It’s obvious that Emerald Fennell strives to be considered amongst cinema’s greatest provocateurs, yearns to rank amongst the Lars von Triers and Catherine Breillats of the world. Her taste for evocative imagery hints at a talented filmmaker, but her screenplays speak to someone who values their ideas more than their characters. This is Fennell’s second feature film and it’s also the second time that her ending collapses under flimsy foundation – namely, heavy-handed themes that are barely kiddie pool deep. Exchanging cryptic tone and psychosexual symbolism for anything of real substance, Saltburn boasts some startling sequences, but absent of actual meaning, it all comes away feeling quite empty.
Fennell’s first film, Promising Young Woman, was actually quite good until a forced ending proved that Fennell’s interest was more in gotcha plot twists than narrative satisfaction. Young Woman also had terrific performance from Carey Mulligan, an actor who may not be a star but can certainly dominate a film. In Saltburn, Fennell taps Barry Keoghan, a recent first-time Oscar nominee, as her latest unorthodox protagonist. Keoghan has already built a reputation for sinister intensity. His resume since 2017 is a cadre of little freaks whose alluring but frightening blue eyes seduce as much as they unsettle. Keoghan is a terrific actor with a fearlessness similar to Joaquin Phoenix – it might feel like overacting until you realize that few performers are even willing to go as far as he does.
In Saltburn, Keoghan plays Oliver Quick, a student at Oxford who struggles to adapt to his rich, legacy classmates. Oliver is a scholarship kid from a troubled home, and his clothes reflect his social stature. Fate lends a hand when he happens upon campus heartthrob, Felix (Jacob Elordi, in full movie star mode), on the side of the road with a flat bike tire. Late for class, Felix bemoans his terrible luck, until Oliver offers his own bicycle. Ever grateful, Felix ends up inviting Oliver to a drink at the pub, where he begins his penetration into a higher social sphere. Oliver’s poor kid demeanor doesn’t exactly play well with the fellow rich kids, especially Felix’s cousin, Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), but Felix takes to the humble Oliver, and even invites him to spend the summer in his sprawling family estate, Saltburn.
As the caustic name suggests, Saltburn is a vast, imposing hunk of rural English land, equipped with tall, gothic gates, and a huge, spiraling home compound that sports more ghostly corners than it does inviting bedrooms. Felix’s parents, the cheerful but aloof James (Richard E. Grant) and the regal but ungenerous Elsbeth (Rosamund Pike, in full-on ice queen self-parody), ingratiate Oliver into their home but not without mention of his class status. Felix’s sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver, in her film debut), is a devious troublemaker, who quickly makes eyes for the newcomer. Farleigh is also there, quick to remind Felix of how little he belongs. This has all the makings of an extremely uncomfortable Summer, but the more he stays, the more Oliver comes to love his new family, absorbing the luxury and the eccentricity of the obscenely wealthy.
There are times when Saltburn seems likes it’s saying something about class, displaying the ingrained awfulness of Saltburn’s residents without hesitation. There are also times when the film appears to be saying something about sex, with Oliver’s unhealthy obsession with Felix projecting itself in aggressive romantic advances toward Venetia, Elsbesth, and even Farleigh. The main problem is that Fennell cannot decide whether it wants to rip off Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley or Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, and it ends up being a pretty poor facsimile of either, while having literally nothing interesting to say outside of its glimpses of erotic yearning. This film doesn’t think beyond its shock value, as if that’s enough to carry the burden of a sensical story.
It should be said that the first half of this film is actually quite good. Before it puts itself under any burden to disrupt expectation. It’s actually quite a stirring portrait of uncouth mid-aughts abandon – even if its period signifiers are not always on an accurate timeline. If nothing else, Fennell is quite good at baking tension underneath any scenario, and her liberal use of color will always mean her films will look more compelling than they actually are. It’s about halfway through that Saltburn begins to show us that Oliver’s true nature isn’t as simple as first appeared. It’s something you’re expecting from the beginning, but Fennell still fails to unveil this in a way that’s at all convincing. The turn happens pretty deep into the film, and then it moves quickly downhill. It starts to feel like it must move quickly before you realize how false it all is.
Keoghan and Elordi, the Damon and Law of this Ripley-esque tale, hold up their end of the bargain. Both play their versions of subdued homoeroticism well; Keoghan as the interloper overplaying his hand and Elordi as the golden child who never has to ponder consequences. I’ve never watched Euphoria (and probably never will), but after Priscilla and this, I’m a believer in Elordi as an actor and especially as a star. His beauty notwithstanding, his magnetism on the screen is undeniable. As for Keoghan, his commitment to the part is admirable, even when (especially when) Fennell’s script doesn’t do right by him. He’s an actor destined for, if not stardom, than feverish favoritism as the likes of Mark Ruffalo or Christopher Walken. It’s rare to see a film that confirms the talents of its stars so thoroughly, especially while being so mediocre.
In Saltburn‘s final act, the audience is forced to absorb one of the most unnecessary here-is-how-I-did-it monologues in movie history, a trope so transparently used that it broke nearly any goodwill I may have had up until that point. Fennell’s inability to conclude a film – her apparent knack for making an ending so bad it actually makes you re-think what you may have liked before you saw it – is this film’s biggest weakness. This all transpires and then we’re witness to a coda, featuring Keoghan, that’s a blatant allusion to Claire Denis’s Beau Travail. Again, we have reference to a filmmaker who is much better at this type of provocation. The sequence, which I won’t spoil, has the confidence of a much better movie, and perhaps Fennell’s fake-it-till-you-make-it style will result in something much better in the long run, but I’m still waiting.
Written and Directed by Emerald Fennell