The lavish new adaptation on Netflix of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr Ripley is winning plaudits for its moody and masterful depiction of the sociopath conman Tom Ripley, who travels to southern Italy in a bid to convince the errant Dickie Greenleaf he should return to the US.
Andrew Scott’s portrayal of Ripley is making waves, but art lovers are especially savouring the various references to the Baroque bad boy artist Caravaggio, whose dark and violent works punctuate the TV series. In the second episode, Tom visits the Pio Monte della Misericordia church in Naples, where he swoons over The Seven Acts of Mercy (1607). “He painted it when he was 36, a year after he murdered a man in Rome,” Dickie tells Tom. “Colourful life. And death.”
After (spoiler alert!) a bout of murder, Ripley runs to Rome, where he pops into the Galleria Borghese to view David with the Head of Goliath (around 1610). Caravaggio even shows up in the final episode in a flashback. “For the final episode, I thought it would be a lot of fun to suddenly flash back 350 years and have people say, ‘Are we watching the same show?’” says the series director Steven Zaillian in a statement. A very stylish instance of life imitating art (and drama).