Ripley is a riveting, joyous ride through its eight episodes; its only real fault being that the storyline has more gaps to it than the front row of a French can-can.

Hold on! Can I say that in the 21st Century #metoo era? Probably not so let’s start that again.
Ripley is a riveting, joyous ride through its eight episodes; its only real fault being that the storyline has more gaps to it than Terry-Thomas’s top row of teeth.

The big question now is: do I spoil this series for those still to watch it by running through those many gaps? Bugger it! Everyone knows that basic plot from the 1999 flick The Talented Mr Ripley.

So here’s the first “what the!” moment. Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) catches Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott) in his bedroom, dressed in his clothes and practicing his voice.

Any mere mortal would have sent this strangely weird freeloading houseguest packing but Dickie just says: “Forget it. Let’s move on” or words to that effect. Dickie soon after proves he is a mere mortal, deserving everything that comes his way, including a boat oar.

We should all know, without another spoiler alert, that Tom takes up impersonatiing Dickie full-time and this subterfuge by this New York grifter is probably the biggest “what the!” of the whole premise of this series.

So this is where we introduce two-thirds of the way through the series Italy’s answer to France’s Inspector Clouseau, one Inspector Inspector Pietro Ravini (Maurizio Lombardi) who never gets to catch the murderous thief because he never catches on until virtually episode eight’s final scene that – WHAT THE! – Ripley was impersonating Greenleaf all along, the sneaky bastard.

Clouseau, sorry, Ravini, never ever picked up the vibe when Dickie’s girl friend Marge Sherwood
(Dakota Fanning) kept insisting that the only person she’d seen in Dickie’s apartment is Tom and that Dickie is missing! WHAT THE! indeed! And, luckily for Steven Zaillian who wanted to write and film a full eight-episode series, no photograph of Richard Greenleaf was ever published once he was feared murdered!

And if only the good inspector at any stage in his investigations had happened to look at, maybe, other images of Dickie and Tom (passports maybe? Who knows?) this would have only been a six–part series.

Probably the greatest WHAT THE! moment is when Ravini travels to Venice to interview Ripley who is playing himself for this particular encounter just to keep his end in.

Tom, a student of Caravaggio’s clever use of light – or indeed lack of it – darkens his pad up and sets two chairs well apart to trick the bumbling Ravini with a bit of a goatie to hide the fact he looks exactly like Dickie the more you think about it! They even shake hands at the end and Ravini still doesn’t twig. WHAT THE! Was it really that dark?

And don’t get me started on how Tom managed to clean up another murder scene that made his apartment and a spiral stair case look like an abattoir killing floor, especially on a night he had to make two urgent trips well out of town!

What a load of shit, the more I think about it. But what marvellous, fun, shit. Great photography, great acting and so many close ups of paintings, statues, seascapes and stairwells that you never, ever, have to visit Italy if you haven’t already been.

Don Gordon-Brown

Want to be alerted immediately a new blog hits Australia’s longest running and most offensive satire site? Simply click on the Follow sign or the link below to be emailed new yarns the moment they are uploaded! The very second we go far too far – and trust us we will – you can then quickly unfollow via the three dots!

Follow The Bug Online on WordPress.com