GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.3/5)
Rated: MA15+
Directed by: Emerald Fennell
Written by: Emerald Fennell
Produced by: LuckyChap
Director of Photography: Linus Sandgren
Editor: Victoria Boydell
Starring: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Gran, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Carey Mulligan.
‘I loved him. But was I in love with him?’
The chaos of the first day at college sees Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) wandering through the Oxford crowd with his tie and jacket – ‘Hey, cool jacket,’ says a fellow student. Not in a good way.
Oliver’s a ‘Norman with no mates.’
He spies Felix (Jacob Elordi) through the crowd – happy, popular, beautiful.
Oliver watches him. It’s creepy, but kinda sweet because he’s so polite about it. The scholarship boy infatuated.
Felix feels sorry for him.
He invites Oliver to stay with his family at Saltburn for the summer:
‘If you get sick of us, you can leave. Promise.’
There’s an immediate immersion into the story, irresistible and fun with a dark humour, where college professors care more about who your parents are then if you’ve read the recommended reading list – who reads the St Jame’s Bible the summer before starting college?
The storyline is reminiscent of a modern day, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) – the studious and brilliant boy trying to get ahead in life infatuated with the charming rich, seemingly unattainable. The invitation to stay. The inevitable dead bodies.
But Saltburn is also funny and visceral with vomit and spit and menstrual blood. Not off-putting, not sexy even. It made the unreality of the setting feel more authentic.
Barry Keoghan as Oliver, is quite frankly, a revelation.
And there’s a perfect balance of characters – writer and director, Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman (2021)– directorial and screenplay debut) drawing everything into the camera so the film edges up to the right side of the absurd, keeping the story more mystery and erotic thriller rather than delving into fantasy because the fantasy is the setting and Oliver’s desire, with no holding back.
Oliver’s willingness to be All, to give all, is weirdly endearing while knowingly manipulative. The audience’s perception twisted like the storyline.
Fennell uses reflections to see the shadow of self, of Oliver only realised later because the reflection of water and the face in a table surface also looks beautiful, disguising what lies underneath.
The use of shadows to add definition. Those close shots of Oliver’s eyes looking into another – the damaged younger sister, Venetia Catton (Alison Oliver) and smug family friend, rich because of the Catton’s guilt, so basically part of the family, Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) – hypnotise with the wilfulness of Oli.
And seeing Carey Mulligan as ‘Poor Dear Pamela’ does not disappoint.
Can you tell I liked this movie?
Those dark humorous moments are pure gold, Rosamund Pike as Elspeth Catton (ex-model and mother who can’t stand ugliness), stating, ‘the police keep getting lost in the maze.’ You can imagine the hilarity of the moment because it shouldn’t be funny but it just is.
It’s also the pauses from the characters, the individual nuances in body language that delight, the idiocy of the classic English denial played so well by Richard E. Gran as the patriarch, Sir James Catton.
Each performance is outstanding, the character roles perfectly balanced.
Then the humour edges towards the callous changing the mood as the story turns so there’s another layer under the surface: there’s a fine line between dark humour and callousness like there’s a fine line between love and hate.
Saltburn is inviting, surprising, edgy and a pleasure, like a guilty indulgence, to watch on the big screen.
This is the second powerhouse film from Emerald Fennell and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what comes next.
