IR Film Review: SALTBURN [MGM]
After "Promising Young Woman", writer/director Emerald Fennell had some big shoes to fill. That film was subversive and a big swing, especially with its ending. But it gave Carey Mulligan another way to show how vivid and intense she can be. "Maestro" does that for her in a different way this way but what she did with Fennell is a whole other animal, even if that previous film did have certain shortcomings. It is the same with Fennell's new film "Saltburn" though it does take the same horror/thriller spin but with a much more devious character. It finally shows (even after "The Banshees Of Inishirin"), how great Barry Keoghan can be. More than anything this film, in a much more explicit way, harks back to early Dustin Hoffman. Keoghan's darker performance here almost mixes the characterization of "The Graduate" with "Midnght Cowboy" in the story of Oliver who, at the beginning speaks of the love he has for Felix (Jacob Elordi of "Euphoria") but not if he is "in love" which is very specific.
The essence of an unreliable narrator really settles the audience in because Oliver might be pulling over a fast one on everyone from the beginning (including us). The performance is dynamic in all the right ways for a psychopath but Keoghan plays it wonderfully like a loner. But even more than that, there is something troubling about the character because there is no corrolation to in a way why he is the way he is. But Fennell leaves that up to the audience. In "Promising Young Woman", there was more motivation and reality but Oliver wants what he wants. What makes it works is because of the family he ingratiates himself with at Saltburn which is a country estate owned the rich Catton family of which Felix is the prodigal son. But within that structure, the essence of the mother and father, played with detached emotion by Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant is wonderfully disconnected. They love their children but are steeped in their own bringing and have trouble interrelating. The two veterans play this exacty right (and Pike knows the path of such a character as Oliver from her own "Gone Girl"). This detachment of the parents creates empathy in their spoiled children but without the tools to interpret them correctly.
Their daughter Venetia (played by Alison Oliver) is particularly specific in the ways she tries to steal the people her brother brings home. The way Oliver uses this is interesting (specifically in one rich but at times disturbing scene). But again, until the end game becomes clear, the intent is unknown which makes it deliciously manevolent. The question is what Oliver believes at his core but the shift of perception and the way Keoghan starts to deconstruct him is quite beautiful and dangerous because it remains unknown. Fennell knows how to pinpoint her actors with her direction, even though the path might be a bit too much for a normal crowd. But as a character study wrapped in the guise of a thriller, it delivers in certain ways much like "Promising Young Woman" but from a very different point of view. There are some periphery characters which add some dynamic thoughts in Archie Madekwe (last seen as the lead in "Gran Turismo") as Farleigh as well as Carey Mulligan as Pamela (she is dreadfully underused here -- but Mulligan might simply have wanted to take part briefly because it is Fennell's 2nd film). "Saltburn" though is Keoghan's picture through and through. He is textured, vivid and perhaps a bit overwrought and at times overplayed but nonetheless is fascinating, even if the rest of the story beats and intents beneath him are bit offputting or uneven. B+
By Tim Wassberg
