This Ripley gets to the chilly heart of Highsmith
Andrew Scott stars as the talented grifter in Netflix’s gorgeous eight-part adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel.
Alone Australia Season 2
SBS and SBS on Demand
In case you missed it, SBS’s hit survival endurance series, Alone Australia, returned for a second season last week. This time, the contestants have been plonked in the devastatingly gorgeous wilderness of New Zealand’s South Island. If you’re a newbie to the franchise, the brief is thus: 10 people are dropped into the wilderness in total isolation. They must live for as long as they can with only 10 survival items of their choosing. All the while, they have to lug around dozens of kilos of camera equipment to document their experience. The last contestant to hit the “tap out” button takes home $250,000. The amateur camera work is what makes this show all the more spooky — it’s Survivor meets The Blair Witch Project. The stakes have been upped this season as NZ permits hunting with a bow and arrow, so expect stand-offs with feral hogs, possums, and red deer; the added threat of earthquakes and the unwelcome presence of sandflies also raise the tension.
Blue Lights Season 2
SBS on Demand from April 18
Blue Lights, the gripping police drama, which was one of the best television shows of last year, returns for a second season this month. Set against a politically wounded Belfast, the series follows three probationary police officers assigned at the fictional Blackthorn station. Two of their number, Annie (Katherine Devlin) and Tommy (Nathan Braniff), are members of the “ceasefire generation”, that is, those who grew up after The Troubles. The other is Grace (Sian Brooke), an idealistic former social worker and a single mother who made a midlife career change. There’s no joy in spoiling how season one ended for those who haven’t yet seen it, but this series takes place exactly a year after the events of series one and that shocking ending.
Ripley
Netflix
From April 4
While Anthony Minghella’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel, The Talented Mr Ripley, makes us want to slather ourselves in orange gelée and blow our savings on a luxurious Italian holiday, this new Netflix adaptation — overseen by The Night Of’s Steven Zaillian — gets to the chilly heart of Highsmith’s mordant work. In this eight-part series, Andrew Scott (Fleabag) stars as the grifter Tom Ripley, who is sent to a coastal resort town near Naples to retrieve Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), the aspiring artist and rogue heir to a wealthy Manhattan dynasty, and bring him back to New York. Dakota Fanning is a welcome presence as Marge Sherwood, Dickie’s girlfriend, who is suspicious of Ripley. It’s a smart, sexy, spiky spin on Ripley that looks completely gorgeous and was shot in black-and-white by There Will Be Blood’s cinematographer Robert Elswit, which feels risky but pays off in spades.
All That She Wants
SBS on Demand
If you’re thinking, “Is there really enough intrigue to the Ace of Bass story to justify a three-episode documentary series?”, the answer is, surprisingly, yes. In the early ’90s, these four low-energy Swedes from Gothenburg, pictured below, created a reggae-flavoured synthpop sound that took the world by storm. Their 1993 debut, The Sign, remains one of the best-selling albums of all time, but behind closed doors, there was all manner of strife — and we’re not talking about the usual interpersonal relationship drama. Just as the band was blowing up in Europe, founding member Ulf Ekberg was outed by reporters as a former neo-Nazi who fronted the explicitly racist punk band Commit Suiside. It was a fact that would go on to haunt the band and see Ekberg face death threats from right-wing extremists and be forced to perform in bulletproof vests. Without giving too much of the bonkers story away, the documentary goes into the improbable rise and inevitable fall of this goofy group — their relationship with frenzied American journalists and near-fatal run-ins with crazed fans. If you weren’t there already, by the end of it, you’ll never want to hear All That She Wants again.
Sugar
Apple TV+ from April 5
In the LA-set mystery Sugar, Colin Farrell stars as John Sugar, an American private eye and old movie buff who swaggers around like his Hollywood heroes. When Sugar takes an assignment to investigate the disappearance of the missing granddaughter of a hot-shot film producer (James Cromwell), he finds himself plunged into the sordid underbelly of show business (think: the casting couch). It’s another take on the hoary “Hollywood is even nastier than you thought!” genre, and one that lacks a compelling edge. And Farrell, it goes without saying, is incredible — suave, warm, and always ready to wax lyrical about The Thing. The direction from Fernando Meirelles (City of God) is more interesting than your typical prestige television fare — there’s plenty of glorious clips from The Third Man and Double Indemnity. But that doesn’t work in its favour; it just makes you want to switch off and indulge in a Billy Wilder film instead.
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