Andrew Scott is superb as Patricia Highsmith’s psychopath, Steven Knight chucks everything at his 1980s youth culture drama, and Michael Sheen is grilled by a neurodivergent audience
Ripley Netflix
This Town (BBC One) | iPlayer
The Assembly (BBC One) | iPlayer
Mammals (BBC One) | iPlayer
I felt nervous about the new eight-part adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 psychological thriller, The Talented Mr Ripley. Would Netflix stuff it up? We’re all hardened to botched streamer adaptations, but this is Tom Ripley, the reptilian anti-hero grifter of Highsmith’s five (“Ripliad”) novels. Would they soften Tom up, make him (I can hardly bear to type these words) “more likable”? Of previous adaptations, I loved Anthony Minghella’s glossy, shattering 1999 film starring Matt Damon (even if liberties were taken with the text). Anyway, I needn’t have fretted. Ripley is intelligent, mercurial, beautiful and devastating. It’s what it needed to be: a work of art about a nasty piece of work.
