What the charmless Ripley could teach Bond

At a time when programme makers seem not to place much value on original ideas or innovation, it is inevitable that audiences are being offered a heavy “remake” diet. Fancy a pap-for-pap shot retelling of the Amy Winehouse story, with added karaoke? Or a film recounting the Prince Andrew Newsnight interview that “shook the world”? Both things are playing right now.

Netflix’s Scoop, in which the roles of news broadcaster Emily Maitlis and “Randy Andy” are played by Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell, offers a near recreation of the 2019 BBC interview. It’s baffling to watch a film about the relevance of the public broadcast service produced by the subscriber-funded disrupter whose role in the cultural discourse has been to undermine its power. I still cannot quite fathom why Netflix made it. Nor what it was supposed to say. Still — did you see how attentively they did Gill’s make-up? And what about Billie Piper’s white-bleached perm?

Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith’s amoral conman, should be persuasive in any guise. The ultimate cipher, the fraudster and then serial killer of five novels, he is a canvas on which one can project all sorts of moods. He made his screen debut via Alain Delon in Plein Soleil in 1960, only five years after he first appeared in print. Delon’s characterisation leaned towards the sinewy charisma of that era, the embodiment of masculine desire.

John Malkovich’s Ripley found him decades later, waspish, balding, his soul now further atrophied. But the most famous version is Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley, a sublime adaptation in which the quietly protean Matt Damon plays Ripley opposite Jude Law, as Dickie Greenleaf, the sunny Apollo who first captivates and then rejects the putrid-beach-short-wearing Tom.

Minghella’s Ripley is achingly beautiful, emotionally bruising and entertaining. It’s one of my favourite films. It remains the template for “holiday boyfriend” aspiration, and every frame looks like a Pinterest board. The Italian coast, yachts, and devastating privilege: no wonder Netflix was slathering to have another crack. Yet, in its eight-part retelling of the Highsmith fable, it has managed the unconscionable: to make Ripley deathly dull.

In the attempt to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, too many title characters are becoming homogenised

In his eagerness to stamp his imprimatur on the classic, Steven Zaillian, the show’s director, is at pains to take his drama to opposite extremes. Where The Talented Mr Ripley is washed in golden sunlight and charisma, Zaillian’s Italy is a world of contrasts and architectural shadows: it’s near empty of human life. The cinematography is noirish and pretentious, designed, it seems, to highlight every blemish on one’s face.

I assume it was an actual decision also to cast Dickie and Marge, his girlfriend, as much older characters who can barely muster any chemistry. How could anyone think that Dickie Greenleaf, the Daisy Buchanan of seductive anti-heroes, could be played by the staid, dour figure of Johnny Flynn? The trio’s lack of dynamism is appalling. The pace is glacial. The atmosphere is heavy yet the plot is light. Instead of evoking the spice of a ’50s thriller, Ripley is cast in a pall of grim.

Some will find this interpretation gripping. Better to go in a new direction with a much-loved story than to cleave to something so well known. Why not exploit the dark and shadows, like Zaillian, and try to honour the tone of the original works?

Mainly, because it’s bloody boring. The Netflix factory loves to stretch compact dramas into turgid epics they can drag along for hours. One Day, its stab at romance, was also maxed out to the minute; The Crown was so belaboured in the telling that even its poor wearer expired before the end.

I hope the producers of James Bond are paying attention, as the news creeps towards a fresh disclosure in the spy franchise. It’s been three years since the world’s best-known secret agent blew up in No Time to Die. Currently, the favourite replacement for 007 is Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the thinking woman’s action hero, who sounds like David Beckham and is famous for marrying the then 45-year-old artist Sam Taylor-Wood when he was only 22. The speculation that he will take on the series has now reached fever pitch. The bookies have him pulling away from Tom Hardy and Henry Cavill, at odds of 15/8.

Bond, like Ripley, is a handy cultural totem on whom one can hang many attitudes: in his various incarnations he’s been smooth and smarmy, smooth and macho, smooth and vulnerable. Right now he’s smooth and buried on an Icelandic mound.

Each rebooting of the Bond brand requires some reconciliation with the times: he can no longer slap women, nor try to bed them. Daniel Craig’s Bond became a settled family man. Will a reboot be a chance to U-turn on this slow domestication? Will he exchange his sexual appetites for something new? Or will the producers prevaricate, and find James Bond becoming, like Ripley, almost unwatchably bland?

In the attempt to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, too many title characters are becoming homogenised. Character used to be a crucial component in the casting process, but this has lately been sublimated by a greater need for things to satisfy all tastes. Ripley is only the latest casualty of a system that seems to have lost its way. Stop fannying around with long shots of stairwells, and endless soundtracks, and bring back the divisive personalities that make a drama sing.

Email Jo at jo.ellison@ft.com

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