Saltburn

Saltburn (2023) has divided people since release, and the division is not about a few scenes. It is about what the film actually is. Oliver cannot find his footing at Oxford. He befriends Felix, aristocratic and universally liked, and is invited to spend the summer at Saltburn, his family's enormous estate. What happens there is the film. Emerald Fennell's intention is class satire. The difficulty is that while criticising that world the film also lingers on it and makes it look beautiful. This is where most critics stopped: it wants to be satire and keeps turning into a fashion shoot. Several scenes were discussed endlessly on social media at the time, and much of the film's reputation comes from them. Know that going in, because they are genuinely extreme and strange. Barry Keoghan carries it and never once softens the part. Rosamund Pike has the best comic lines in the film. It was shot in a squarish ratio, which turns the estate into something closer to a prison. Good for: black comedy, class stories, and films that start arguments. Less good for: the sex is explicit and a few scenes are genuinely hard to sit through. Anyone hoping for finely tuned satire may be disappointed.