruise in Rain Man, Alan Cummings in … well nothing.

I remember when I first went to see the 1999 movie I went into the cinema (with my phone on and eating my dinner – joke) with a clenched jaw and fist fully expecting to hate the movie for having this cast, but I was so wrong. They were all perfect. It all made sense. Jude Law was arrogant and entitled and with total confidence ( I wonder which real life character he based that on?) Damon was edgy and jealous, Paltrow the epitome of rich, slighty vapid sorority girl of the time.

In Plein Soleil Maurice Ronet – a major French star at the time – is perhaps a little too fey as Dickie, but Alain Delon is superb as Ripley. Like Damon et al, Delon plays the part almost as if he isn’t acting, and that makes his character all the more convincing. Delon brought that bored ‘ennui but with actions’ style that he would later use to devastating effect in Le Samurai.

In the Netflix series it’s just taken for granted that these folks are rich (we know because the Dad owns a shipyard and has paid Ripley to go find Dickie) but we are shown two human vegetables that at least to this viewer showed no signs whatsoever of being people that anyone would want to copy. Let alone murder in order to be more like them.

And it can’t just be the money. That is what is so interesting about Highsmith’s Ripley. It’s that he wants to escape the world he came from and totally subsume himself into the world he wants to be in.

At this point I had to look critically at this mess. Yes, the visuals were stunning, black and white an interesting choice and separating it from the other mega vivid color versions.

But did I mention already the weird plucked eyebrows of Andrew Scott?

To me Scott is a dead ringer for the late Charles Grodin, a perpetually confused and surprised look on his face, topped off by the aforementioned eyebrows and a dodgy dye job – maybe even a glob of that ”new hair in a can’ stuff they used to sell in the back pages of GQ in the 80s to cover your bald spots with.

So when Scott turns up in Italy dressed as if for a Sicilian wake, and the Greenleaf couple are blobs and dolts, I literally could watch no further. In fact, it made me immediately download Plein Soleil, The American Friend, The Talented Mr Ripley and Ripley’s Game and rewatch them.

I was minded to write this piece the moment I got halfway through episode 2 but I decided to let it lie for a while to see if it wasn’t just first watching disappointment. In fact, my annoyance became even greater as I kept seeing people review it as ‘amazing’. Well, maybe it is, or could be, if you never read the books or saw the previous versions.

In Plein Soleil we have that odd job actor Billy Kearns playing Freddy who played mostly American tourists or Presidents in French movies and also appeared in Jacques Tati’s Playtime. In the Minghella version who better to play the part than an out of his head Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Just perfect. 

In this version we have a child playing Freddie. He doesn’t look old enough to possibly be a contemporary of Dickie and Ripley. In googling the actor the first thing I found was this tweet.

Freddy in Plein Soleil is what Americans in 1960 would have called ‘husky’. He’s at least 30 if not older. Hoffman was a genius at playing characters with untold depths and he was a fully grown man when cast. Then we have this child in the Netflix series.

Think about this: one of the key elements of suspense in the story is when Ripley has no choice but to bash Freddie’s head in because Freddie’s a big guy and could easily whomp our hero.

Then there is a major scene where Ripley has to drag the body down the long stairs and out into the car, the suspense being how can he manage such a large dead weight – only by pretending that Freddie is dead drunk and we know Ripley could be caught at any moment!

Then we have this little feller/fellerette called Elliot Sumner.* Well, I’m sorry, but Ripley could have blown in this kid’s face and he’d have floated down the stairs on his own. Hell, he could have it/they in his pocket and tippy toed down to his waiting car.
And why would our Lou Reed from Alphabet City be afraid of a littler Peter Pan?

*When I read the name Sumner I immediately thought of. the annoying Gordon aka Sting. Sure enough, it is Sting’s kid

Changing the story to make Freddy a trendy non man/woman is just unreal. To be honest it makes the clothing issue pale into insignificance because it directly affects the plot. In some ways I am surprised that a Ripley character is even allowed into today’s canon of what is and what is not OK. But then tokenism is just that. They won’t mess with the main characters but just dot a few little nods to being PC here and there.

If you think that talking about Ripley’s clothes so much is a bit facile, then you need to consider the history of Ivy style then you will also understand more about Ripley’s character, in the same way that Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye showed his obsession with clothing and shoes. In both sources they are an inherent, inseparable, parts of their characters.

In this current series we have ….Andrew Scott and his weird eyebrows and Lou Reed chic simply looked ‘dressed by others’. Marge and Dickie were just… well, no words really. Certainly, ‘stylish’ is not a word we can use to describe this pair. Dickie looks a teensy weensy bit cooler when he’s wearing his shades, but that is probably because we can’t see his dead codfish eyes.

Now, this series set out to be the definitive version, and unlike the other movies has the luxury of many hours to unfold the story.

It could have been so.

But it isn’t. It’s far, far from that. 

To me it’s a missed opportunity and more skewing of Highsmith’s truly fascinating anti-hero Tom Ripley.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I thought I’d stop ranting here, and share some images so you can judge for yourselves. 

Just look at these dreary characters with zero personality. Yawn.

And what’s with the Valley Girl voice that the Dickie actor has? Vocal fry. Like that was a thing in the late 50s…

Snore….

(Boring) Tom Ripley thinks “mmm, I really want to be more like this equally no personality couple. Worth killing for methinks…”

(Boring) Tom Ripley gets a lesson in ‘the best shirts’. Look away, Brooks Brothers of 1955.

Now these guys have charisma. Of course Ripley wanted to be a part of this dynamism. It was fun! Exciting! Exotic! Colorful!

(OK, it was just narcissism but narcissists are so attractive on first meeting!)

Check out the appalling gear they made Ripley wear in the Netflix series.

Nasty skinny cap-toed oxfords, pants that are WAY too long, a jacket borrowed from Alfred Doolittle, and the nastiest curling stiff spread-collar shirts of all time.

“Come in Andrew Scott, your time is up.“

Matt Damon, all is forgiven.

Comments are open, so fire away Netflix Ripley lovers!