Hmm, maybe I should not… 
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Ask two critics and you’ll end up with (at least) three opinions…
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Am still in two minds about this. As Mangan writes, I would consider Minghella’s THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY as the definite adaptation of the novel and the character, in spite of some minor liberties with both.
Netflix’ ‘Ripley’ seems to lean much more into Scott’s talents in favour of an interpretation that would involve the entire Ripley with an emphasis on the more eccentric character of later novels. Weirdly, I can perfectly see his Ripley - what little the teaser reveals - cruelly manipulate a fatally ill man or moonlighting as a part-time hitman. Something I can’t see Damon’s do.
Scott would have been just perfect for an adaptation of Ripley’s Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley Under Water. Perhaps we’ll see that sometime down the road.
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My favorite.
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Just finished ‘Blue Eye Samurai’; truly outstanding thriller - definitely for mature audiences - giving many live-action series a run for the money. Strong characters, twists and turns, a villain worthy of a Bond film…in fact the suspense and adventure here are reminiscent of some of the better Bond films (and books). Great fun and promising a second season set in London, too.
Now to look at this ‘Ripley’…
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Have to side with the Variety verdict there, sorry. I watched the first episode and sadly could find nothing to like about it. The photography becomes affected after a while, the storytelling feels tedious and Scott is entirely the wrong age approaching 50 (even if he’s quite fit for it).
The worst thing about it though is how the script at once moves at glacial pace - yet insists on showing us Ripley (a last-chance Ripley) scheming his move right after making contact with Dickie. This is on various levels not what Tom Ripley should be about.
But by all means, check it out for yourself. And if you happen to like it, love it even, fine. Then you might also like THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY or even PLEIN SOLEIL. And check out the book(s) too, it’s hugely rewarding.
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I‘m not a Ripley connaisseur but I can definitely confirm:
It probably - apparently was the intention to go a very different route than Mingella‘s version. But everything alluring and seductive about that one here feels overthought and drained of any fun.
Scott is a very good actor, for sure, but not a surprise, cast once again for his diabolical conniving smile.
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Thanks for alerting me to this. I’m up to episode 6 now and it’s phenomenal. 
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This wrecks the groundwork here, an elderly couple asking a middle aged guy obviously down on his luck to bring in their son - when the character seems more likely to send them a ransom note in return. And the script alludes to him forging plans all along.
The Ripley of the page*, of all previous adaptations, would no doubt refuse the notion he was a murderer. And honestly believe it too. He doesn’t set out to kill anybody (you don’t batter a guy’s head in an upstairs apartment if you plan to kill him; you do it somewhere where the body is less of a nuisance).
Most of Ripley’s victims would still be alive had they not been insufferable, ungrateful pricks (Dickie) or insisted on asking nosey questions (Murchison, most of his other victims) or both (Freddie, the Pritchards). Ripley would consider himself a victim of circumstance and we’d tend to agree.
This is not merely theoretical sophistry but in fact important for understanding Ripley and our reaction to him. Ripley isn’t the plotting serial killer whose every action follows a detailed plan. Instead, he’s the average guy whose impulses we can understand because we share them. The difference is, he’s acting on them and having little trouble with his conscience afterwards; something readers would oftentimes wish for without daring to. We root for Ripley because we’ve suffered similar rejections, similar setbacks and can sympathise.
Scott’s Ripley seems to ignore this in favour of a figure more akin to a small scale Moriarty-Lecter, a seasoned petty criminal too deep in his own personal hell to make the smallest effort to seem sociable. I struggle to understand the various creative decisions here.
*The first two books at least. Afterwards Highsmith depicted a character largely at ease with his sociopathic impulses.
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Yes! That’s why he is such an interesting character.
And unfortunately that seems to have been the reason Zailian has done this: a Netflix algorithm demanding another serial killer.
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Another is that he is not the artist that Highsmith was/is. You cannot fake talent at the level she practiced.
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That’s why I wrote ’sociopathic impulses’. Ripley feels - but also struggles to feel ‘connected’. This is yet again an experience many of us can understand and relate to at times. I cannot say what exactly a clinical diagnosis of him would find.
