To say that after the prodigious and essential Promising Young Woman (A young woman full of promise), Emerald Fennell’s anticipated second feature film is an understatement. Here it is finally: Saltburn, once again the portrait of an atypical being, seemingly on the margins and who, in reality, is hatching an elaborate plan. This time, he is a young man, but he is just as “promising” as his predecessor. With the fundamental difference that his intentions are hardly noble. His name is Oliver, he is a student, poor, and before the end of the film, he will have disrupted the carefree existence of an ultra-rich family. That, too, is an understatement.
The film begins brilliantly, during the start of the school year at the prestigious (and expensive) Oxford University. Oliver, a brilliant boy (Barry Keoghan, indelible in The Banshees of Inisherin/The Banshees of Inisherin), entered it thanks to a scholarship. Scholarship which made him a pariah among the wealthy student population.
This entire first act, finely observed, sees the screenwriter, director and producer establish a mixture of tones: scathing, satirical, poignant. We are almost in a proletarian version of Harry Potter.
However, the majority of the film takes place in a vast manor house located in the middle of immense private lands in the heart of the English countryside: Saltburn, hence the title. Oliver spends his summer vacation there. Indeed, after having rendered a service to Felix, a very, very rich classmate (Jacob Elordi, the excellent Elvis of Priscilla by Sofia Coppola), Oliver became her best friend. Or his new toy?
“I think I prefer you to the one from last summer,” says Felix’s sister to Oliver, suggesting that this “friendship” comes with a deadline.
Highsmith and Pasolini
However, it quickly becomes apparent, and the filmmaker makes no secret of it, that it is Oliver who is pulling the strings. His goal: to interfere permanently within this extremely wealthy clan. From then on, tension and suspense arise from wondering whether or not Oliver will achieve his ends, or whether this or that character will see clearly and thwart his designs.
Farleigh, Felix’s cousin, is the main obstacle in Oliver’s way. Farleigh has every reason in the world to be wary of Oliver: one parasite recognizes another.
Like the recent May Decemberby Todd Haynes, Saltburn was clearly influenced by the novel The Talented Mr. Ripley (Mister Ripley ; 1955), by Patricia Highsmith, in which a penniless young man insinuates himself into the life of a young heir playboy with disastrous consequences.
A second obvious influence is Teorema (Theorem ; 1968), by Pier Paolo Pasolini. In this second work, a charismatic stranger “corrupts” a Catholic and, above all, bourgeois household by seducing everyone in turn, including domestic servants. Cinephiles will also not fail to note a nod to The Servantby Joseph Losey, where a butler enslaves his master.
Rotten apple
From start to finish, Emerald Fennell punctuates her winding plot with absolutely delicious lines. Several are launched by Rosamund Pike, as “lady of the manor”. This character’s total lack of empathy is matched only by his ingenuity: an improbable contrast, but one that the star of Gone Girl (Appearances) manages to embody with a confounding naturalness.
In fact, Felix’s entire family seems affected, at one level or another, by sociopathology, a habit of privilege helping. In this regard, if Oliver is the proverbial worm in the apple, said fruit is no less rotten.
Knowing this, one could argue that after the patriarchy and the rape culture that she slays in Promising Young WomanEmerald Fennell is now attacking the elites and other “one percenters”.
The exercise certainly turns out to be more frivolous, but nonetheless very enjoyable. However, where Saltburn really suffers from comparison with its author’s first film, it is in relation to the ending.
In Promising Young Woman, the conclusion is traumatic by necessity, and unforgettable for that reason. In Saltburn, conversely, the ending is drawn out unduly, and the point is diluted. We are then entitled to major explanations, superfluous since at this stage, we have understood for a long time, from the protagonist who boasts.
And the director goes with a montage that is just as didactic, useless and, as it stands, complacent.
Moreover, cutting out around twenty minutes would have made the film even more effective: in this type of story with twists and turns and multiple revelations, the more we stretch, the more we risk allowing the audience to see it coming.
However, overall, Saltburn proves eminently entertaining, sensual and intelligent. The film is, moreover, a visual marvel. As for Emerald Fennell’s future third film, we can only dream of an official adaptation of a novel by Patricia Highsmith, with whom she shares obvious and beautiful affinities.