Ripley: ‘Spellbinding’ or ‘charmless’? Critics divided over Andrew Scott in Netflix drama

Critics are split over Netflix TV drama Ripley, based on Patricia Highsmith’s bestselling thriller novels, which stars Andrew Scott as the fraudster.

Set in 1960s New York, Scott plays the ruthless Tom Ripley, sent to Italy by a shipping magnate to convince his son to return home to the family business.

There have already been several adaptations of Highsmith’s five books, including the Oscar-nominated 1999 film The Talented Mr Ripley, starring Matt Damon as Ripley, Jude Law as wealthy son Dickie Greenleaf and Gwyneth Paltrow as his girlfriend Marge.

In the new version, Dakota Fanning plays Marge and Johnny Flynn stars as Dickie.

Mangan said the latest version was a “scintillating and noirish adaptation”, saying Scott had his “every ounce of his talent, ineffable charm and lightly reptilian hotness on display”.

She added: “Fans of the book and what has come to be seen – until, possibly, now – as the definitive screen version of it, Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley, will know the plot. But its fresh execution is quite something.

“Malevolence bleeds into everything. Every moment of beauty ultimately ends up poisoned. It’s wonderful.”

Tinubu, by contrast, said of the show: “Twisted and deeply disturbing, this Ripley feels more sinister and stilted than its predecessors, making the show arduous rather than enticing.”

She added: “Ripley stumbles in part because Tom is void of seduction and likability.

“The series has none of the homoeroticism of Minghella’s film, which is disappointing because Scott’s sensuality has radiated off the screen in other roles.”

“Where Highsmith envisaged Ripley as an eerily calm social climber, who is charming and naive when he’s not beating people around the head with the oar of a boat, Scott plays him as more of an overt ghoul – someone oozing sociopathic menace in the corners of fancy ballrooms,” he wrote.

Comparing the series with previous adaptations, he added: “Ripley isn’t at all the disaster it could have been, primarily because its source material is so strong that you’d have to be incredibly dense to screw it up too badly.

“But it’s haunted by the spirit of past adaptations, unable to wrestle free from the shackles of earlier perfection.”

She praised its lead actor, saying: “Scott, as you would expect, is outstanding – mesmeric as the polite, clever but ruthless psychopath.”

Midgley, who gave the show four stars, also said modern viewers “may make comparisons with Saltburn, the upstart interloper running rings around the wealthy”.

The series is written and directed by Steven Zaillian, who won a screenwriting Oscar for Schindler’s List and was nominated for films including The Irishman and Gangs of New York.

“At 47, Andrew Scott is too old for the fledgling sociopath that Tom Ripley is supposed to be in the first of Highsmith’s novels in the series. He’s the right age for later Ripley adventures.”

But he added: “Scott blends Damon’s close-to-the-bone fragility and Alain Delon’s simmering impenetrability [in 1960’s Purple Noon] in making this uncertain Tom Ripley his own.

“He’s unsteady and forgettable one moment and suave and canny the next, completely believable navigating between the two.”

Fienberg also said the series was worthy of further instalments. “If the streamer treats Ripley as a drama instead of a limited series, it’s the sort of smart and meticulously produced literary adaptation – think TV for grownups in a Queen’s Gambit or The Crown vein – that’s worthy of across-the-board award consideration.”

Empire magazine’s John Nugent gave the show four stars, saying: “Andrew Scott – who only last year was so extraordinarily humane and vulnerable in All Of Us Strangers – offers a markedly different Ripley than any we’re used to: gone is the smoothness of Delon or the boyish charm of Damon.

“His Ripley, an established grifter from the start, is cold-blooded… the psychopathy immediately on the surface.”

Nugent called the show “a baroque, beautifully crafted vision”, adding: “Inevitably, this is a less obviously inviting take on this tale… But it is rare to find television this genuinely ambitious or finely tuned.”

She added: “There’s an unapologetic cunning at the heart of this series, and a mercurial spirit that’s as slippery as blood on an Italian marble floor.”