2.5 stars out of 5
When you put salt in wound, you get saltburn. (Sorry, had to get that out of the way.) I knew I was maybe in trouble when the trailer for this movie shouted Written and Directed by EMERALD FENNELL and my reaction was “Who the #%^@!& is Emerald Fennell?!?” But oh, she was the filmmaker behind the much-lauded Promising Young Woman — for which she won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar — and which contrary me thought was pretty lousy. Still, I was ready to give her another chance. That trailer looked good and creepy, with the psychological torture of an innocent young man who is lured into a sinister “in” crowd. And the lead was Barry Keoghan, who impressed me so much in both The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Banshees of Inisherin.
So Barry, as Oliver, arrives as a nerdy new student at Oxford, where apparently no one ever says, “Hey, could somebody flip on the lights?” He quickly takes a shine to Felix, the super-handsome Big Man on Campus. I was pleased to see Jacob Elordi in this role, where he gets to show a lot more range than he did as Elvis in Priscilla. Felix takes Ollie under his wing and we’re waiting for the mind-fuck to begin… and waiting… and waiting… and I’m thinking, “My, this is a slow build, Fennell.”
After not much of anything happens, old-money Felix invites scholarship Oliver to his family’s estate, Saltburn, for summer break. At this point the movie becomes a lot of fun, as our fish Ollie goes even farther out of water in this bizarre dress-for-dinner world. As Felix’s parents, Richard E. Grant and the lovely and talented Rosamund Pike are delightfully batty. Also very good is Archie Madekwe as Farleigh, sassy fellow Oxford student who has a bit of a rivalry with Oliver. Throw in Felix’s flirty sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) and Ollie has his hands full.
But as we learn that Oliver is an unreliable narrator and protagonist, the cracks in the film’s structure begin to show, and I noticed I was enjoying myself less and less. I’m not going to spoil any more of the plot, but suffice to say that I felt cheated. Oh Emerald, we get it, you love to shock us, but making a genuinely good, consistent film is harder work, and I don’t know if I’ll be in the crowd the next time.
Movie Review: Saltburn
By Jack Silbert on November 28, 2023
Posted in movie reviews | Tagged 20s movies, Barry Keoghan, Emerald Fennell, Jacob Elordi
Jack Silbert, curator