Film: “Saltburn” (Amazon Prime)
Holidays should be spent with family. And if you can’t be with yours, make sure the family you’re with resides in a stately home in the English countryside, and has works by Rubens hanging on the walls, as well as a tennis court and a well-tended labyrinth.
When we meet Oliver (Barry Keoghan), the nerdy protagonist of Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn” (Amazon Prime), he has no such pretensions; he’s a scholarship boy beginning his first term at Oxford. Shunned by his fellow students because of his stiff personality and economic status, Oliver is transfixed by Felix (Jacob Elordi), a popular fellow student lusted after by men and women.
Oliver begins stalking him, and one day, when Felix’s bike has a flat tire, offers him the use of his own bike to get to class. Felix, forever grateful, welcomes Oliver into his circle, which includes Felix’s snobby cousin Fairleigh (Archie Madekwe). Oliver suddenly becomes a member of the cool crowd.
Felix, after hearing Oliver’s tale of woe (i.e., drunken mother, deceased father) takes pity and invites him to summer at Saltburn, the family estate. “Just be yourself; they’ll love you,” Felix says.
Upon arrival, Oliver encounters the sort of people he’s never known before—modern-day nobility who are richer than God but each more weak-willed than the next. Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), Felix’s mom, is beautiful and flirtatious but rather dotty. His sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver), is a nymphomaniac with an eating disorder. She spooks Oliver a bit, referring to “last year’s one,” a former friend that Felix has since dropped. The butler (Paul Rhys) is rather chilly and is especially offended, for example, when Oliver orders a “full English breakfast,” failing to notice that breakfast is a casual affair, with food set out on the sideboard.
As Oliver’s obsession with Felix and the trappings of wealth deepens, you begin to sense a resemblance to the friendship of Tom Ripley and Dickie Greenlief in “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” Like Ridley, Oliver isn’t as mild and unassuming as he seems. He cannily discovers and exploits each family member’s weakness in an effort to gain power over the household.
Besides the two male leads and the aforementioned cast members, Carrie Mulligan, who starred in Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman,” is also excellent, turning up briefly in a red fright wig, as Poor Dear Pamela, a batty cousin. She looks like she’s having a ball here, and if you’re the right sort of person, who wants a stylish, slightly off-kilter thriller, you will, too. Happy Holidays to you—and whatever family you’re spending them with.
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