Saltburn
A film that’s at its best when it’s poking the mega rich with its pinky finger, Richard E Grant grinning from behind a tin helmet or Rosamund Pike staring, unsatisfied, into the sun, afraid of ugliness, afraid of just about everything. It’s a funny, well-performed comedy that stumbles when it tries to become something more. It wants desperately to get under your skin, but tries so many times to burrow its way there that it becomes predictable and, finally, self-important. Some interesting, albeit unsurprising, class commentary gets lost in the sanitised muck.
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There are genuinely brilliant class commentary films out there. This one wants to be Parasite. But nothing, not the cum tub or the grave hump, shakes you half as much as Kang Ho Song’s sunken eyes as he drives his employer’s BMW.
That’s not to say it’s poor. The craft is immaculate. The performances are great. Jacob Elordi is the it-boy. Barry Keoghan continues to fascinate. It’s just treating itself like it’s bigger than it needs to be. Half-baked ideas over-explained. And by the time Barry Keoghan is dancing through its final scene, sliding bare feet and dropping his shoulders, all you can do is shrug yours.
