“Escaping Mediocrity”: A review and analysis of Netflix’s Ripley (2024)
!SPOILERS for the 2024 series…but this is such an old story sigh!
The 2024 TV adaptation of Ripley, directed by Steven Zaillian and starring Andrew Scott as the titular protagonist, presents the dark, enigmatic world of Tom Ripley, a man whose life is arguably defined by his obsessive desire to escape mediocrity. While Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels embrace a fast-paced, pedantic approach to this character, this version offers a psychologically rich exploration of Tom Ripley - a character who will go to any lengths - lies, manipulation, and even murder - to surpass his humble origins and claim a life he believes he deserves.
The crime story is the least of Ripley’s concerns, acting largely as the prompt for a deep meditation on identity, class, and ambition. Tom Ripley’s journey is not only one of deception but one of profound dissatisfaction with his own life and a relentless pursuit of reinvention. His desire to escape mediocrity is both his driving force and his ultimate downfall, making Ripley as much a tragedy as it is a psychological thriller.
A Life of Pretending
Tom Ripley, portrayed by Andrew Scott, begins the series as a man desperate for something more. Livin in relative obscurity and poverty (faithful to Highsmith), he is acutely aware of the privileges enjoyed by those with wealth and status, and often acts as a blank slate on whom the life of the upper class is projected. Ripley’s life is, in many ways, a performance from the start. His ability to mimic, deceive, and ingratiate himself into high society is the result of years spent studying how others live, in an effort to deal with the limitations of his own circumstances.
When Ripley is hired by Mr. Greenleaf to travel to Italy and bring back his wayward son, Dickie, Ripley sees this as the opportunity he’s been waiting for - a chance to escape his mundane life and step into a world of luxury and entitlement. In Italy, Ripley ingratiates himself into Dickie’s life, moulding his identity to the perceived gaps in Dickie’s.
As the series progresses, Ripley’s motivations become increasingly clear: he doesn’t just want to associate with the rich and powerful; he wants to be one of them. His dissatisfaction with his own life pushes him to adopt personas with an uncanny ease that allows him to blend in with the upper class, erasing his mediocre origins. His ability to shift his identity - sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically - is a key theme of the show, underscoring his belief that identity itself is fluid, malleable, and, ultimately, expendable.
The Escape from Mediocrity
The hallmark of Tom Ripley’s story is undoubtedly its portrayal of the lengths one man will go to escape mediocrity. Ripley’s story is not just about ambition; it’s about a deep-seated sense of inadequacy and the fear of being ordinary. For Ripley, the life he was born into represents failure - something to be escaped at all costs. Thus, as Ripley’s identity is equated with the life that he lives, the fear of living a mediocre life drives him to extreme measures, including deceit, manipulation and, eventually, murder.
Ripley’s relationship with Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) exemplifies this dynamic. Dickie represents everything Ripley wishes he could be: wealthy, carefree, and more importantly, known. Beyond his family and friends, Dickie is instantly recognisable to the natives of Atrani as well as Rome. Ripley’s initial idolisation of Dickie eventually grows into envy whereby he begins to covet not only Dickie’s lifestyle but his identity. In one of the series’ most pivotal moments, Ripley’s desperation culminates in his decision to take Dickie’s life, symbolically erasing the person he wishes to become. Ripley doesn’t just want to live like Dickie - he wants to be him.
From here, Ripley’s motivations are clarified. His lies grow bolder, his manipulations more dangerous as he steps fully into his new life. Ripley’s escape from mediocrity begs the question of whether Ripley can be said to have an ‘original’ identity when he has long spent harbouring the identiites of others, or whether Ripley’s identity is that of a transformative, ever-changing nature. Inevitably, as Ripley sheds his past and adopts new identities, he loses any sense of authenticity, becoming a hollow version of himself. In his pursuit of wealth and status, Ripley may have escaped mediocrity, but he becomes a shell of the person he could have been had he embraced a singular, ever-lasting identity.
A Tragic Cycle
In Ripley, mediocrity is not just about wealth or class - it’s about the fear of being forgotten, of living a life without meaning or significance and the want of being known. Ripley’s escape from mediocrity is, in essence, a search for validation and a desire to be someone who matters. However, this desire is never fully satisfied. Each lie, each identity, and each act of violence only deepens Ripley’s isolation, trapping him in a cycle of deception and self-destruction which manifests in the violent outbursts that seek to regain control over something that he never had.
The tragedy of Ripley lies in the realisation that his escape from mediocrity is ultimately hollow. Though he attains wealth, status, and power, Ripley is never content. The constant reinvention leaves him disconnected from others and, more crucially, from himself. Ultimately, the series suggests that true escape from mediocrity might lie not in outward success, but in accepting one’s own impediments and limitations - something Ripley is tragically incapable of doing.
