I finished watching Ripley last night and honestly I was expecting a lot more. The plot is good but I feel like they cut out some important scenes that would've explained the characters' motivations better. What did you guys think of it?
Ripley is one of those projects where Guadagnino made very precise stylistic choices, and it's not guaranteed they'll appeal to everyone. The ending in particular is deliberately ambiguous and leaves a lot up in the air about Tom's true feelings toward what happens. I get the frustration, because the pacing really does slow down quite a bit in the last episodes and there are moments where you feel something is missing to complete certain narrative arcs. But in my opinion there wasn't actually a "cutting" of crucial scenes - it's more of a directorial choice: Guadagnino prefers to show silence, glances, pauses, instead of spelling everything out in dialogue. It works in certain contexts, but if you're used to more straightforward thrillers where all the pieces fit together perfectly, naturally you end up disappointed.
The original book by Patricia Highsmith has much more psychological depth about Tom's thoughts, and a TV series can't replicate all of that. What Guadagnino did was transform the story into something more visual and almost poetic, sacrificing some clarity about his motives. If you haven't read the novel, you probably missed that internal context that would have helped you understand the character better. It's not a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a different approach - a lot of people like it for exactly that reason, others (like you) find it's not enough.
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