X
In Theaters Now
- 2023
- R
- 2 h 7 m
- 2023
- R
- 2 h 7 m
Summary Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family’s sprawling estate.
Directed By: Emerald Fennell
Written By: Emerald Fennell
In Theaters Now
- 2023
- R
- 2 h 7 m
- 2023
- R
- 2 h 7 m
Saltburn
59
6.7
Where to Watch
Summary Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family’s sprawling estate.
Directed By: Emerald Fennell
Written By: Emerald Fennell
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 47 Critic Reviews
59
51% Positive
24 Reviews
24 Reviews
45% Mixed
21 Reviews
21 Reviews
4% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 47 Critic Reviews
59
51% Positive
24 Reviews
24 Reviews
45% Mixed
21 Reviews
21 Reviews
4% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Fennell has a sharp eye for outrage, and an even sharper one for hotness, crafting any number of scenarios and images here that may elicit sotto voce phwoars against your better judgement.
Fennell has captured something real about these unreal people and the world they live in. Her film slices with a scalpel, peels back the layers and finds only hollowness beneath. Maybe that’s the real twist.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 17 User Ratings
6.7
59% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
24% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
18% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 17 User Ratings
6.7
59% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
24% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
18% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
Coming into this, all I knew of Emerald Fennel was her work on Killing Eve’s second season, which I found pleasantly sharp and surprisingly dark. She seems to have dialed up her eccentric, picturesque love of the macabre to a whole other scale for ‘Saltburn.’ For only her second feature film, it’s remarkably confident in what its showing, growing bolder and bolder by the scene. The start and end of the movie feel like two entirely separate entities. But the progression feels very organic, or as organic as you can get in an insane bats**t Fennel screenplay. The weaving of one genre tone to the other should feel jarring given how satirical this movie gets at times, but it pulls you back in with another emotional gut tug. By the end, if you’re not too emotionally whipped by this British middle-class beast, it may be worth thinking if Fennel has a second Oscar nom on the horizon. I certainly won’t be complaining.
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Come for the class warfare and the occasional shots-fired zingers about the rich being different than you and me. Stay for Keoghan twirling in circles, with nothing but shafts of late afternoon light and the entirety of what God gave him expressing the bliss of going from pretender to predator.
If atmosphere is what you want in a movie, Emerald Fennell's psychological thriller Saltburn has enough to fill a multiplex all by itself.
Another smirking and vaguely satirical psycho-thriller that wants to have its cake, eat it too, and then soil the plate for good measure, Fennell’s immaculately crafted follow-up to “Promising Young Woman” might have a lot more fun pushing your buttons if it had any clue how to get under your skin.
Be it sexuality, gender, class, age, or race, there’s scarcely a hot-button issue of identity that Emerald Fennell won’t invoke to amplify the stakes of an obvious metaphor.
Saltburn is a remarkable combination of smart and stupid. Its problem is that it’s superficially smart and deeply stupid. It’s clever and amusing in 20 different ways, but when it really matters, it descends into ridiculousness.
Wow... Get ready for one wild ride with this one. A seemingly lower class and awkward young Oxford student named Oliver (Barry Keoghan) finds himself befriending a privileged and wealthy fellow student named Felix (Jacob Elordi), who takes him under his wing and invites him to his family's sprawling estate during summer break. From there, wild parties and debauchery ensue as Oliver starts acting increasingly disturbed, deranged, and attached to Felix's family. Written and directed by Emerald Fennell (who won an Oscar for her screenplay with her 2020 directorial debut 'Promising Young Woman'), this is a film that was absolutely full of twists, turns, and equally shocking and sickening moments throughout. I genuinely had no idea where things would lead or might happen next throughout the whole thing, but unfortunately this couldn't quite make up for the overall sleaziness of it all, as I found myself more often than not feeling like I needed a shower after watching several scenes, which says a lot for me. Furthermore, it felt as though the film was simply borrowing too heavily from earlier and more superior films. There's very much a heavy vibe of both 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' and 'Parasite' sprinkled throughout, both of which did their job better than this film did in my opinion. The biggest highlight I can give this film by far is Keoghan's scarily-convincing sociopathic lead turn here. He completely throws himself into his unhinged character and turns in one of the most demented onscreen performances I've seen in quite some time. For those familiar with his unsettling supporting performance in 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer', trust me when I say that you ain't seen nothing from him yet until you've watched him in this. There's a VERY good reason Matt Reeves cast him as the new Joker in his upcoming Batman sequel FYI. Aside from him, Elordi plays his usual charming and boyish jock self here to great effect, and other supporting players, such as Rosemund Pike and Richard E. Grant also deliver. Overall, for better or worse, I was left heavily shaken and totally disturbed by the end of this one. It's full of surprises, sleazy as hell, and led by an absolutely phenomenal and unsettling Keoghan. It's a film that will haunt me for the foreseeable future, but left me feeling admittedly rather icky, and isn't necessarily one I'd want to revisit.
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Following "Promising Young Woman", which indicted straight men as predators, Emerald Fennell presents "Saltburn", which loathes non-straight men as graspers and connivers. This film is so openly derivative of midcentury masterpieces of class covetousness like "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Brideshead Revisited" that it counts as more of a free adaptation than an original. Another product of the unresolved and ironic tension in a certain British political sensibility that holds the upper classes in contempt but relishes their aesthetics.
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Awards
Mill Valley Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Savannah Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Hollywood Music In Media Awards (HMMA)
• 1 Nomination
