Saltburn

After Emerald Fennell’s promising young film, Saltburn is a triumph of living up to high expectations, as Fennell develops her style into something magnificent. It’s 2006 – which is somehow long enough ago to be the setting for a period piece – and you have just started out at Oxford University (I’m sure that will appeal to many a Warwick student!), everyone is posh, they’ve already made friends, and you’re alone and rejected. What do you do? Better start taking notes from Barry Keoghan who, in his best role to date, plays a fascinatingly manipulative lead – as pitiable as he is disturbing, finding himself surrounded by the filthy rich. Fennell is not afraid to be disgusting and horrifying, in amongst the grand estate of Saltburn, and the attractive, stylish people everywhere, there’s as much to make you squirm with discomfort as there is to make you jealous of the high life. Even when it goes a bit over-the-top or feels a little surface level, Saltburn is always fun, always intriguing, always surprising and the script is tight enough to have you laughing throughout regardless.

Daniel Kallin