Stop doing that Barry, yuck.
With Wuthering Heights getting plenty of attention, it’s time to go back to director Emerald Fennell’s last film Saltburn. With only a few movies under her belt, Fennell has dabbled in extremes, and this is no exception.
Barry Keoghan is Oliver Quick, a scholarship student at Oxford and from the start a fish out of water. A seemingly chance encounter with nepo-kid Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi) gets him in with the cool crowd and he eventually finds himself invited to the family manor, Saltburn.
Oliver remains awkward but the old money Catton family are all chaos and intensity, and he is welcomed with open arms, despite some suspicion coming from Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), a cousin also around for the family wealth. Weird things happen as they enjoy the summer, with flirtatious sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) getting involved in one of the grosser scenes of the movie.
Oliver is eventually caught out for lying about growing up poor with addict parents and pushed away by Felix, but he doesn’t want to go anywhere and does everything he can to hang around. It gets a bit nonsensical towards the end, but we’ve had plenty of twists, turns, and disturbing moments along the way.
Keoghan is always excellent sitting in his creepy character pocket, he’s played this a few times (The Killing of a Sacred Deer), and the only real issue with this role is he’s 30 playing a first-year university student. Elordi is great as the posh but cool Felix, showing he’s got the charisma and acting chops to go far (he’s playing Heathcliff in Fennell’s much-hyped adaptation of Wuthering Heights, in case he wasn’t already a star).
The supporting cast are also strong with Alison Oliver as the mischevious sister, alongside Rosamund Pike as Lady Cotton and her husband Sir James Cotton, played by Richard E. Grant.
The film is set in 2006 and the soundtrack matches, noting the Sophie Ellis-Bextor hit Murder on the Dancefloor broke big again following the release of Saltburn. We also get 4:3 aspect ratio which is an interesting choice. Fennell’s reasoning for this is to give a voyeurs view of the action, and with extreme close-ups intensifying moments, it is hard to argue against the choice. In general, it is shot beautifully.
It tries hard, leaning on a Mr Ripley-esque plot, and keeps you entertained despite not quite hitting the mark on all fronts, especially as the ending just kind of wraps everything up without a hitch, and no one is the wiser. Fennell definitely knows how to get people’s attention and feels like once she irons out the kinks, she has the potential to be a great director.
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