Ripley is set in the early 1960s, but the choice of shooting in black and white clearly is based on an aesthetic. Director Zaillian and cinematographer Robert Elswit make the most of it, presenting stunning images of Italian landscapes, art and architecture, as well as piercing closeups worthy of the best film noir.
In 1960s New York City, petty con artist Tom Ripley is approached by wealthy shipbuilder Herbert Greenleaf, who mistakes him for a friend of his spoiled son, Dickie.
Plot. In 1958 New York City, Tom Ripley is approached by shipbuilding magnate Herbert Greenleaf, who believes that Ripley attended Princeton with his son Dickie. Greenleaf pays Ripley one thousand dollars to travel to Italy, where Dickie has settled, and persuade him to return to the United States.
In his 2001 book Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited, Sam Vaknin writes that Ripley (as portrayed in the 1999 film The Talented Mr. Ripley) meets five of the seven criteria for antisocial personality disorder and also displays narcissistic traits.
There are moments in the show where it seemed like Tom had developed strong feelings for Dickie, but what he was feeling, whether genuine or not, would always be tainted by his envy for Dickie. In the book written in 1955, Tom's sexuality was completely ambiguous.
All of the murders are on-screen, except for one, which is off-screen, but the sound of it is heard, which may make it the most disturbing one of all. There is a lot of sex, affairs, and a little bit of swearing, including “f--k”, and there is some drinking.
Ripley was indeed in hypersleep for 57 years. When she first meets Company representative Carter Burke (Paul Reiser), she is in the hospital and he informs her that she's been out there for 57 years, at which point she starts to react to an alien birthing from her. Then she awakens and we find out this was a nightmare.
Ripley is set in the early 1960s, but the choice of shooting in black and white clearly is based on an aesthetic. Director Zaillian and cinematographer Robert Elswit make the most of it, presenting stunning images of Italian landscapes, art and architecture, as well as piercing closeups worthy of the best film noir.
Unfortunately, Ripley learns that she was floating through space for an astonishing 57 years before being found. Ripley also later learns that her daughter passed away two years before she was discovered, but while this confirms the film's timeline of events, it still is not explained how this was revealed to Ripley.
Netflix has not confirmed if Ripley will return for a second season but is currently labelled as a limited series. Deadline Hollywood reported last year that the show was designed as a limited series "but there is a possibility to go beyond the first installment if it's a hit".
Set in in early '60s New York, the series sees Ripley be hired by a wealthy industrialist to travel to Italy and find his son, Dickie Greenleaf, and convince him to return home. Ripley's decision to take the job throws him into a world of deception and deceit, and he is led down a dark path as a result.
Ripley, the limited series follows charming con artist Tom Ripley (Scott) on a trip to Italy in the 1960s bankrolled by a shipping magnate to retrieve his wayward son, Richard “Dickie” Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn).
Scott's Tom Ripley is a grifter scraping by in early '60s New York. He's hired by a wealthy industrialist to travel to Italy to try to convince the man's dilettante son, Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), to return home.
Zaillian himself has not commented on why he decided to slightly alter the time period from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. It may have to do with him being born in 1953 and having more memories of the 1960s. It could also have to do with the Fiat 500 D cars seen throughout Ripley, which were invented in 1960.
A word of warning, though: there are major spoilers ahead for "Ripley," and Highsmith's novel on which it is based, below. The show's time setting is changed from the 1950s to the early 1960s.
But the story of Tom Ripley himself is equally fascinating: He's a terrible human being, yet it's almost impossible to turn away from him — and the wreckage he causes. But is Tom Ripley based on a real person? Unless Highsmith, who died in 1995, never shared a secret — the answer is no: Ripley is a complete fiction.
While the character of Tom Ripley has been historically around the age of 25 in both the 1999 film and the 1955 novel, Tom is about 10 years older in the Netflix adaptation of Ripley.
Ripley soon learns that during her cryostasis aboard the escape pod, she was attacked by a Face Hugger, and impregnated with a Xenomorph embryo. A scan using the escape pod's barely functioning medical apparatus reveals this baby is none other than an Alien Queen.
The alien-fighting warrant officer revealed her shaved head in the third instalment of the successful franchise, which had her stranded on a prison spaceship. “I think it brings out the faces and the vulnerability of these actors very much,” she said of her and her fellow cast mate's shorn locks.
In Mongibello, Tom befriends Dickie and his girlfriend Marge and insinuates himself into their lives. He falls in love with Dickie's opulent, carefree life; he also becomes obsessed with Dickie himself. Eventually, Dickie grows tired of Tom and spurns his friendship.
Tom's sexual orientation is explored more openly here than in Purple Noon, the 1960 French film version of this story. His attraction to Dickie is revealed gradually, beginning with petty jealousies and weird obsessions, and leading to a subtle “feeling out” of Dickie's erotic tastes.
