In ‘Ripley,’ Andrew Scott channels classic queer-coded killers
Actor Andrew Scott has turned his attention to portraying perhaps one of the most memorable literary figures of the 20th century: Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley.
After a whirlwind year of professional accolades, actor Andrew Scott (“All of Us Strangers”) is turning his attention to portraying perhaps one of the most memorable literary figures of the 20th century: Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. In the new Netflix series “Ripley,” from screenwriter Steven Zaillian (“Schindler’s List”), Scott delivers a fascinating performance as the queer-coded killer and master manipulator who is the protagonist in five thrillers by the lesbian novelist. Piercing through the series’ intense black-and-white palette, the Irish actor delivers a Ripley that is, at least according to the star, more relatable than his cinematic forebears.
“We shot it for almost a year, and the murderous elements took a month of that, and, actually, a lot of the rest of the scenes are quite domestic scenes about awkwardness between friends, about social anxiety, about pleasure, about travel — things that are quite relatable,” Scott told NBC News of the period drama premiering April 4. “You’re looking at this character and you’re understanding he’s trying to fit in, or he’s not wearing the right clothes, or whatever it is. Or he’s walking upstairs in Italy and becoming exhausted. They’re not necessarily scenes that you would associate with a ‘psychopath.’”
Scattered among those domestic scenes, however, “Ripley” — which Scott describes in the press notes as a story about kindness and casual cruelty, about how “if you hold somebody down, bad things can happen” — has plenty of unsettling moments to satisfy fans of darker fare.
The eight-part limited series set in the 1950s follows much the same plot as Highsmith’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” which begins with her elusive antihero being recruited by a wealthy shipping magnate to go to Italy and convince his playboy son, Dickie (Johnny Flynn), to return to New York. Upon arriving in a small town on the Amalfi Coast, Ripley quickly ingratiates himself with the gregarious golden boy and is invited into an exclusive world of luxury villas, lazy lunches and flowing martinis, much to the distaste of Dickie’s girlfriend, Marge (Dakota Fanning). But it’s not long before the novelty of the situation wears out and Ripley is cast out of Eden, setting off a chain of scams and murders that take place across Italy and attract the attention of a hard-boiled inspector (Maurizio Lombardi).
Unlike Anthony Minghella’s Oscar-nominated 1999 film adaptation starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwenyth Paltrow, which went the route of a sun-kissed thriller, the Netflix series paints its protagonist’s endeavors, literally, as a noir. Trading the colors of the Mediterranean for dramatic black-and-white, the slow-moving drama follows Ripley across the seas, through storied train stations, up ancient stairways and into elaborately decorated interiors, as he transforms from a slouching, amateur con man to an elegant, haunted serial killer.
Rating: 5