Salt­burn review – gor­geous, lurid, shal­low and frustrating

“Of course I loved Felix,” Oliv­er Quick (Bar­ry Keoghan) admits read­i­ly, star­ing down the cam­era lens. ​“But was I in love with him?” He scoffs and shakes his head. The thing is, who wouldn’t be in love with Felix Cat­ton – the feline, oth­er­world­ly It Boy of Oxford University’s Class of 2006? Played by Jacob Elor­di with an aloof regal air that evokes Kirsten Dun­st as Lux Lis­bon in The Vir­gin Sui­cides, Felix is every­thing Oliv­er is not: beau­ti­ful, beloved, and filthy rich. Their paths first cross in their first term at Oxford, but it isn’t until Oliv­er comes to Felix’s res­cue when he’s stuck with a flat bike tyre that they come into each oth­ers’ orbit. The Liv­er­pudlian (sort of – Keoghan doesn’t seem entire­ly com­mit­ted to his own accent choice) divulges to Felix that he comes from a trou­bled back­ground with addicts for par­ents, and scraped into the upper ech­e­lons of the British edu­ca­tion sys­tem by work­ing his arse off. Felix, a bleed­ing heart, is smitten.

He takes Oliv­er under his wing, despite the scep­ti­cism of his cousin Far­leigh (Archie Madek­we), an out­sider by virtue of his Amer­i­can accent, mixed race and mid­dle-class back­ground. While Far­leigh is active­ly hos­tile towards Oliv­er, Felix invites him to stay at his fam­i­ly home for the sum­mer in hopes of tak­ing his friend’s mind off his recent­ly deceased father. The sprawl­ing man­sion in the Eng­lish coun­try­side is Salt­burn: a state­ly home with a labyrinthi­an inte­ri­or and immac­u­late grounds. Here, Oliv­er is imme­di­ate­ly wel­comed by Felix’s eccen­tric fam­i­ly of poshos: Lady Els­beth (Rosamund Pike), Sir James (Richard E Grant), lit­tle sis­ter Vene­tia (Ali­son Oliv­er) and long-term guest Pamela (Carey Mulligan).

So far, so Brideshead Revis­it­ed. Or Tal­ent­ed Mr. Rip­ley. Or The Secret His­to­ry. Or any num­ber of cul­tur­al class inter­ro­ga­tions in which a pleb finds them­self sud­den­ly thrust into the upper ech­e­lons of soci­ety. Oliv­er set­tles into Saltburn’s rhythms quick­ly, adopt­ing a more con­fi­dent air. He enter­tains a romance with Felix’s sis­ter, engag­ing in some han­ky panky involv­ing men­stru­al blood in the gar­den. He gets quite good at ten­nis. Lady and Sir Cat­ton grow fond of him and decide to throw him a lav­ish birth­day par­ty. But when Felix attempts to do some­thing gen­uine­ly nice for his new friend, Oliver’s sob sto­ry is quick­ly exposed as some­thing more sinister.

It’s here – approx­i­mate­ly halfway through Salt­burn – that Fennell’s often droll script begins to veer off-course. What begins as a gen­uine­ly enter­tain­ing and well-pitched dram­e­dy quick­ly becomes ridicu­lous and out of touch, as Fen­nell posi­tions her wealthy char­ac­ters as naïve but well-mean­ing and every­one else as a schem­ing crook des­per­ate to get their mits on some­one else’s inher­i­tance. While it’s entire­ly pos­si­ble for film­mak­ers from priv­i­leged back­grounds to make rig­or­ous films about class (step for­ward Joan­na Hogg) Saltburn’s under­stand­ing of class dynam­ics feels hol­low and frus­trat­ing, as if all the poor can ever do is jeal­ous­ly aspire to be as wealthy as those at the top of the food chain.

Fen­nell has a keen eye for details and the film fea­tures impres­sive imagery (there has been much social media bal­ly­hoo about a par­tic­u­lar funer­al scene, and anoth­er involv­ing used bath­wa­ter) along­side evoca­tive mid-00s peri­od (oof) detail. But Salt­burn feels emp­ty beneath the glam­orous veneer, lack­ing any artic­u­late mean­ing. By the time the film slips into its third act, its plot has unrav­elled to the point it’s bare­ly coher­ent. Oliver’s moti­va­tions are neb­u­lous and uncon­vinc­ing, and sup­port­ing char­ac­ters with­er away with such lit­tle fan­fare it’s as though they were sim­ply writ­ten out to avoid anoth­er day of filming.

This is a great shame too, because there’s a great film some­where in the ideas behind Salt­burn – one that is hint­ed at but nev­er realised, for­got­ten by the need for a ​“shock” third-act twist (also a fea­ture of Fennell’s Promis­ing Young Woman, which result­ed in some crit­i­cism at the time). The queer under­tones of Felix and Oliver’s rela­tion­ship are the film’s most com­pelling ele­ment, and a Romeo and Juli­et (or Romeo and Romeo) romance could have offered a lit­tle intrigue to what sad­ly becomes a less engross­ing film as it progresses.

But the real rev­e­la­tion here is Jacob Elor­di, who also daz­zles this year in Sofia Coppola’s Priscil­la. Not only does he nail the accent and man­ner­isms of a mid-00s posh boy pre­tend­ing to ooze indie cool, but he also man­ages to project some­thing slight­ly sad and vul­ner­a­ble about Felix. It’s a shame we don’t ever get to real­ly know him – nei­ther the film nor Oliv­er is all that inter­est­ed in what lies beneath the gild­ed exterior.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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