WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for Netflix’s Ripley and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999).
There are many differences between the new Netflix limited series Ripley and the 1999 film adaptation The Talented Mr. Ripley. Both are based on the 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley written by Patricia Highsmith, who is regarded as one of the best authors of suspense of the 20th century. The 1999 film was written and directed by Anthony Minghella and was nominated for 5 Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Jude Law’s role as Dickie Greenleaf and Best Adapted Screenplay. Ripley’s cast is led by the Emmy-nominated actor Andrew Scott in a chillingly exceptional rendition of the con artist, Thomas Ripley.
Ripley is written and directed by Academy Award winner Steven Zallian, who is famous for writing classics such as Schindler’s List, The Irishman, and more. The Talented Mr. Ripley has been adapted several times for film and television, including 1960’s Purple Noon directed by René Clément. Ripley has received rave reviews from critics upon its April 4, 2024 release exclusively on Netflix. Aside from the apparent age differences, the overall tone of the Ripley series is much more dark and broody, while the film has more of an innocent and fun-loving air about it in general.
Tom is described as a hard man to find at the beginning of Ripley, although this is not the case in the 1999 film. In Ripley, Herbert Greenleaf hires a private investigation to track down Tom’s whereabouts to ask him about going to Italy to get Dickie to come back home and face his responsibilities in the United States. In The Talented Mr. Ripley, Mr. Greenleaf spots Dickie playing piano at an event and notices a Princeton jacket he’s wearing from the class of 1956, which leads him to think that Tom knew Dickie. In truth, Tom borrowed the jacket for the performance.
While both the novel and film of The Talented Mr. Ripley initially take place in the coastal town of Mongibello, Ripley starts out in Atrani, Italy, which is also on the Amalfi Coast just south of Naples. The biggest difference between Mongi and Atrani appears to be the population density, since Atrani is essentially a remote ghost town while Mongi is overflowing with people and excitement. When Tom encounters Dickie and Marge on the beach in Ripley, they are literally the only people there, whereas in Mongibello in the 1999 film, the beach is packed with people.
Tom in Ripley says he does “accounting” back in New York, while Damon’s Tom in the 1999 film makes ends meet as a very talented freelancing pianist. Tom’s talents in Ripley are much more sinister in the way that he is a professional liar, scammer, and con artist, while Damon’s Tom has some ostensible talents and hobbies, particularly playing the piano and enjoying the opera. Tom lackadaisically taps on a few piano keys at some point in the Ripley series, likely a nod to the 1999 film, but he is not passionate about the piano like Damon’s Tom is.
One of the most apparent differences between Ripley and The Talented Mr. Ripley is the absence of some of the supporting characters from the 2024 limited series. Cate Blanchett’s character Meredith Logue, who befriends Tom disguised as Dickie on his initial voyage to Italy, is not in Ripley and was actually invented by Minghella for the 1999 film. Meredith was not an original character in Highsmith’s novel either and was added in order to raise the stakes and complicate the grand scenario of deception for Damon’s Tom character. Meredith ends up falling in love with “Dickie” in the final moments of the film.
Another addition to The Talented Mr. Ripley was the supporting character Peter Smith-Kingsley, played by Jack Davenport. Peter is initially a close friend of Dickie and Marge who helps Marge cope with the sudden disappearance of Dickie. Like Cat Balchett’s character, Davenport’s character was created specifically for the film and is not in the original 1955 novel. Peter was added to reveal that Tom was secretly gay and reaffirm the notion the Tom had romantic feelings for Dickie, which completely changes his motivation for killing Dickie in the first place.
Another character that was created specifically for the film was Silvana, a Mongibello local who Dickie was having an affair with. Silvana ends up being the first person to die in The Talented Mr. Ripley and was used to emphasize Dickie’s status as a carefree, hedonistic playboy. Silvana also makes Dickie look like an indecent person, which ultimately allowed the audience to not feel as much hatred towards Tom when he killed him in the 1999 film. The movie adds several details to make Dickie look worse and Tom look better, whereas the Netflix series leaves no ambiguity.
Dickie is made out to be much more of a bad boy type in The Talented Mr. Ripley than he is in Netflix’s Ripley. Dickie was actually sent away to Europe by his father in the film after a problematic incident that involved Dickie getting violent. Law’s rendition of Dickie is also much more emotionally turbulent, carrying a living on the edge lifestyle of partying, drinking, and women. The Dickie in Ripley lives a relatively secluded life and has very few interests outside of his quaint world of painting and spending time with Marge until Tom shows up.
