Reindeer and Ripley
May. 4th, 2024 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootMeanwhile, TV happened.
Baby Reindeer was good; it sagged in the middle but I'm beginning to think that's a characteristic of Netflix. BR was at least as interesting in its charting of a people pleaser as it was in its depiction of stalker based fear; and speaking of the latter, Jessica Gunning is absolutely stellar as Martha, but something about Richard Gadd gives me the ick. I like his honesty, I like the mirroring that occurs top and tail of the show, I like the dependency he shows upon the attention he gets from Martha, he seems to understand her vulnerability, her - call it what it is - her serious illness. So given all that, he must have known his real stalker would pick up on his creation and scream loudly to the public. Was it a fearful chance worth taking for the art and the fame he admits he craves? Or did he want her attention again? In the story his love interest thinks he's into the whole situation and from what we are shown it's hard to disagree. He's been a victim, yes, but is he being nourished by his victimhood, willingly and ably? Whatever the answer there is a repellent undercurrent here.
Ripley does not repel, but I can't work out what is attractive about it. One thing I keep asking myself is would I find it as interesting without the inevitable contrast to The Talented Mr Ripley? I love that film, or rather, I can dip in and out of it any day, though I think it loses power when Freddy Miles dies. Philip Seymour's Freddy is brilliantly portrayed, so sneery and unpleasant, able to understand in part the covetousness of Tom Ripley. I have never seen Matt Damon command a screen so well as when his earnest beta-boy face curves up into that ugly smile just for a second. Freddy dies because of what he knows, but he is on his way out when he keeps plinking that same note on the piano, rolling his eyes and flicking his hand. By contrast, Elliot Sumner's Freddy Miles is just a boy challenging a very dangerous criminal, an obvious write off from the moment he walks in. We don't need repeated close ups of that ashtray to know what happens next.
Netflix Ripley is captivating precisely because it's the opposite of TTMR. Dickie Greenleaf isn't some youthful sun god, surrounded by music and forever money and a turquoise sea. He's pleasant but not dazzling, and old enough to know that his painting isn't anything much. There's a melancholic edge to him, but he's no fool. So why does he ignore the red flag of Tom prancing around in his stuff? I can just about accept Jude Law's depiction accepting it as part of Ripley's adoration because he's used to people being drawn to him and he doesn't think. But Johnny Flynn's version does think so...
Oh, and that motorboat business around his death. I laughed like a drain. Unfortunate.
The vibe of this Ripley's Italy is so different. I can feel all the beauty blending into one great gorgeous sameness as the fugitive runs from place to place. Where he stops makes perfect sense to me, the poetic high point of the murderer's journey. I do get the Carravagio thing, though I think it gets harped on a bit much, like the constantly repeated shots of the beautiful cat and the pen. Still, for all the flaws, it proves that in a black and white world, all one really needs are deep dark eyes like those of Andrew Scott and Maurizio Lombardi, plus Venice.
*
P.S. It's just occurred to me why I lump Baby Reindeer and Ripley together. Both Freddy Miles and Richard Gadd goad their antagonist, but only one of these is a fiction. Freddy doesn't know that what he is doing is dangerous. Richard does. Something real-life wrong there.
Baby Reindeer was good; it sagged in the middle but I'm beginning to think that's a characteristic of Netflix. BR was at least as interesting in its charting of a people pleaser as it was in its depiction of stalker based fear; and speaking of the latter, Jessica Gunning is absolutely stellar as Martha, but something about Richard Gadd gives me the ick. I like his honesty, I like the mirroring that occurs top and tail of the show, I like the dependency he shows upon the attention he gets from Martha, he seems to understand her vulnerability, her - call it what it is - her serious illness. So given all that, he must have known his real stalker would pick up on his creation and scream loudly to the public. Was it a fearful chance worth taking for the art and the fame he admits he craves? Or did he want her attention again? In the story his love interest thinks he's into the whole situation and from what we are shown it's hard to disagree. He's been a victim, yes, but is he being nourished by his victimhood, willingly and ably? Whatever the answer there is a repellent undercurrent here.
Ripley does not repel, but I can't work out what is attractive about it. One thing I keep asking myself is would I find it as interesting without the inevitable contrast to The Talented Mr Ripley? I love that film, or rather, I can dip in and out of it any day, though I think it loses power when Freddy Miles dies. Philip Seymour's Freddy is brilliantly portrayed, so sneery and unpleasant, able to understand in part the covetousness of Tom Ripley. I have never seen Matt Damon command a screen so well as when his earnest beta-boy face curves up into that ugly smile just for a second. Freddy dies because of what he knows, but he is on his way out when he keeps plinking that same note on the piano, rolling his eyes and flicking his hand. By contrast, Elliot Sumner's Freddy Miles is just a boy challenging a very dangerous criminal, an obvious write off from the moment he walks in. We don't need repeated close ups of that ashtray to know what happens next.
Netflix Ripley is captivating precisely because it's the opposite of TTMR. Dickie Greenleaf isn't some youthful sun god, surrounded by music and forever money and a turquoise sea. He's pleasant but not dazzling, and old enough to know that his painting isn't anything much. There's a melancholic edge to him, but he's no fool. So why does he ignore the red flag of Tom prancing around in his stuff? I can just about accept Jude Law's depiction accepting it as part of Ripley's adoration because he's used to people being drawn to him and he doesn't think. But Johnny Flynn's version does think so...
Oh, and that motorboat business around his death. I laughed like a drain. Unfortunate.
The vibe of this Ripley's Italy is so different. I can feel all the beauty blending into one great gorgeous sameness as the fugitive runs from place to place. Where he stops makes perfect sense to me, the poetic high point of the murderer's journey. I do get the Carravagio thing, though I think it gets harped on a bit much, like the constantly repeated shots of the beautiful cat and the pen. Still, for all the flaws, it proves that in a black and white world, all one really needs are deep dark eyes like those of Andrew Scott and Maurizio Lombardi, plus Venice.
*
P.S. It's just occurred to me why I lump Baby Reindeer and Ripley together. Both Freddy Miles and Richard Gadd goad their antagonist, but only one of these is a fiction. Freddy doesn't know that what he is doing is dangerous. Richard does. Something real-life wrong there.
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