Following her razor-sharp 2021 Oscar-winning debut Promising Young Woman, writer/director Emerald Fennel’s second feature, Saltburn, is an intoxicating, intense, and thrilling ride through the upper echelons of British high society, supported by bravura performances from the delightfully well-chosen cast. This marks the first major part for the consistently superb and utterly captivating Barry Keoghan, who was last seen on the big screen in Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy The Banshees of Inisherin, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. It’s safe to assume that he doesn’t mince words.
He plays Oliver Quick, a swotty, working class fresher student who has secured a scholarship to Oxford University in 2006 and finds himself utterly out of his depth among the upper crust youths that are now his peers. A chance encounter brings him into the orbit of Felix (Jacob Elordi), the impossibly handsome and privileged heir to his family’s sprawling estate, Saltburn.
Felix, casually charming and devastatingly fickle, is moved by Oliver’s sad tales of his grim family background and takes him under his wing, inviting him to his gargantuan manor for the summer and flinging open the door to a life of carefree excess.
The movie stars Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Archie Madekwe, Carey Mulligan, and Richard E. Grant in the lead roles
Watch the movie’s trailer here