Tom’s protagonist character is made to be naive, innocent, and charming in The Talented Mr. Ripley, fueled by more honest and relatable ambitions than the methodical and frightening Tom in Ripley. The tone of Damon’s Tom is one of youthful hope and accessible ambition to become someone bigger than himself. His aims allude to a common desire of becoming wealthy, having friends in high places, and living life to the fullest. Tom in Ripley, however, is practically inhuman, a complete and total monster that is best described as an insidious parasite.
Dickie in Ripley is completely faithful to Marge and is not in any way the big-time party boy that he is depicted to be in The Talented Mr. Ripley. This significant difference is actually what makes Marge’s suspicions in Ripley more palpable because Dickie running off to Rome and cutting her off from his life is something that she knows he would never do. In the 1999 film, it’s more believable that the womanizing Dickie would be capable of abandoning Marge to embark on a debaucherous bender with Freddie Miles. In Ripley, it seems so unlikely that it actually sounds bizarre to Marge based on Dickie’s character.
One of the biggest differences in Tom’s character is the underlying implication that he has sexual or romantic feelings for Dickie and later, Peter. The Talented Mr. Ripley is full of sexual tension between Tom and Dickie, but mostly from Tom’s projections of his deep and somewhat obvious attraction to Dickie. One scene in particular emphasizes this point, as Law’s Dickie and Damon’s Tom play chess while Dickie’s in the bath. Tom asks to get in because he’s cold, and Dickie is shown partially nude in the scene. Nothing even close to this occurs in Netflix’s Ripley, and the thought of Tom having romantic feelings for Dickie is briefly mentioned but is not nearly as much of a theme as it is in the 1999 film.
The two versions of Freddie Miles are completely different in the two Ripley adaptations. Freddie is characterized much like Law’s Dickie in the 1999 film, a devil-may-care aristocrat who encourages Dickie’s debaucherous behavior, and is played by the acting powerhouse Philip Seymour Hoffman. Freddie in Ripley, played by Elliot Sumner, is much more subdued and artistic than Hoffman’s rendition, but both still carry a similar caginess and immediate suspicion of Tom. In both cases, Tom doesn’t like Freddie at all and ends up murdering him when he is about to expose Tom in Rome. Hoffman’s Freddie is bludgeoned by a sculpture while Sumner’s Freddie is bludgeoned by a glass ashtray, as depicted in the book.
A key difference between the two Ripley adaptations is the motivation behind Tom murdering Dickie. In the 1999 film, Dickie actually gets aggressive with Tom and initiates the aggression between them, which exemplifies his history of violence. It makes the case that Damon’s Tom killed Dickie in part from self-defense, although this couldn’t be further from the truth in Netflix’s Ripley. Scott’s Tom struck Flynn’s Dickie in cold blood without being provoked. The Tom from the miniseries likely anticipated that he would have to kill Dickie, making it a premeditated murder, whereas the murder in the 1999 film was based on fear and passion.
Dickie’s greatest passion in The Talented Mr. Ripley is jazz music and playing the saxophone rather than working on his career as a painter. Tom uses Dickie’s love of jazz to get close to him initially, pretending that he is a jazz aficionado much like him. This acts as the basis for their friendship in the 1999 film and the reason why Dickie wants to take Tom to Venice in the first place. In Ripley, Dickie is not nearly as concerned about music or playing the saxophone as Law’s version of the character is in the movie.
Tom is considered to be a “genius” in The Talented Mr. Ripley, which is a faltering way of justifying his ability to impersonate others, mirror their voices, and develop a convincing understanding of jazz and highbrow society in Italy. Even Freddie calls him a “quick study” in the 1999 film. Despite this, Damon’s Tom is hardly heard speaking in Italian, whereas Scott’s rendition speaks fluent Italian throughout the series. Scott’s Tom begins learning Italian while in Atrani with Dickie and Marge and becomes fluent by the end of Ripley.
Tom kills Dickie Greenleaf and Freddie Miles in both The Talented Mr. Ripley and Netflix’s Ripley miniseries, but the 1999 film features an additional death of a character made specifically for the film. This leads to very different endings between the film and the series as well. Netflix’s Ripley ends with Tom escaping to England with Dickie’s Picasso under a new alias acquired with the help of his American “art dealer” friend, Reeves Minot. The 1999 film ends with Tom and Peter on a ferry to Athens, Greece, and closes with Tom killing Peter in order to continue pretending he is Dickie to Meredith. The differences between The Talented Mr. Ripley and Ripley are so great that they almost feel like they’re completely separate projects altogether.