Emerald Fennell, writer-director of “Promising Young Woman,” is back with a gutsy black comedy full of stellar cinematography and stand-out performances from Jacob Elordi and Barry Keoghan.
4.5
Set in the uncharacteristically sweltering British summer of 2006, writer-director Emerald Fennell’s sophomore black comedy feature “Saltburn” is an intoxicating analysis of the slick, enigmatic world of the English aristocracy and its absurdity in the modern world.
The movie is led by a magnetic Barry Keoghan playing reserved “scholarship boy” Oliver Quick, who arrives at Oxford University and becomes immediately entranced by the privileged, easygoing Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), who towers over the social scene at Oliver’s college. Elordi plays Felix with an untouchable coolness that comes with a lifetime of being handed everything on a silver platter, while Keoghan’s Oliver is a tense try-hard in contrast.
Despite these integral differences, a chance encounter leads to the two embarking on a close but uneven friendship over their first year at university.
When Felix invites Oliver to spend the summer at his family’s sprawling upper-crust estate, Saltburn, the film takes a sickening turn into something much more dark and thrilling. Felix’s mother, played by the brilliant Rosamund Pike, who never fails to make the audience laugh with her dry delivery, and father (Richard E. Grant) attempt to make Oliver feel at home, but only serve as reminders of the gaping chasm between Felix’s home life and his own.
On the other hand, Felix’s cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), a classmate of theirs at Oxford, is only too pleased to remind Oliver that he isn’t from their world and won’t pass as a “real boy.”
The film is shown in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, a stroke of genius from both Fennell and cinematographer Linus Sandgren, known for his unconventional and unique formats. This lends to the feeling of the audience intruding into this immersive world, and certain frames feel so artfully arranged that even repetitive scenes that sometimes drag on are a pleasure to watch. The garishly saturated color palette has become a staple of Fennell’s direction — for example, her debut feature, “Promising Young Woman,” uses only candy-coated pastels.
In fact, it’s safe to say that the most electrifying element of the film is by far its cinematography. Apart from the bright blues and vibrant greens, Felix is always kept in the light, often finding the only sliver of warmth in a frame dominated by cooler colors and a shadowy Oliver in the background.
Both Elordi and Keoghan give magnificent performances that get a chance to shine while they are staying at the titular Saltburn estate. Elordi embraces a barefoot easiness in his oversized linen of old money that Oliver isn’t able to imitate, no matter how hard he tries. He becomes a twisted, hollow, manipulative shell of himself that Keoghan plays perfectly.
There’s been an uptick recently in the exploration of the absurd nature of the despicably rich and their often violent or depressing dismantling, with shows such as “Succession” and “The White Lotus.” Each member of the wide array of characters in “Saltburn” gets a moment that gives their character nuance and makes them pitiful even as they remain awful and unrelatable at their very core.
While the wealth politics of the film are muddier and its eat-the-rich satire isn’t quite as sharp, it does an exceptional job at immersing the audience into this unfamiliar space. In fact, it was filmed in Drayton House, Northamptonshire, which was chosen because it had never been seen before on film, and it may never be used again in media, as stated in a clause in the cast and crew’s filming contract.
While the movie is viscerally violent, the moments that made the audience groan out loud in theaters have to do with a gory, provocative sexuality that Fennell has been perfecting since her time showrunning the second season of BBC America’s breakout drama, “Killing Eve.” The second half of the film is a campy, horny, perverted and deeply homoerotic playout of Oliver’s desire to cement himself into the setting of Saltburn where sex and desire are stand-ins for power and envy in gut-wrenching scenes that sometimes tend to overplay the shock factor.
The film begins with the grand choral sound of the coronation theme by Handel but quickly devolves into an electric nostalgic mid-noughties soundtrack featuring The Killers, MGMT and Bloc Party which brilliantly plays behind these teenagers having sex and snorting coke in enormous marble hallways. While “Saltburn” is a bit thin on substance, the film makes up for it with its stylistic choices that don’t serve to condemn the characters but instead provide the viewers with a unique experience.
Fennell’s directing outdoes her writing here, but “Saltburn” is a fun, thrilling ride that is full of refined performances and picture-perfect cinematography. It is a triumph of the cinema of excess in all its unapologetic, over-the-top glory.
