Oliver (Barry Keoghan) is a freshman at Oxford University. His presence is anything but noteworthy — he’s dressed like a middle-aged penpusher and gets lost in the shuffle of new faces and places. The only interesting quality that Oliver has is his infatuation for Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), a wealthy and handsome student whose social life remains impalpable to the fervid outsider. Inevitably, fate introduces the nerd and golden boy together and the two hit it off. Ollie, an affectionate nickname given by Felix, joins the in-group, entering a world of drinking, smoking and philandering. Knowing that Oliver has a trying domestic life, Felix later invites him to stay the summer at Saltburn — his family’s estate — putting in motion a debauched story of parasitism.
When the beginning of “Saltburn” serviceably presents Oliver’s obsession with Felix against the carousing of college life, we know that these feelings of zeal are relatively untapped and will unbound within the gates of the Baroque mansion. Sure enough, they do as Oliver is quick to adjust to the Saltburn denizens’ posh lifestyle, slyly earwigging and committing salacious acts around the manor’s grounds. And yet, this hedonic, precarious game Oliver plays never dawns as quite thrilling or even momentous. There is a vacuum of interrelatedness between his exploits and the events that follow. Director and screenwriter Emerald Fennell offers little to grab onto, fashioning a story around short-lived potencies rather than consequences.
Around these maneuvers and ploys, Fennell, with cinematographer Linus Sandgren, craft a brazen presentation with popping colors and a symphonic score with mid-2000s needle drops. Everything looks and sounds good, but these frills can be a reminder of how unremarkable the scene it’s dressing really is. Earworms like MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” pulsate while a hacky montage-esque sequence plays out that means nothing to these characters when they have a bore of a dinner later.
The rakehell at the center of everything, embodied by the chameleonic Barry Keoghan, is a thorny character by design: his construction is defined by his desire, and he’s an unreliable narrator. Much of the intrigue surrounding this eccentric falls by the wayside during the film’s midsection, as Oliver is increasingly reduced to a vehicle for depravity and deviousness. Earlier on, there are sexually explicit scenes that remind us how pathetic his whole scheme really is — and there are some, namely a graveyard scene, that register more as means to titillate for the sake of doing so. This diminishment is unfortunate because Keoghan, in his first leading role, isn’t given much substance to act upon and, rather, things to “do.”
Saltburn’s issue of characterization extends to its supporting players Elspeth (Rosamund Pike) and Sir James Catton (Richard E. Grant), Felix’s parents. The seasoned actors of the ensemble give uniformly humorous performances, but their satirical aloofness makes them feel like misplaced wildcards. Beneath her farcical ramblings, Elspeth is a thread that should be utilized and is, but only far too late in the last half hour. “Saltburn’s” closing stretch barrels towards its end, seemingly making up for lost ground, especially for its main character. Predictable or not, it does feel like the thriller we should have gotten an hour ago by the end.
Verdict: “Saltburn” tries to devilishly provoke and titillate but finds itself running empty through and through.
