BFI LFF 2023 | Movie Review: "Saltburn" Tackles High Class With A Stellar Cast
12/12 ForReel Score | 5/5 Stars
The relationship between the rich and the poor, and the unnerving tension that is inevitably present when those two parties interact, is a bountiful and fertile soil for storytelling - evidence of which can be found in the form of Saltburn, Emerald Fennell's long anticipated follow up to 2020's Promising Young Woman. It tells the fable of a working class scholarship boy from Liverpool who finds his life suddenly and brilliantly intertwined with Jacob Elordi's Felix, his Oxford classmate and literal landed gentry. Two worlds suddenly collide - and the results will leave you gasping for air.
Image courtesy of British Film Institute
Barry Keoghan is solid as the film's centrepiece, even if he's overshadowed a bit by the scene-stealing ensemble who surround him. But he holds the story together comfortably, endlessly watchable and thoroughly enrapturing as the eyes through which we experience the grandiose and sickening excess of Saltburn; we can even forgive his patchy Scouse accent. Jacob Elordi, classically handsome and cheekily charming as Felix, delivers legitimate British slang with unbridled confidence and sophistication. Statements from him like “that will be such a faff” naturally slip out of his mouth in that devilishly posh drawl. Rosamund Pike is simply delectable as Felix's dotty mother, delivering every sublime line with whimsical zing - she'll leave you clutching your sides with laughter, and wondering why Pike has never fronted a flat-out comedy in her long and varied career.
Saltburn is a beautifully shot film. It concerns itself with beautiful things, both material and human, and it regards said things with the adoration they deserve. The camera loves to linger longingly on Felix's statue-esque body, or on the spooky gothic spears and turrets of the titular building, all of which swell and sweat under the searing summer sun, capturing the wide-eyed wonder of witnessing such sights for the first time. But equally, as the plot develops and the dark underbelly begins to reveal itself, the film is unafraid to dive into the grotesque and gluttonous. The film is packed with strange and wonkily constructed shots, creating an escalating sense of unease and terror, and there are several genuinely shocking set-pieces which will agitate even the most robust of viewers.
Saltburn is a glorious, rip-roaring ride of a film that sits on the knife-edge between comedy and thriller, delivering on both counts. The plot zips by at a rattlingly brisk pace, escalating in tension before tumbling out of control for the film's finale. And in the end, it's Emerald Fennell's script that is the real star of the show, packed with wickedly real social criticism and punchy dialogue. The plot is punctuated with sharp jabs at Britain's upper crust, all the more biting coming from one of their very own - her name is Emerald Fennell after all, and with Saltburn, the call is very much coming from inside the house.