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SALTBURN – Anthony Willis
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE FILM, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER WAITING UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE DONE SO TO READ IT.
Saltburn is an extraordinary, almost unclassifiable film. It’s the sophomore effort of the writer/director/producer/actress Emerald Fennell, who became the first British woman to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar in 2020 for her debut film Promising Young Woman; readers may also know her as the showrunner of the thriller TV series Killing Eve, and for her performance as Camilla Parker-Bowles in The Crown. The film stars the brilliant Barry Keoghan as Oliver Quick, a young man who leaves his working class background and enters Oxford University, and immediately becomes infatuated by his handsome classmate Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). Felix invites Oliver to spend the summer at his family’s country estate – the Saltburn of the title – where he soon ingratiates himself with Felix’s mother Lady Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), his father Lord James (Richard E. Grant), and his sister Venetia (Alison Oliver), but makes an enemy of Felix’s American cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe). However, as the summer progresses, the relationships between Oliver and the Cattons begin to change, resulting in some truly devastating turns of events. Read more…

