A shake up of the shower scene from Psycho, brace yourself for the bathtub sequence from SALTBURN. Draining.
Downton Abbey meets Brideshead Revisited meets The Talented Mr. Ripley in Emerald Fennell’s eagerly awaited follow up to Promising Young Woman, spikey, audacious, delicious.
SALTBURN is an outbreak of Waugh, an exploration of the sado-masochistic relationship with the things we want but can’t have. The film begins, persists and ends in a state of arousal, creating a tension between disgust and desire.
In this wicked tale of privilege and desire, Oliver Quick is struggling to find his place at Oxford University and finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton, who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family’s sprawling estate, for a summer sojourn.
Elspeth Catton, Felix’s mother, the imperious former It Girl, rock and roll acolyte, acid-tongued taste maker, and presiding force who rules over Saltburn is played by Rosamund Pike in not only a scene stealing performance but a film filching presence. This portrayal is a peak for Pike, pivotal, precise, perceptive and pure. Hideously hilarious.
Paired with Richard E Grant as her husband, it is a double act of sheer delight, with his bluff duffer exterior camouflaging the exactitude of a steel rule.
Reuniting with Fennell after her Oscar nominated turn in Promising Young Woman, Carey Mulligan, who features as the character known as Poor Dear Pamela. Her pairing with Pike reminds one of their startling scenes together in An Education.
Production values are exquisite. Oscar winning cinematographer, Linus Sandgren bathes the locations in a baronial baroque, Oscar nominated Production designer Suzie Davies drapes the décor in ineluctable detail and
Sophie Canale, who recently costumed Bridgerton, drapes the characters in fabulous fashion.
Epic and intimate, wincingly appalling and scabrously comic, SALTBURN is a declaration of Waugh with a take no prisoners caveat.
