PFF 32: ‘Saltburn’ is absolutely insane, in the best way
The Film Festival’s closing night film, Emerald Fennell’s sophomore effort, was the best thing I saw at the fest.
The 2023 Philadelphia Film Festival is in the books, and of the 25 or so films I saw over the course of ten days, the best of them was Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, a delicious exploration of class conflict and psychosexual jealousy. It’s going to be hugely controversial when it arrives in theaters in mid-November, but I loved it.
Fennell is an actress, probably best known for playing Camilla Parker-Bowles on The Crown and for appearing in Barbie earlier this year; her debut film was Promising Young Woman, which won Fennell a Best Original Screenplay Oscar in the COVID/train station year.
Promising Young Woman was hugely controversial, with lots of people lining up to love and hate it, and I expect that to be the case again with Saltburn. I liked both, although Saltburn is the better of the two films, and both have something big in common: A great deal of audacity.
The film’s first third is set at Oxford and depicts Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) slowly befriending Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). Oliver is from relatively modest means, while Felix comes from unimaginable wealth. Eventually, Felix invites his friend to spend the summer with his family at the titular country estate, which resembles Downton Abbey, except larger and more luxurious.
Oliver is quickly out of his depth, not knowing any of the rules at this home that is ruled over by the lord and lady (Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike), who are Felix’s parents. Alison Oliver plays Felix’s sister, Venetia, while the Promising Young Woman herself, Carey Mulligan, has a tiny but memorable role as a hot-mess socialite, who I imagine is probably based on Peaches Geldof. Also on hand is a rival hanger-on named Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), a biracial cousin who’s probably the film’s best character.
We’re meant to ask whether Oliver is after social mobility or a sexual attraction to one or both of the siblings or perhaps all of the above. In other words, is this movie Parasite, or is it The Talented Mr. Ripley?
The twists and turns of the story are wonderful, and it’s buoyed by a great cast. The music is another highlight, leaning heavily on Britpop from around the 2006 period of the Oxford scenes (although the scene where they watch Superbad is set a year too early.)
There are some sexual things that happen in this movie that are absolutely shocking- and the one involving menstrual blood is maybe the third most scandalous in the movie (Between this, The Souvenir Part II, Fair Play, and The Worst Woman in the World, on-screen period blood has become less and less of a taboo of late- although Souvenir Part II was the only one of those to smash-cut from that scene to a shot of a red car.)
The casting is so fantastic across the board. Keoghan has been really great as a creepy character in everything from The Killing of a Sacred Deer to The Batman to Banshees of Inisherin, but he finds another gear here. For all the Talented Mr. Ripley comparisons, his performance doesn’t really look anything like Matt Damon’s in that film.
As for Elordi, from Euphoria and also soon to play Elvis, the camera treats him like a golden god. And this is Rosamund Pike’s best part since Gone Girl, as a model-turned-aristocrat.
Once again, I’m already looking forward to the bitter arguments Saltburn is going to start.
(Also, praise to the folks running the festival, who sprung into action when, about ten minutes from the end of Saltburn, a woman at the Film Center suffered a medical emergency, and the film had to be stopped. Thankfully, that person appeared to be fine, and the whole scene added another layer of surrealism to the evening.)