‘Saltburn’ wicked tale of privilege infected by outside force

Academy Award winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) has created with “Saltburn” the “Talented Mr. Ripley” for the 21^st Century. His wicked look at the way wealth drives ego and evil plays out against a rich background creates a beautiful game of emotional chess just as the Matt Damon film did a quarter of a century ago.

This makes “Saltburn” a winning movie that ends up a little too predictable but the game play getting there is sublime.

Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) is a struggling student at Oxford and it has nothing to do with grades. What he lacks in social skills is balanced by his gift for academia. Quick spends most of his time in the shadows living with the hope he will make a friend.

That happens when he comes to the rescue of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). The pair forge an unlikely friendship as Catton finds great sympathy in the painful life Quick has lived. This leads to an invitation to visit his home, Saltburn, during the summer.

It is a world of opulence and eccentricities where Quick spends months having his life changed forever. He finds Saltburn to be both a place of sanctuary and insanity.

Chief among those with the most emotional baggage is Catton’s mother, Elspeth Catton, played with superb quirkiness by Rosamund Pike. On meeting Quick, she immediately informs him that she is happy he is not ugly as she has had a great fear of ugliness all her life. This is just the opening emotional salvo that Quick must navigate.

Pike plays the role with the grandeur of a queen and the personality of a spoiled child. As long as life is in order, she is fine. Any disruption sends her into a spiral.

Rounding out the odd family members are: the milk toast father, Sir James Catton (Richard E. Grant); psychologically scarred daughter, Venetia Catton (Alison Oliver); and judgmental relative, Farleigh Start (Archie Madekwe). They’re creepy, kooky and very self-destructive.

Quick’s efforts to fit in begins to unravel as the truth about his past is revealed. His efforts to live a better life slowly begin to crumble causing him to become even more resourceful. This all unfolds as the summer slowly passes during months of swimming, drinking and parties.

A rich family filled with problems is rather standard in the film world. Fennel’s direction and script is only using them as mile markers to watch the progression of Keoghan’s character. The film works because Keoghan delivers such a complicated performance.

There are moments when flickers of his true nature are only visible through his staring eyes. Then there are moments when he dances naked with abandonment through the world he has created.

This is a 180-degree change of acting direction for Keoghan from his very sensitive work in “The Banshees of Inisherin.” Both performances are equally strong and that takes real acting skills.

Fennel does his best to conceal the real motivations of the characters, but the progression takes such a familiar course that by the time the major twist of an ending arrives, it is not as twisty as it should have been. Fennel had plenty of opportunities with some supporting characters to take the film in a wild final direction but ended up sticking to a very standard plan.

That doesn’t cripple the film but a little more shock and awe in the closing moments would have elevated this film from good to great. He had all the players he needed but just became too timid in design.

“Saltburn” – currently showing in local theaters – is a character study in what happens when a dark lost soul infects the life of a kind but clueless family. Performances by Keoghan and Pike make this scenario work. It could have just worked a little better if Fennel had shown a little more courage in putting the twists into the finale.

Movie review

Saltburn

Grade: B

Cast: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Richard C. Grant, Rosamund Pike, Archie Madekwe, Alison Oliver.

Director: Emerald Fennell

Rated: R for graphic nudity, violence, drug use, sexual content, language

Running time: 127 minutes.