David Farnor | On 23, Dec 2023

Director: Emerald Fennell
Cast: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Carey Mulligan, Paul Rhys
Certificate: 15

“Lots of people get lost in Saltburn,” drawls Duncan (Paul Rhys), the butler of the country estate, partway through Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to Promising Young Woman. We encounter the lavish home and its surrounding gardens through the eyes of Oliver (Barry Keoghan), who is invited there for the summer by university friend Felix (Priscilla’s Jacob Elordi). Oliver, who hails from Prescot on the Wirral, is several rungs below Felix’s family on the social scale, if not on a different ladder entirely – and the fun of the film lies in watching that ladder slowly fall apart.

Oliver is a loner at university, the rare student who’s actually done all the reading list. Felix, on the other hand, is the centre of everyone’s worlds, basking in the attention of other wealthy students and effortlessly charming them all. It’s no surprise that Oliver should be drawn into that circle, with a gaze that’s part-adoration and part-resentment – or that Felix should draw him in, taking pity on him while also making himself feel better about his own life in the process.

Felix’s family seem to find equal amusement in playing with Felix’s sidekick, from his aloof father (Richard E Grant) and his shallow but frank mother, Elspeth (Rosamund Pike) to troubled sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) and suspicious cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe). What begins as a riff on LP Hartley slowly morphs into something more akin to Patricia Highsmith, as we begin to wonder who’s actually in charge in this twisted game of status.

Fennell’s script twists and turns through the calculated corridors of privilege in ways that don’t necessarily amount to anything substantial. But what she crafts is a scathing finger up to her own upper-class roots, infusing the familiar tale of class differences with a daring and bold shot of energy and desire. Who’s on top becomes a literal question more than once, as bodily fluids are exchanged in all kinds of increasingly debauched combinations, neck hairs stand on end and sacred earth is, well, not treated in a very reverent manner. In short, it’s a mood.

There’s something in that, as Fennell taps into a wider shift in the public perception of wealth and aristocracy, in the way that the “establishment” is more questioned than revered and the people telling the stories that shape society are becoming more diverse. Of course, Fennell isn’t exactly the right person to do that, so while she exposes the hollow emptiness of these rich people’s existence with a gleeful frankness, she surprisingly doesn’t show Felix’s family in an overly cruel or nasty light. Whether we feel sympathy for them or not is perhaps the whole point.

On sheer vibes alone, though, Saltburn excels impeccably, as the film revels in the uncomfortable and awkward power dynamics as they unfold and unravel, accompanied by visually stunning compositions that get more audacious the darker the subject matter becomes. The cast sink their teeth into their roles with note-perfect smiles, from Richard E Grant’s in-denial dad to Rosamund Pike’s scene-stealing matriarch. Elordi’s Felix is wonderfully dazzling, while Archie Madekwe brings an enjoyably spiky energy as the sharp observer who isn’t afraid to cut through surface appearances, even as he depends upon them. Combined they leave us wondering who is in thrall to whom, as we see how a whole dynasty can become lost in its own entitlement.

But the centre of the show is undoubtedly Barry Keoghan, who emerges as more talented than Mr Ripley. He’s remarkable, unsettling and endlessly magnetic in a role that’s at once chameleonic, honest, brooding and naive, right up to a finale that sees him announce himself in full view of everyone as a star destined for big things.

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