“Saltburn” redefines decadence
Written by Nevin Allen. Photo courtesy of SCAD Savannah Film Festival.
Director Emerald Fennell’s second film, “Saltburn,” tells the story of troubled teen Oliver (Barry Keoghan) as he spends the summer with his wealthy new friend Felix (Jacob Elordi), inserts himself into their family and tries to slither his way to a better life in the unfamiliar landscape of the Saltburn estate.
Despite much of the film taking place in an immense British country villa, the characters that inhabit it are the real draw. Felix’s father (Richard E. Grant) and mother (Rosamund Pike) serve as a bane and a blessing to Oliver at various points in the plot, supported by Oliver’s sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) and cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe). Every performance is nuanced and uniquely threatening, lending real grandeur to an intimate drama. This all-star cast serves as a reliable backstop for extreme risks in other departments.
The unfiltered quality of the cinematography and color grading contributes to the paradoxical work of conveying the film’s setting as enormous and yet somehow stifling. A soaring score underlines transitions and climaxes while pulling back to allow the actors to take center stage. The film is beautifully raw, weighing heavy topics like sexual repression, social consciousness and class mobility with an unflinching flatness that often reads — rightfully so — as humor.
However, despite successfully juggling difficult themes, the film struggles to effectively juggle its tones. While some audiences will inevitably be enthralled by the ambiguity of the cold eye the camera keeps throughout, many audience members will likely leave disappointed or unsettled at the film’s refusal to take an easily apparent stance on its issues. Its characters seem divisive by design, which may prove to be either thought-provoking for years to come or briefly sensational — only time will tell. Make no mistake: it is an explicit film, sexually and otherwise, fraught with discomfort and depravity in many forms. Some attendees speculated how it achieved its “R” MPA rating in place of a harsher one. Whether or not the conclusion is worth the experience will vary widely by watcher.
Controversy aside, the foundation of the story is exceptional. The pristine monolith of the Saltburn inhabitants is in constant conflict with Oliver’s dark sensual charge, a dynamic that undergoes drastic power shifts in nearly every scene. It is a ravenous and uncomfortable watching experience with a finale that earned the director a standing ovation as she re-entered the room during a screening at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival on Oct. 24. During the Q&A, Fennell was an endearing presence onstage but did not hesitate to discuss an inner world swirling with the very same subjects that haunt the film: endless hunger, moral ambiguity, and the shadow of corrupted love.
