Between 1954 and 1980, Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) wrote five novels starring Tom Ripley: The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, and Ripley Under Water. Five magnificent stories that can be read independently but which in 2009 Anagrama had the good sense to gather in two volumes. Tom Ripley is Highsmith's most famous creation. An attractive, refined, and amoral antihero who has fascinated generations of readers and, thanks to two good film adaptations, also viewers around the world.
In 1960, René Clement brought Purple Noon to the big screen with a very young and seductive Alain Delon in the role of Ripley. In 1999, Anthony Minghella released a successful remake of the novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, with Matt Damon as Ripley, Jude Law as the friend Dickie Greenleaf, and Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge Sherwood, the third party. I have always believed that Matt Damon, with that good-natured WASP boy face he had when he was young, was more suited for the role of Dickie. On the contrary, Jude Law – with his seductive, feline gaze of a man capable of committing the most execrable crimes without even wrinkling his linen shirt – would have been a sensational Mr. Ripley.
The fact is that a few weeks ago I was devouring the last pages of Mr. Ripley. Tom had married a rich and sophisticated Parisian heiress with more than relaxed morals: Heloise Plisson. Handsome, young, hedonistic, and well-off financially. They were made for each other.
Chance would have it that while I was savoring, as I said, the last pages of Mr. Ripley, Netflix will premiere First Class, a production by The Mediapro Studio and Rara Avis set, mainly, in Barcelona, which has caused quite a stir. The temporal coincidence means that, sometimes, we establish relationships between elements that have little or nothing to do with each other. It often happens to me and I think I've talked about it sometime in this same column... The fact is that given the avalanche of comments provoked by this television program, I decided to watch it, even if it was only one episode. In case you still don't know what I'm talking about, I'll tell you thatFirst Classis presented, textually, as arealitythat follows the life in Barcelona of a group of friends who share their love for excessive fashion, luxury parties, and exclusive events. Imbued as I was by Ripley's sophisticatedly perverse universe, the viewing ofFirst Classit couldn't be more desolate. The program stars a small group of supposedly creative, supposedly sophisticated, and supposedly rich men and women who play themselves with varying degrees of success. We must assume that the purpose of the artifact is for ordinary people to discover how a certain type of rich people live and have fun, with a mixture of fascination and envy.Sincerely, if these are the beautiful people of Barcelona, introduce me to the ugly ones.First Class is not even remotely for Barcelona what La Grande Bellezza was for Rome, Salvador Sostres rightly wrote this weekend in ABC, and he knows a thing or two about the Upper Diagonal –one only has to compare the masterful party scene to the rhythm of Raffaella Carrà in Paolo Sorrentino's film with that of the mini-party in the first episode of First Class–. Nor is it a funny and trashy parody of the city's posh people in the style of La Casa de las Flores. The protagonists of First Class do not make you laugh, although it is obvious that they find themselves very funny, but rather make you cringe. And, of course, the Barcelona reality show is light years away from Bling Empire where its protagonists, the cream of the crop of the Asian community in Los Angeles, do seem truly millionaire, frivolous, and extravagant. Perhaps because they actually are.
The protagonists of First Class do not make you laugh, although it is obvious that they find themselves very funny, but rather make you cringeIf the best we can contribute as a city to this type of program is this, perhaps we could have saved ourselves the trouble. It occurs to me, however, that if Netflix and this format had been invented in the seventies, the fauna that swarmed Bocaccio, what Sagarra called "Gauche Divine," would indeed have starred in a juicy reality show about Barcelona's beautiful people. Oriol Regàs, Ricardo Bofill, Colita, Teresa Gimpera, Maruja Torres, Beatriz de Moura and Òscar Tusquets, the three Goytisolo brothers, the two Moix brothers, Jaime Gil de Biedma, Gabriel Ferrater, Oriol Bohigas, Carlos Barral, Jorge Herralde... A Barcelona of dazzling, creative, and talented people, who practiced both freedom and debauchery. Personally, I confess I would be an enthusiastic viewer. Who knows, maybe someone will dare to make a good movie someday and it will be a success.
Until then, listen to me, don't waste your time with First Class and dive into the Ripley universe. 1,280 pages of intelligence, elegance and, let's say it all, seductive amorality.
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