April showers might bring May flowers, but April TV brings intrigue, murder and noir. This month's new releases include several gritty book-to-screen adaptations, from a new take on "The Talented Mr. Ripley," to an espionage thriller based on a Pulitzer-winning book, to a harrowing revisit of a true crime from the '90s.
'Ripley' (April 4)
Netflix's adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is hardly the first on-screen iteration of this story. Anthony Minghella's 1999 film version has long been beloved for its glowing, sun-drenched Italian landscape and trinity of beautiful blonde movie stars (Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon), so it's a bold move by Netflix to do a remake shot in black and white. "This is chilled noir filmmaking, where deep shadows land in cheekbone hollows and light is carved into blocks by bars and blinds," said Linda Holmes for NPR of the stark new series. Oscar-winner Stephen Zaillian wrote and directed "Ripley," while Andrew Scott stars as the titular con artist, a "goal-oriented criminal," said Alan Sepinwall at Rolling Stone. The series is "less interested in why he does so many terrible things … than it is in how he does it."
'Sugar' (April 5)
In yet another neo-noir, Apple TV+'s show stars Colin Farrell as John Sugar, a private detective patrolling the mean streets of LA. The series' genuine Los Angeles locales pay grateful homage to film noirs of eras past, and the show has "more echoes of 'The Big Sleep' than you can shake a tumbler of ice at," said The Guardian. Sugar, who also happens to be a cinephile, is investigating the disappearance of Olivia Segel, the granddaughter of a famous Hollywood producer — and as a movie buff, he's only too happy to take on the case. Farrell's turn as a gumshoe possesses a "restrained, melancholy tenderness," said Laura Miller at Slate. "From its sun-bleached credits to its smoggy saxophone and moody voiceover, 'Sugar' resembles many classics of the genre, especially any story featuring Raymond Chandler's iconic hard-boiled Los Angeles PI, Philip Marlowe."
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'The Sympathizer' (April 14)
Based on the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, this HBO miniseries was adapted for the screen by showrunners Don McKellar and South Korean auteur Park Chan-Wook ("Oldboy"). "The Sympathizer" is described by HBO as an "espionage thriller and cross-culture satire" about a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy during the final days of the Vietnam War. It "outlines internal factions of the Vietnamese and broader immigrant experience in attentive detail," said Variety. The unnamed narrator, referred to only as The Captain, is played by Hoa Xuande, while the series' villains are played by Robert Downey Jr., fresh off his Oscar win for "Oppenheimer." Yes, you heard that right: It's villains, plural. Downey plays four characters on the show, a feat of actorly acrobatics for which RDJ "will almost certainly take home his first Emmy as best supporting actor," said The Hollywood Reporter.
'Under the Bridge' (April 17)
"Killers of the Flower Moon" star Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough helm this Hulu limited series adaptation of the best-selling book "Under the Bridge" by Rebecca Godfrey. Based on a chilling true crime that happened in British Columbia, the story follows Reena Virk, a 14-year-old girl who goes missing in 1997 after attending a party. When she is found dead, several teenage girls are implicated in her murder. Her disappearance is investigated by a local police officer (Gladstone) and a writer (Keough) with intentions to pen a book about the unsolved mystery. The two team up in their attempts to learn the truth.
'The Veil' (April 30)
This FX miniseries was written by Steven Knight, the creator of BBC's "Peaky Blinders," and is led by veteran TV star and Queen of Distraught Facial Expressions, Elisabeth Moss ("The Handmaid's Tale," "Mad Men"). In "The Veil," Moss plays a spy who gets caught up in a "deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London," per the FX description. The espionage series also stars Yumma Marwan and "explores the surprising and fraught relationship" between the two women, one of whom has a secret, and the other of whom "has a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost."
