I've been on a Ripley binge recently.
This month I read the book, The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, for the first time. One of the greats of crime literature. I bought myself and anthology of the first four books in the series (which is called The Ripliad in a paroday of the Iliad or Odyssey). I read it over three days, and found it enthralling even though I knew the story. I'd seen the 1999 movie version, and knew that though it had added to the clues about Ripley's sexuality, it was a pretty faithful adaptation, though of course a movie can only show so much compared to the novel.
The book is way better and the gay subplot is still definitely there though more subtle.
Though he is a psychopath I was rooting for him the whole time. In some ways he is a blank cipher, a chameleon who adapts to his surroundings with ease and at will. He is amoral, self-serving but also somehow wise and astute. The book is a real page-turner. and Patricia Highsmith's prose is wonderful, spare and compelling.
Once I'd finished the book, I read that there was a new adaptation available on Netflix, starring Andrew Scott as Ripley. And just called Ripley. So I had to see it.
And it is amazing. There are some differences from the novel. Andrew Scott is in his late forties, so more than 20 years older than the character in the book. So more steeped in the con tricks and hustles that he needs to do to survive in New York at the start of the story.
Filmed in black-and-white (unlike the 1999 film which shows Italy in all its glory), it has a film noir feel and is more sinister and gritty. Stair figure a lot - climbing and descending through the town of Atrani, in the Roman apartment where the lift is out of order. Choices of staircases to follow. The plot twists and turns like the staircases and leads us into unexpected places.
Some of the casting was a bit odd, especially the character of Freddie who is Ripley's second murder victim.
But overall the book and the TV series get five stars from me.
And I had to carry on with the book series, The Ripliad and so I started the next in line, Ripley Under Ground, set six years after the events of The Talented Mr Ripley. Tom is now married and living in France with a thriving business in the art world, creating forgeries of the work of a painter who may have killed himself in Greece. Not as great as the first book but still four stars.
