Saltburn (2023)
Director: Emerald Fennell
Screenwriter: Emerald Fennell
Starring: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Carey Mulligan
Emerald Fennell announced herself as a bold new voice with her 2020 debut, Promising Young Woman — a candy-pop, #MeToo-inflected revenge drama that sparked debate and showcased her distinctive sensibility. Saltburn, her sophomore feature, asks whether Fennell can repeat that audacious success. The result is a darkly seductive film that explores privilege, desire and the dangerous games people play to get what they want.
Saltburn opens at the start of the 2006–07 academic year as Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) arrives at Oxford University. Socially awkward and eager to fit in, Ollie struggles initially, until he falls under the sway of Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), a charismatic, aristocratic student. Felix soon invites Ollie to spend the summer at his family’s eccentric country estate, Saltburn — an offer that sets the plot and Ollie’s transformation in motion.
From the first title card — handwritten across a 4:3 frame like graffiti in a schoolbook — Fennell signals the film’s preoccupation with immaturity dressed as power. Her characters behave like playground tyrants who never outgrew adolescent mean-spiritedness, yet they occupy positions of wealth and influence. Their entitlement and self-regard are terrifying precisely because they shape the rules others must live by. The film’s 2007 setting, just before the 2007–2008 financial crisis, subtly reinforces the sense of a gilded world on the cusp of upheaval.
The Catton household is a gallery of exaggerated personalities. Richard E. Grant plays the oblivious patriarch, Sir James, while Rosamund Pike is the equally oblivious matriarch, Elsbeth. Jacob Elordi’s Felix is a complicated mix of spoiled aristocrat and unexpectedly kind friend; Alison Oliver’s Venetia exudes siren-like allure; Archie Madekwe’s Farleigh is a mischievous, jester-like cousin; and Carey Mulligan’s Pamela is a melancholic, painfully titled “Poor Dear.” Each actor brings comedic timing and depth, rendering the family both ridiculous and chillingly plausible as members of a ruling class.
Fennell wastes no time establishing how the family’s status overrides merit. In one early scene, Ollie’s tutor mocks him for actually doing the summer reading, while Farleigh, who arrives late and unsupported, is treated with deference simply because of his name. This contrast — hard work punished, pedigree rewarded — is a central theme: in this world, lineage and connections trump effort. Felix’s casual assumption that his problems will be sorted for him is symbolized by small gestures, like accepting help without attempting to solve his own bike puncture.
Despite its moral rot, Saltburn seduces both Ollie and the audience. Fennell films the stately home as a fetishized object, bathing its rooms and rituals in lush, inviting compositions. The estate becomes an intoxicating trap: once inside, the characters and viewers are reluctant to leave. This visual seduction mirrors the narrative one, as Ollie slowly becomes entwined in the family’s rhythms, manners and manipulations.
Crucially, the film avoids portraying the Cattons as pure caricatures. Fennell and her cast humanize them, revealing contradictions: Felix, for example, is a brat but also capable of genuine warmth and generosity toward Ollie. Jacob Elordi gives Felix a layered performance, balancing charisma, childishness and a surprising tenderness. These complexities make the characters more dangerous because they are believable and sometimes even sympathetic.
At its core, Saltburn is a story about desire — appetite for status, affection, validation, and control — and the lengths people will go to achieve it. The narrative becomes a contest in which each character pursues their own stake, often at the expense of others. The film has been described as a sort of Succession for the generation that came of age with Skins: both savage and gleefully intimate about the wealthy’s private theatrics.
Barry Keoghan anchors the film with a remarkable central performance. As Ollie, he charts a convincing arc from outsider to coveted figure, and finally to someone transformed by the forces around him. Keoghan infuses each stage of Ollie’s evolution with nuance, revealing vulnerability, ambition, and a growing self-possession. By the film’s end, his portrayal feels indelible — a haunting, finely calibrated study of a young man remade by privilege and desire.
Whether one prefers Saltburn or Promising Young Woman will depend on taste: the films differ in tone and thematic focus. Promising Young Woman landed as a pointed cultural critique; Saltburn operates more like a slow-burn social portrait wrapped in a thriller’s formal pleasures. Both, however, confirm Fennell’s confidence and range as a filmmaker. She combines meticulous visual style, sharp social observation, and dark humor in a way that feels singular.
Saltburn is a seductive, unsettling odyssey of lust, envy and betrayal. It stages aristocratic excess like a modern tragedy and pairs that bleakness with gleeful musical moments — revitalizing tracks in the way Fennell repurposed songs in her earlier work. The film demonstrates that Fennell remains one of the most compelling directors working today, and it marks another striking entry in her growing filmography.
Score: 23/24
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.