Directed by Emerald Fennell — Screenplay by Emerald Fennell.
There are shades of dark comedy, satire, and horror in Emerald Fennell’s gothic erotic thriller Saltburn. The film is set in 2006 and follows Oxford University student Oliver Quick (played by Barry Keoghan), as he struggles to make friends and fit in among several snobbish borderline celebrities on campus. One day, he befriends Felix Catton (played by Jacob Elordi) when he offers to lend him his bicycle and walk back Felix’s bike with a flat tire. The immensely popular, posh, and privileged Felix proves to be more pleasant than you might expect, and he takes a liking to the nerdy, needy, and neglected ‘Ollie’ who is very polite and whose stories about being from a less fortunate and troubled family intrigue Felix. Ollie, meanwhile, seemingly lusts for both Felix and his status. Eventually, Felix invites Ollie back home to the Catton family castle — known as ‘Saltburn’ — for the summer, so that Ollie can get his mind off tragic news from back home. Once there, he becomes an object of fascination for Felix’s rich family, who, among other things, seem to be taking some pleasure from hearing about the struggles of the less fortunate, until, at some point, they find them boring. This is the case with their ‘hanger-on’ Pamela (played by Carey Mulligan). When he realizes that one day the family may lose interest in him too, Ollie sets out to make himself very popular in the family country house by any means necessary.
I was fairly late to the party when it came to Emerald Fennell’s feature-length directorial debut Promising Young Woman — which won her an Oscar for Best Screenplay — so I never got around to reviewing it. But once I finally saw it, I was impressed by how uniquely modern that bold rape-revenge thriller was, I thought Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham were outstanding in it, and I thought Emerald Fennell did an excellent job of designing her film in a way that it really goes straight for the throat of faux-nice guys. It was such a fresh film that didn’t show any mercy for any of its targets and which, at the same time, occasionally used hipness and sweetness as a mirage. I thought it was a very strong debut, though I did have some issues with it, including — but not limited to — aspects of the ending, but I digress. What I was particularly curious about for Saltburn was whether Fennell’s sophomore entry could retain some of the elements that made that directorial debut so memorable.
There is a scene early on in Saltburn in which the film’s protagonist disapproves of another character’s critique of his writing. “So you’re picking apart the style of my essay instead of the substance? That’s kind of lazy,” Oliver Quick barks. However, since the first thing that anyone would notice about Saltburn is its showy style, I should probably still start there. The film is presented in academy ratio (often helping to frame in rich close-ups), and the title screen features a gothic font and ‘upper-class’ music. However, it should be said that the film’s soundtrack often consists of period-appropriate pop hits, and I’ll never think of a certain Sophie Ellis-Bextor hit the same way again. Throughout the film, there is a focus on sweat, filth, depravity, and deceit, and it is all shot on film inside of a castle that is — and excuse the cliche — a character of its own. It features terrific production design, period-appropriate, and fun costume design, and then it is shot phenomenally. Cinematographer Linus Sandgren’s images accentuate shadows and silhouettes in all their glory, which add to the gothic atmosphere a great deal. At the same time, whenever strong colors are present, then they really do pop. It is a gorgeous film, and this is in spite of the fact that we see bathwater and bodily fluids worshipped and slurped up in this film. There is no denying that this erotic thriller is downright filthy at times, but, at the same time, it is also often so alluring that I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
The film features three long-ish takes where we watch the backs of characters as they move through a strange environment — one being the Oxford University campus, the second being the titular castle, and the third long take is probably best experienced without any prior knowledge — and I thought all of these made strong impressions. I feel that they must have been designed to be juxtaposed with one another. Perhaps this was in an attempt to highlight how different the characters of Oliver and Felix are — or present themselves as — in these sequences. In the first sequence, Oliver, dressed proudly in formal school clothing, walks confusedly among so many university students who look down on him, whereas — in the second of these sequences — Felix, dressed in über-cool casual clothing, guides his friend through his family castle as he gives off vibes indicating a breezy familiarity like it is all nothing special. The reason that I highlight these long takes (though, technically, the second one is broken up using reaction shots of Oliver Quick’s face) is that this film is all about keeping up appearances, blending in or standing out, and winning people over.
So, I actually really appreciated the style that Emerald Fennell went for here, but I am, admittedly, not as impressed with the substance of the film. This is in large part because the story — for all its fun developments — is very familiar to those of us who have seen Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley before (or, I guess, read the Patricia Highsmith novels on which it is based). Though not all characters are identical, some of them are very similar, and it is tough to ignore those parallels. Now, a film can still be worthwhile, even if it doesn’t have very many original bones in its body (especially for someone, like me, who has long been hoping for another film in the vein of the aforementioned Minghella adaptation). But, frankly, the familiarity of it all is not the only thing holding it back from true greatness. Unfortunately, Emerald Fennell’s second feature film as a writer-director doesn’t have as much new to say as I think it was meant to be able to. This film fits in nicely with all of the other ‘eat the rich’ thrillers and satires that have been released in the last couple of years, but it doesn’t add all that much to the conversation disappointingly. Although there is plenty of bite and audacity to the actions depicted on-screen, the writing doesn’t leave the mark that one might expect given the boldness and timing of Promising Young Woman.
However, my main issue with the film arises in its final third, where the writer-director doesn’t seem to trust her audience with ambiguity, interpretation, or clear-and-obvious film literacy. What I am saying is that in the final stretches of her film, Fennell overexplains what should’ve been left up to viewers’ interpretation with a completely unnecessary speech that is paired with a revealing montage. Had Fennell trusted her audience more, I probably would’ve upped my score somewhat because I found her gothic erotic thriller to be genuinely entertaining. This is also because Saltburn features strong supporting work from Rosamund Pike and Jacob Elordi (who I’m not sure has ever been better than he is here as his charming but oblivious privileged rich boy character), as well as a brave and multi-faceted (almost vampiric) leading man performance from the always impressive Barry Keoghan.
Some people absolutely will be repulsed by Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, while others will have a hard time overlooking the familiarity of it all as well as the fact that it doesn’t have anything particularly novel on its mind. Still, though, there will be some — and I am one of those people — who find Saltburn and Emerald Fennell’s stab at gothic eroticism to be sufficiently entertaining to enjoy sinking their teeth into, even though her sophomore effort isn’t really all that original.
7.9 out of 10
– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 