Saltburn
2023
***½
Director: Emerald Fennell
Cast: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Carey Mulligan, Paul Rhys, Lolly Adefope, Reece Shearsmith
At Oxford University, the socially awkward scholarship student Oliver becomes infatuated with the popular and aristocratic Felix. When the semester ends, he is invited to spend the summer at Felix's lavish family estate, Saltburn. Emerald Fennell's second film is another darkly comic thriller. While Promising Young Woman was sharp, clever, and original, Oliver's immersion into wealth and privilege is enjoyable but predictable after seeing The Talented Mr. Ripley, A Place in the Sun, and Brideshead Revisited. I could have lived without the few gratuitous gross-out scenes and the ending which doesn't leave anything to our imagination.
