REVIEW: Saltburn [2023]

Rating: R | Runtime: 131 minutes
Release Date: November 17th, 2023 (UK/USA)
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Director(s): Emerald Fennell
Writer(s): Emerald Fennell

He doesn’t like sharing his toys. Even the ones he doesn’t want to play with any more.

It’s about fifty minutes into Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn that things start to really get cooking. That time was well-spent showcasing who Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) is and why Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi) is so alluring to him (although the narration by way of future oration is a bit distracting), but it’s mostly the gradual evolution from friends-by-necessity to thick-as-thieves for the two to move from strangers to BFFs and ultimately decide to spend the summer together at the latter’s royal estate. Felix is generous, demanding, selfish. Oliver is desperate, eager, and enamored.

And then things shift. Where Oliver’s down-on-his-luck product of drug-abusing parents seems to endear himself to the grotesquely rich Felix via polite compassion and brave sadness, his comfort level when firmly entrenched within the Catton clan (Richard E. Grant’s Sir James, Rosamund Pike’s Elspeth, Alison Oliver’s Venetia, and Archie Madekwe’s Farleigh) leads him to be much more assertive—albeit on the sly and in the shadows. Mr. “Yes, Sir” becomes an opportunistic controller of personalities and situations. He’s marked his prey, discovered their weaknesses, and begins to pounce.

Is the result anything we haven’t seen before? Not really. Sure, Fennell is pushing buttons with unexpected moments like oral sex with a tub drain, menstrual blood foreplay, and gravesite copulation, but the themes and message are as familiar as any “savvy commoner infiltrates the dim aristocracy” narrative. It’s fun, though. Keoghan plays his character with a dangerous energy that renders the inevitable fallout’s possibilities exciting while the Catton family either humorously becomes putty in his hands or just smart enough to fight back for momentary victories without understanding the full scope of the war.

And then the other shoe drops. Everything we knew was happening is seemingly made concrete and we anticipate whatever finale Fennell has concocted to stick the landing. Unfortunately, however, she seems to think we didn’t catch that tonal shift at all. So, she spends the last thirty minutes spoon-feeding us every revelation we inferred from the fact that the first two-thirds of the script is iron-clad in its ability to let us read between the lines. What was fun suddenly becomes goofy. What felt suspenseful and dark suddenly feels cartoonish. Propulsion ceases and mystery disappears. It’s like when a comedian is compelled to explain their joke even though it was good enough to make everyone laugh already.

It does look great, though. Love the 4:3 aspect ratio and what Linus Sandgren does with the frame. Grant and Pike are fantastic caricatures of out-of-touch wealth delighting in plebeian quaintness (About karaoke: “The words are on the screen! That’s the best part!”). Elordi is charismatic, Oliver intrigues, and Madekwe provides necessary conflict. Yet Keoghan is the centerpiece. He’s moving them around the board with varying levels of difficulty, positioning himself for the kill each time. His performance carries this diversionary tale of “eat the rich” politics right through a silly curtain lift that makes it seem Fennell thinks we’re as vapidly dumb as the Cattons covering their eyes when watching The Ring on TV.