Saltburn review – gorgeous, lurid, shallow and frustrating

A working-class student finds himself thrust into a new world in Emerald Fennell’s stylish but underwhelming second feature.

“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 naive 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.

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Published 15 Nov 2023

Tags: Emerald Fennell Saltburn