From the pages it would seem he’s not entirely locked into a mimicry of socially acceptable behaviour, nor does he seem at odds with his surroundings. He can be charming enough, actually wants to appeal and even has got friends after a fashion (the set of art crooks who run the Derwatt scam with him and the freelance mobster/agent/fixer Minot) and a functional marriage that provides him with more riches than his original crime. He even shows a kind of guilty conscience when he helps out Trevanny - after he first manipulated him into his ordeal.
I doubt whether a sociopath in the strict sense of the diagnosis would be able to build up and navigate such a diverse and demanding social network of relationships and dependencies.
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Well, Zailian is one of the best screenwriters of the last thirty years, so it won’t be his talent which is in question here. It is the marketplace. And Netflix, while sometimes lucking out in offering great shows, is stubbornly and stupidly relying on their algorithms.
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If not lack of talent, then poor artistic decision-making. He makes changes to Ripley as a character (which is fine for an adaptor to do if there is logic behind them, and they are supported in other ways), and then applies a baroque visual language. The problem is that he kept Highsmith’s narrative, which is centered on a different character, and expressed in a far less baroque way. He changed two of work’s core elements, and thought that he could keep a third one–the narrative–the same.
The marketplace or an algorithm did not cause him to make these mistakes. As writer/director, he made them all by himself.
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Ah, you assume he should have said no to the offer then?
He’s got to pay his bills, too. And the marketplace is so extremely competitive, with green lights happening ever so rarely, even someone of Zailian‘s status has trouble landing a gig.
I would not be surprised if his concept started out very differently from what Netflix finally insisted on. And what is one to say during pre-production? Forget it, I‘m out? That would ruin his connection to Netflix forever - and with word going around he would have been labeled diffcult.
It‘s really that bad these days.
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Reviewers seem to largely love the show, regardless of its unsuitability, so one can only guess Highsmith isn’t read all that much any more these days. Critics love distinctiveness, so having a b/w Ripley almost unrelated to the source material doesn’t bother them too much (see Alfredson’s TINKER TAILOR for another example of gushing critics for the wrong reasons). The thing is, it’s Andrew Scott as Ripley, a no-brainer for most, and he’s playing him as Lecter relative. Big deal.
The show got rave reviews, is talked about and one of the most popular currently. From that perspective it’s already a huge success for Netflix, Zaillian and Scott.
Creatively it should have been something else, taking greater licence with plot and leaving the character intact instead, showing a 70s/80s Ripley or even a present day version. And Scott keeping his Moriarty in the closet and exclusively in ALL OF US STRANGERS mode.
But it is what it is now. 
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Precisely.
I do wonder whether the audience numbers will signal success. But with critics fawning over everything Scott does these days it might already be enough for Netflix to say: See, we can do “prestige”, too. Now back to our second rate fluff.
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The popular lists are probably every interaction with the series, everybody who peeks at the trailer and all those who watch the series in part or in full. I’d expect them to subtract those rating it down though. Only when a film or series is very popular Netflix goes deeper into the matter.
Interesting would be a direct comparison between ‘Ripley’ and ‘You’ because these are effectively iterations of the same theme - with ‘You’ being the more accessible one and spiritually closer to the ‘likeable villain’. Which is probably another reason why Zaillian went the way he did. Netflix already has its own contemporary Ripley.
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Absolutely.
Of course, Netflix is in the habit of duplicating, triplicating and so forth what worked before. It would be interesting to know at which point Scott was approached - before the concept was laid down or after. His turn in Amazon Prime’s “Fleabag” definitely made him someone the other streamers considered as “eyeball attraction”. So it must have been a coup for Netflix to get him, especially since all his award recognition in the last years.
In the end, the idea of Highsmith´s Ripley being rethought and changed is probably not so different from Fleming´s Bond being retooled again and again. One might consider it changed too much if one knows the novels. But, sadly, contemporary audiences don’t care. They want the quick rush. And to have Ripley lose the subtleties and turn into a streamlined serial killer is, I assume, what these days is considered attractive.
Netflix also capitalized on the “true crime”-mania in the last years, so that will have featured into their decision to redo Ripley, too. Having someone plot murders with the audience being his accomplice, so to speak, is exactly what gave Netflix great numbers for this genre.
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Der Spiegel’s Christian Buß loves it. Clear sign that I shouldn’t watch it.
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