You're a hard man to find

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 TV shows of 2024

#11 :  Ripley

With Ripley, Steven Zaillian (The Irishman) took Patricia Highsmith’s literary classic and turned it into an incredibly atmospheric, monochromatic eight-part neo-noir series. Stepping into the (stolen) shoes of everybody’s favourite chameleonic con-man, a criminally insouciant Andrew Scott perfectly carries both the debonair cool and ice-cold sociopathy of Tom Ripley in the level of his unblinking glare. After Ripley accepts an offer to track down millionaire malcontent Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, Zaillian’s lavishly done series follows Scott’s master manipulator as he embarks on a continental spree of murder, manipulation, and identity theft, tailed all the way by Maurizio Lombardi’s relentless Inspector Ravini. Immaculately shot by frequent Paul Thomas Anderson collaborator Robert Elswit, impeccably threaded together by an ace ensemble, and utterly intoxicating in its slow-burn approach, Ripley — like its namesake — is cerebral, sophisticated, and irresistible. In other words, a real killer.

I like Andrew Scott, but I'm not sure I'd have bothered watching this under normal circumstances - it just feels like it'll be style over substance.

And well, it's certainly stylish. I'm not entirely sure why they went with monochrome because it feels like 60s Italy would have been a riot of colour and it would have been nice to see some of that - but I'm sure they had their reasons. Whatever the colour situation, Italy looks fabulous in this (New York, not so much, but poetic contrast is involved methinks) and they've done a great job in delivering the retro look (ah - I assume this is easier in black & white) and it's done very artfully, with interesting angles used to entertain and amuse the eye.

But is there any substance? Actually there is - I'd still say there's more style than substance, but this really has bags of style so I guess there was always going to be the danger that would be an issue. But, there's a decent book behind this and (as far as I know) this doesn't stray too far from the source material so it's not a case that this has nothing to say. But...

...Empire describes this as a "slow-burn approach" and they REALLY ain't lying. This is glacially slow - everything just takes sooooo long. Yes, part of that is the artistic style involved but they also make some curious decisions in the screenplay in terms of unnecessary repetition which prolong things for no obvious reason (except maybe to annoy me?). I found it intriguing for a bit, but two episodes in I'm afraid I'd just had enough and I knew I wasn't going to be able to handle another six episodes (at an hour apiece) at such pace.

The acting, such that I saw, was fine - but in the two episodes I managed we only really saw Andrew Scott, Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning and they are all playing pretty buttoned-down characters (at least in those episodes), so it doesn't give them massive opportunities for emoting.

Maybe this gets massively better and either speeds up or just becomes super engaging, but I'm afraid it just didn't push the buttons it needed to for me - interestingly, The Guardian said "with those who find it initially slow, or the relentless monochrome beauty slightly exhausting or pretentious, I understand entirely - but stick with it" (but I'm not going to). It did look amazing and is super stylish, but I'm afraid style only gets you so far - if you fancy giving it a go, then it's on Netflix, but I'd be interested to know how many people stuck with it right until the end (it's got 81% user rating on rottentomotoes.com though, so I guess I could be wrong!)

#12 - A very well done show