Fennell loves to show off her characters’ ghastly eccentricities almost as much as she loves to show off their gleaming, sweaty skin, so it may be a while before you notice that nothing much is actually happening. There is some intrigue as to whether Oliver should be afraid of the family or vice versa. There are also some sexual shenanigans which suggest that while Oliver would really like to sleep with Felix, he’ll make do with any substitute he can find. But the film has a structural problem, which is that most of its plotting is saved for the final stretch. For much of the running time, Fennell is vague about everyone’s motivations and actions, so the film drifts along. And then she suddenly hurries through several major revelations with the speed of someone who wants to reach the end of an anecdote before their phone battery runs out.
Some of these revelations are more ingenious than others. For someone who loves big final twists so much, Fennell is prone to fumble them. And for someone who knows quite a bit about the super-rich (she even played Camilla Parker Bowles in The Crown), she has little to say about class divisions that hasn’t been said more pithily in several recent films. When you remember the sly plotting of Knives Out and the explosive horrors of Triangle of Sadness, Saltburn does seem a bit half-hearted. For that matter, it also lacks the focused anger of Promising Young Woman.
Still, if you see it as a lurid pulp fantasy rather than a penetrating satire, then Saltburn is deliriously enjoyable. It’s the dialogue and the performances that clinch it. Oliver is awestruck when he sees the priceless Old Masters on the house’s oak-panelled walls. Every scene in which Pike, Grant and Mulligan compete to be the most obnoxious may prompt the same reaction in the viewer.
★★★★☆
Saltburn is released on 17 November.
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