‘Saltburn’ Review: Barry Keoghan Goes Way Of ‘Mr. Ripley’ In Emerald Fennell’s Latest Twisted Film
Barry Keoghan in Saltburn. Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios.
“Was I in love with him? No. I loved him. I loved him,” says Oliver Quick in the opening narration of Saltburn, the latest from Academy Award-winning Promising Young Woman filmmaker Emerald Fennell. We see flashes of memories of another boy as he narrates, and then we pan down. It’s Oxford, the beginning of the 2006 school year, and Oliver (Barry Keoghan) drags his suitcase down the uneven road toward his dormitory. Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) stops him to say, “Cool jacket,” — it isn’t. Oliver keeps walking in this initial long take until we see him — Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi).
Within these first few minutes, Fennell establishes the crucial things we need to know about Oliver and Felix before thrusting us into their story. Oliver, while smart, is the not-so-social, poorly dressed, quiet type. He spends his days studying in the library or walking around the campus, feeling invisible. Felix, on the other hand, is the guy in school that everyone either wants to be or be with. Stylish, tall, confident, and oozing with charm and charisma, it’s hard not to want to be pulled into his orbit, and Oliver can’t escape the gravity that pulls him toward Felix.
Jacob Elordi in Saltburn. Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios.
Long story short, after a lucky coincidence, Oliver finds himself owed a drink by Felix and makes good use of the opportunity, quickly befriending him and climbing Oxford’s social class. As we spend time learning about who Oliver and Felix are during these initial moments, we get the first glimpse of how good the acting is in Saltburn. While Barry Keoghan gives another stellar performance — that may be his best — that’s hard to dig into without revealing too much about the plot, it’s Jacob Elordi who really steals the show in these early moments. He has this natural charm and wit that, even though one may be put off by just how rich the Catton family is — the kind of rich where grades aren’t a concern. “Just skip the final exams,” he says at one point — gives you no choice but to be drawn toward him, or at least want to be drawn toward him. There’s a certain boyish innocence about Felix that, as he does various unsavory activities, still makes him come off as the clean, nearly perfect figurehead of any good insanely rich family. Throughout the first half hour, the two connect and grow close, and then it’s the end of the year. As Oliver has nowhere to go, Felix offers to bring him to his family’s British manor, Saltburn. This introduces Oliver to the lifestyle of the carefree uber-rich, and it gives him a taste of a forbidden fruit he just can’t let go of.
It’s once we get to this titular setting that we can actually dig into the metaphorical meat on the bone instead of just digging through the equally tasty fat that serves as the appetizer to the film’s delicious main course. As we begin what ends up being the majority of the rest of the runtime, we’re introduced to Felix’s eccentric family — his mother, Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), father, James (Richard E. Grant), and sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver) — Farleigh is there too, in case anyone wanted more of his snarky side-comments.
It’s here where the inevitable comparisons to Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley will emerge as the narratives become similar. The similarities between them stop at the mark of a young student wanting to break into the upper to and find himself taking a liking to that lifestyle, being pulled into a world in which he’s not destined to belong. Whereas Tom Ripley does everything he can to be one of them — lying, cheating, and even killing — Oliver Quick doesn’t seem to be doing anything wrong. Unless simply being yourself is a crime, that is. Still, something seems off about everything that is happening at this home that makes hundred-million-dollar mansions look tiny.
Saltburn. Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios.
The film grounds its moral argument over the second act and most of the third in Oliver’s crisis of fitting in/not fitting in and how the line between maintaining a true, personal identity and wanting to reinvent yourself as something greater is a fine one to balance on. It’s hard when people like Elspeth tell you, “I have a complete and utter horror of ugliness,” as they not-so-subtly reference your clothing, even harder when there are — seemingly — good people like Felix who remind her that it’s “Maybe because [she’s] a terrible person.” Fennell uses this back-and-forth to create a surface-level dialogue of the “eat the rich” type, though it’s clear that this isn’t the focus but rather a second or third-level-priority commentary.
If there’s any sole tonal focus, it’s how much Emerald Fennell simply enjoys making her audience uncomfortable. Her method of doing this isn’t necessarily provocative, but it certainly brings out discussion — and audible reaction — as she exudes full control over tone, story, and impact. The film works as a comedy just as well as it does a drama, as Fennell finds humor in the normalcy of the lives of the ultra-rich. They watch Superbad, have runny, undercooked eggs… You get it. There’s not much more to say about the story — to be fair; it’s nothing you haven’t seen before — that doesn’t give away some major spoilers, but know that as Saltburn goes on, it only gets more uncomfortably unhinged, and it’s f*cking glorious.
There are endless things to say about the strength of the performances from Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi. Elordi, while more restrained, is unafraid of leaning into the spicier sides of his character, turning a golden-boy sex object into something more — a three-dimensional character who’s easy to love, hate, and feel utterly compelled to care about. Keoghan, on the other hand, plays a precisely calculated outsider, taking us with him on the ride as Oliver goes on his long, long journey — one that goes places in which you could never expect.
Barry Keoghan in Saltburn. Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios.
Archie Madekwe — who you might recognize from this year’s Gran Turismo — gives his best performance of the year as Felix’s catty cousin who somehow manages to overstay his welcome at any given moment. Rosamund Pike — Felix’s slightly batshit-crazy mother — gives what may be the film’s best performance, finding the sweet spot that nails the necessary sympathy that shines through Elspeth’s cold exterior, perhaps the only reason that her character works as well as she does. Carey Mulligan does a whole lot with a small amount of screen time, not necessarily stealing her scenes — she isn’t the focus — but standing out nonetheless. All of that, though, is hard to compare to Barry Keoghan’s performance, which feels hard to describe with any adjective other than brave. Keoghan goes full-tilt here, engaging in some — incredibly explicit — acts that will leave you with your mouth open in awe.
All of this ties back to Fennell’s point with the film — a modern gothic tale with a splash of lust and desire, all set on the backdrop of extreme wealth that solely subverts expectations. Saltburn isn’t a satire, drama, or comedy, not really settling into any of the typical genre norms. While a fair amount of the film feels familiar, the lens that Fennell uses to reexamine these story chunks is endlessly fun and devilishly brilliant. She foreshadows everything from the start, and yet, when you feel like you’ve got your finger on the film’s pulse, Saltburn still manages to surprise. One of the most important parts of the foreshadowing techniques used in the film is the visual similarity and precise framing in Linus Sandgren’s cinematography. Shot in a 1.33:1 (4:3) aspect ratio, Sandgren uses the more vertical format to pack everything he can into each frame, giving the film a grand, sweeping feeling, even in close-ups. There are certain images that, though we don’t know it yet, allude to the characters’ deeper intentions, adding another layer to the film for future rewatches.
Saltburn is smart, hilariously unhinged, yet is also somehow quite endearing. Possibly above all else, however, it seems that Fennell heard the criticisms about Promising Young Woman’s “unsatisfying” ending, because if [REDACTED] doing [REDACTED] while [REDACTED] plays, referencing [REDACTED] while completely [REDACTED] isn’t a satisfying ending, then I don’t know what a satisfying ending looks like.
