Saltburn review: Drenched in madness and beauty but nothing new, original or intelligent.
★★★☆☆
Emerald Fennell's follow up to the divisive Promising Young Woman is perhaps an improvement.
*major spoilers ahead*
British filmmaker Emerald Fennell’s sophomore film was released on the 17th of November. Once again writing and directing, Saltburn is a thriller/comedy starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike and Archie Madekwe.
Fennell takes us to Oxford University in the not so distant past of 2006. Oliver Quick (Keoghan), a scholarship student falls under the spell of Felix Catton (Elordi), his wealthy, popular and privileged classmate. Pity on Felix’s side and fascination on Oliver’s side blur into a friendship. Oliver’s apprehension to return home leads Felix to invite him to his family estate Saltburn for the summer, where he resides with his mother Elsbeth (Pike), father Sir James (Richard E. Grant), sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) and cousin Farleigh (Madekwe).
Saltburn is remarkable in the way that the film doesn’t achieve anything it set out to do. A thriller/comedy that comments on the British class system. A checklist that remains blank after the film’s running time of just over 2 hours. Criticising the wealthy has become a trend in cinema in recent years and as a result, we’re getting a lot of films that offer the same, often shallow message, written by the people the film is criticising. That’s not to say that wealthy people can’t write quality criticisms of the class system, but as the nepo baby of a jewellery designer, who had her 18th birthday featured in Tatler, Emerald Fennell is not one of those people.
Though far from a feast for the mind, Saltburn is certainly a treat for your eyes. The cast are all gorgeous, who wouldn’t be obsessed with Jacob Elordi? Fennell’s direction is no cause of complaint and is supported by the cinematography, courtesy of Linus Sandgren, who has worked on La La Land and No Time to Die. It looks absolutely mesmerising. Life at the Saltburn estate truly feels like a dream thanks to Sandgren, his work really lends to the luxurious feel of the place.
The costumes are fantastic and also help to indicate the wealth of the characters. Emerald Fennell worked very closely with costume designer Sophie Canale, who worked on season 2 of period drama Bridgerton. Though 2006 is a far cry from 1813, Canale’s experience with period dramas came in handy. “This film is only set 15 years ago, but we had to treat it like [a] period drama,” Fennell told Vogue. Oliver's wardrobe consists of stiff newness and rental tuxedos. “Everything’s box fresh,” Canale says. “I wanted everything to look new because that’s what he’s done—he’s gone to the shop, he’s packed his new wardrobe. Everything has a newness to it. I wanted to give the essence that he’s still slightly uncomfortable in those clothes.” Whereas, Felix’s designer wardrobe is well-worn and displays his comfort in a lavish lifestyle. He also wears an eyebrow piercing, which producers weren’t initially on board with.“‘We don’t understand why you would mar the most beautiful man in the world’s face with an eyebrow piercing,’” they told Fennell. She replied “If you have never been round the back of a nightclub with a boy with an eyebrow piercing and then cried into your kebab later, you have no skin in this game.” Only the appearance of the film is able to offer some form of commentary on the class system.
The performances are great, a small saviour to the screenplay. Barry Keoghan is superb, slightly understandable and certainly deranged as Oliver. Jacob Elordi’s performance is as beguiling as he is beautiful. The supporting cast are just as fabulous. Rosamund Pike is an absolute delight, the very few laughs that were pulled from me in the cinema were because of her. The Cattons are just so damn likeable.
That’s where the problem lies with Saltburn. Presented to us as satire on the upper class, it’s just a really tragic ending for the Cattons, and it’s not posed in a way that audiences can sympathise with. Oliver was clearly driven to madness over the summer, and the bathtub scene is not even the worst of it. He fucks the grave of the man he was infatuated with, only for us to learn that what he really wanted all along was the estate? Oliver is revealed as the villain all along, a middle-class interloper who misled and murdered his way to an expansive estate.As fun as his naked celebratory dance is at the end, it shows how much warmth he lacked in comparison to the Cattons. They were out of touch, it comes with the territory but they’re enchanting. Saltburn essentially repeats the snobbish fable the upper-classes repeat at 12 course meals about how every class below them is vile with greed.
Farleigh, who is biracial, is often suspended between poverty and love with his mother and wealth and reluctance with the rest of his family. Emerald Fennell leans in to touch upon race within class but jumps back as if burned. That’s a warning that she should never do it again. The Black relative losing the estate to a middle class white male stranger sounds like great commentary but those are very generous kudos to Fennell given the state of the rest of the screenplay. The more blatant point about race and class is that the Cattons cannot have acquired a title and a humongous estate without previous ties to slavery. But Fennell would be way over her head. Saltburn just reinforces the status quo it claims to be satirising.
Ultimately, Saltburn is very much like the rich people you’d meet at a non-profit event: stunning but a very vapid understanding of their purpose at the event. Fennell’s direction is beautiful but her writing is once again derivative of a Britannica article on the social issue she wishes to comment on. Funny in only a few parts and far from thrilling, Saltburn presents shock for the sake of shock and is essentially worthless in the wider conversation of the British class system. Let’s hope Emerald Fennell never attempts to ease her conscience about her privilege through her art ever again.
Thank you for reading this month’s article! I would just like to say thank you again for 100 subscribers! I never would have dreamed I’d reach this milestone within the year of writing on here but you guys made it possible. So thank you so so much! Writing this often has lended so much confidence and improvement to my writing and I’m so glad there are over 100 people who are want to read my work. I hope you enjoyed this review. My next article will be on my blog portfolio, so you’ll see me on Substack in the New Year. Once again, thank you so much for sharing, reading and recommending culture clutter. It means more to me than you will ever know.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I love love love Barry Keoghan and kept seeing ads for it all over my Insta, but I was skeptical of whether it would actually be good or not. So glad I didn't go to the theater for it (like I did with PYW, though it wasn't my choice). I'll just wait for it to come out on streaming. Maybe lol.
I hadn’t heard anything about Saltburn and now I’m suddenly seeing it everywhere haha. I will probably steer clear of it because I can never forgive anyone involved with Promising Young Woman.