I still haven’t seen director Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman. Yes, I know it is supposed to be quite good. I have a reason for not seeing it. However, I heard she had another coming out called Saltburn. I watched the trailer. I had only a vague idea what it was about. It looked creepy and weird. I often like creepy and weird. Lead actor Barry Keoghan is someone I’ve been seeing more and more of. I decided to see that instead of Napoleon.
I spent most of the movie not sure what was happening. Sort of. Allow me to explain.
Oliver Quick (Keoghan) is a scholarship kid headed to college at Oxford. He immediately notices handsome Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), the son of a noble family with an ancestral estate, the title location. Oliver seems to be somewhat smitten with Felix, and after a chance encounter, he soon hits off an unlikely friendship with the rich young man, eventually scoring an invite for the summer to Saltburn where Oliver can spend time with Felix, his parents (Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike), younger sister Venetia (Alison Oliver), and mixed race American cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe). Life at Saltburn is filled with servants, excess, and parties full of strangers. The only downside is the butler (Paul Rhys) seems to be a bit suspicious of Oliver from the minute the young man arrives.
However, there’s something going on here. Oliver, acting as something of a narrator, is not the most honest of storytellers, and he wants something. Is it Felix? Possibly, but he seems to be trying to seduce, either sexually or otherwise, all the other members of the family too in one way or the other. Then again, there’s plenty of talk from the various members of the family that they might be using Oliver for something themselves. But the real question is Oliver himself: what does he really want? Is it Felix? Or something else entirely? That, essentially, is the mystery of Saltburn.
And “mystery” is the right word here. I really had no idea where the movie was going as I watched it, and not in a good way. Keoghan and Elordi both deliver good performances, but I wasn’t sure where they were going with all this. It comes down to Oliver, who in the first few seconds of the movie asks a rhetorical question about whether or not he loved or was in love with Felix. That Oliver is a liar is not that surprising. His stories seemed a little too good to be true, and I wasn’t overly surprised when his lies were revealed. It mostly comes down to motive. What is it Oliver wants? He does some really bizarre things at times in this movie.
And then, in the last few minutes, the movie really picked up as the story comes out. Does it work? Well, honestly, I was checking the time at various points before then. The Cattons, at least Felix and his parents, didn’t seem like bad people or anything. Maybe a little oblivious in an upperclass sort of way, but not openly malicious or anything. Oliver might just be in love with Felix, but his other actions don’t really square with that completely. I will say I was impressed when everything came out, but not enough to really give this movie a particularly good grade. So, keep that in mind if you opt to see the movie. Fifteen minutes of interesting developments doesn’t quite make up for the previous hour and forty-five of uncertainty.
Grade: C+
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