SALTBURN (Middleburg FF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale
If David Cronenberg and Douglas Sirk had a baby, the result might be Saltburn. From the moment the crimson red, Hammer horror-inspired opening titles show onscreen, the film warns it will not be your usual British uni coming of age story. It wouldn’t be, would it, given that it comes from Emerald Fennell, who brought us Promising Young Woman? That movie, Fennell’s feature debut as writer/director, won her a Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and speaking of promise, made audiences and critics frothy to see what she’d do with her sophomore feature. Though not nearly as original as her first, Saltburn, a sexually transgressive tale of privilege and the desire to belong, allows its lead performer to shine brighter than a diamond encrusted dagger.
Barry Keoghan, fresh off his Oscar-nominated performance in The Banshees of Inisherin, stars as Oxford student Oliver Quick. Oliver is drawn to and yearns for acceptance by the elite clique headed by handsome, magnetic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). After the two become improbable friends, Felix invites Oliver to spend the summer at his gentried family’s estate, Saltburn. There, Oliver is surrounded by a twisted bunch of characters that do and say whatever their endless piles of cash allow, and he follows suit in the best and worst of ways.
The cast, which includes Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike as the heads of the household, go all in at showing the eccentricities allowed by being filthy rich with old money. Keoghan and Alison Oliver, who plays Venetia, Felix’s sister, are fully believable as the two characters get up to some creepy hijinks, but really the entire acting ensemble works to give audiences all the increasingly cringe-inducing moments that Fennell has conjured for us. Those kink-averse need not apply. Viewers are treated to or forced to watch an exaltation of hedonism that rises to a vampiric level, with various bodily fluids taking center stage in the proceedings.
Surprises are in shorter supply than audiences might want, and the film should have been shorter. At times, it slows to a snail’s pace. However, between the performances, Susie Davies’s production design, and cinematographer Linus Sandgren’s spectacular lighting of both the film’s interiors and exteriors, Saltburn is never dull. It’s Barry Keoghan, though, who owns every frame he is in, leading me to walk out after the closing credits declaring “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, Barry!”, and thanking Fennell, who was standing outside the theater, for the film that will be adding significantly to his stardom.
3.5 out of 5 stars.
