Believe it or not, there’s a Ripley TV series coming our way. No, not about the weird facts guy, and not about the woman who fights xenomorphs. It’s the one who kills people.
When is being Ripley released in New Zealand?
Ripley is streaming in New Zealand exclusively on Netflix from April 4.
Ripley: Limited Series
What is Ripley about?
Written and directed by Steven Zaillian, the eight-part miniseries Ripley is, as you may have guessed, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel, The Talented Mr Ripley, which sees the titular Tom Ripley hired by a wealthy family to track down their errant scion, Dickie Greenleaf, who is living the high life in Italy. Being fond of luxurious living, our man Tom promptly offs Dickie and assumes his identity, which leads to all manner of complications, as you can well imagine. It’s very queer and very murderous, and if it also sounds very familiar it’s because the Ripley books in general and this one in particular have been adapted loads of times, most notably in 1999 by the late Anthony Minghella, with Matt Damon as Ripley and Jude Law as Dickie.
The cast of Ripley
Andrew Scott is Tom Ripley, Johnny Flynn is Dickie Greenleaf, Dakota Fanning is Marge Sherwood, with Eliot Sumner, Maurizio Lombardi, Margherita Buy, and John Malkovich in supporting roles. That last is a neat bit of metatextuality, seeing as Malko played Ripley in 2002’s Ripley’s Game.
Ripley trailer
Why we’re excited about Ripley
While he may not be up there with Sherlock Holmes or Hannibal Lecter, Tom Ripley is one of the most iconic characters in crime fiction, hence the wealth of extant adaptations. We’re always up for a fresh take, though – it’s not like Minghella’s effort invalidated 1960’s Purple Noon, after all. Zaillian is a brilliant screenwriter with no shortage of excellent adaptations to his name, and we’re supremely confident he’s found a fresh angle on Highsmith’s murderous con man.
