My Corner

November 2023

What lies at the intersection of insanity and desire?
I have a feeling Academy Award-winning (for her first feature screenplay, no less) writer-director Emerald Fennell exhausted this very question as she sketched out the twisted contours of Saltburn.

Much like her 2020 debut Promising Young Woman, Fennell returns to one of the darkest corners of human behavior: the split between our public selves and private instincts. But this time, she trades the femme fatale aesthetic for something far more disturbing. Set in early 2000s England, Saltburn introduces us to the aristocratic Catton family and the twisted outsider who infiltrates their world. Having seen the film, Fennell’s artistic prerogative feels clear to me now: make the audience laugh out loud, then instantly gasp and question why. This is her trick, and it works like magic.

Barry Keoghan gives a deeply unsettling performance as Oliver Quick, a scholarship student at Oxford who slowly worms his way into the university’s popular elite. His target is Felix Catton, played by Jacob Elordi, a breathtakingly handsome aristocrat who drifts through life with ease and clueless charm. Beyond wanting to be with Felix, Oliver’s infatuation teeters on wanton possession. That desire builds in slow, creepy increments, and by the time you realize what Oliver is doing, he has already done it.

Elordi has never been more alluring. Not even when he played Elvis in Priscilla. It makes perfect sense that everyone in the film seems hypnotized by him. Archie Madekwe is fantastic as Felix’s cousin Farleigh, a queasy mix of charm and cattiness. He knows exactly who Oliver is from the beginning, but he keeps him close anyway. The performance is sharp and hilarious, and every side-eye or passive-aggressive jab lands perfectly.

Things shift once the group moves to Saltburn, Felix’s enormous countryside estate. This is where the real story begins. The tour Felix gives Oliver is intimate and strange. The family introductions are even better. Rosamund Pike is brilliant as Elspeth, Felix’s icy mother who speaks in withering half-smiles and backhanded compliments. Richard E. Grant plays Sir James with a childlike sweetness that borders on pathetic. Alison Oliver, as Venetia, is both tragic and cutting. Her bathtub monologue in the third act is unforgettable. And then there’s Carey Mulligan, returning from Promising Young Woman, who steals every scene she’s in as the painfully clueless houseguest, Poor Dear Pamela. She is a narcissist who has no idea she’s not actually part of the family.

Linus Sandgren, the Oscar-winning cinematographer behind La La Land, shoots the whole thing like a dream. At first, it feels like a fantasy. Days are long and golden. There’s drinking by the pool and road trips with The Killers playing. Superbad plays in the background while the characters lounge and flirt. But slowly, that dream becomes a nightmare. Parties stretch late into the night. Conversations grow more sinister. The camera lingers on bodies a little too long. Bodily fluids appear. So does nudity, death, and eventually something far more disturbing than all of the above. Fennell doesn’t rush any of it. She lets the rot seep in.

The suspense does not come from what happens, but from how far she is willing to go. By the time she shows you her full hand, it is already too late to pull back. In the final minutes, Fennell spells out what you’ve just seen, which feels like a misstep. Keoghan’s performance already tells us everything. His expression alone captures the loneliness that drives Oliver forward.

Fennell is not offering new insights about wealth, privilege, or obsession. But she delivers them with style, humor, and an audacity that is all her own. Saltburn is sick, funny, gorgeous, and uncomfortable. For those willing to dive into its twisted depths, the film offers one hell of a ride.