REVIEW: SALTBURN. Brideshead Re-Twisted.

Spoiler Alert: A few plot details are revealed in this review.

*******

We wanted to present the feeling of that locust love: impossible, carnivorous, forever, impossible vampire love. - Emerald Fennell on Saltburn

Where is Sebastian's teddy bear when you need it?

Those of us who lost our British mini-series virginity to 1981's PBS serial Brideshead Revisited, based on Evelyn Waugh's novel of the same name, may recognize a devilishly perverse similarity in Emerald Fennell's new dark comedy thriller, Saltburn. Like Brideshead, Saltburn is named for the estate of a wealthy English family, one that is both opulent in appearance and impoverished in spirit. And, like Waugh's tale of a young protagonist named Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons), who is both friend and interloper into the rich Flyte family, Fennell introduces us to Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), who ingratiates himself into the Catton family while on holiday from Oxford.

What people may not know is the subtitle to Waugh's pre-World War II nostalgic tale that longed for the return of a British aristocracy: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder. Waugh's references here are to the themes of Catholicism and friendship (platonic and non) that form the novel's core, but writer-director Fennell's latest tale of revenge is more focused on the "profane" than the sacred, infusing her script with enough eccentric characters and bizarre situations to fill a Knives Out sequel.

In her debut film, Promising Young Woman, Fennell's protagonist Cassie (likely named after the Greek goddess Cassandra, whose apocryphal prophecies were never believed), was consumed by seeking revenge on her best friend's alleged rapist, skewering the British upper class and a few unsuspecting misogynists in the process. Fennell continues her vengeance on the same social class from which she came, here adding layers of sexually provocative, violent, sardonic glee.

The story centers on Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) - "Oliver Twist" was already taken - a scholarship student at Oxford University (Class of 2006) and a character Fennell claims is her: "Oliver's my imaginary friend. He's me." That acknowledgement may be telling unto itself as Fennell's narrative unfolds. You see, Oliver is fixated on a handsome, popular, and very wealthy classmate called Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). Oliver watches Felix's every move, every social interaction, every drink, every laugh, every kiss. He is our voyeur.

One day, he comes upon Felix struggling with a flat bicycle tire and offers him his own so that Felix can get to class. A connection is made. Gratitude expressed. A friendship forged. Or is it?

After a series of awkward social encounters at Oxford, Oliver tells Felix that his father, an abusive alcoholic and addict, has died in an accident. Feeling sorry for his classmate's loss, Felix invites Oliver to spend the summer at his family's estate, a lavish and sprawling mansion in the English countryside called Saltburn. Oliver immediately accepts and, after observing the Catton family's affluent lifestyle (and individual eccentricities), is reluctant to leave. He seems unhealthily attached to the Catton's despite - or perhaps, because of - their peculiar habits, odd personalities, and dysfunctional relationships.

In depicting the intimate observations that dominate Oliver's summer holiday, Fennell sends the audience down several dead-end alleys - literally and visually employing a garden maze as a not-so-subtle symbol for the various plotlines - without ever actually committing to a motive for Oliver's obsessive behavior or his subsequent, incendiary actions against Felix and his family.

And the actions are clearly designed to elicit strong reaction, rabid discussion, maybe even disgust. Fennell seems determined to push the psycho-sexual envelope, sometimes to the point where she misses or loses the impact she may have desired. In a now much written about scene that Fennell admits is the "sexiest thing" she's ever seen, Oliver, who has been secretly watching Felix pleasure himself during a bath, enters the vacated room and drinks the ejaculate lingering in the bathwater.

Ready for more? There's lots of it. Bodily fluids abound, the essence of which is sometimes seductive but mostly (meant to be?) repulsive. Just when you think Fennell might show some restraint in what is about to happen, she moves past the place where dragons go, which, strangely enough, started to drag the story down for me. In recent interviews, Fennell has said that the profuse use of bodily fluids (semen, spit, menses) is a metaphor for the pandemic: "There is a direct line between the fluids that exist in this film and the fact we were not allowed to even breathe the same air for nearly two years, that the things of the body were not allowed to be touched."

Huh? Are the fluids symbolic of the "vampire love" Fennell referenced in the opening quote? An unrequited locust plague that has descended on Saltburn?

Okay. Maybe, but...I'm a bit skeptical about a writer-director who must "explain" why certain scenes are in a movie, especially when the explanation has no clear connection to the plot, theme, or the context of the story. It's fine to have an idea - even a great idea in your head - but if you can't articulate it as a artist, what good is it? It would be one thing if we were discussing why a particular scene was shot in a particular way, but that doesn't seem to be the gist of questions Fennell is fielding. There appears to be confusion about the meaning of the movie itself.

And that's the essential problem with Saltburn. The performances - notably Keoghan and co-star Rosamund Pike - are exceptional, seductive, totally riveting. But the lack of clarity about motives and consequences left me feeling very unsatisfied at the movie's end: Oliver's naked and unabashedly self-absorbed victory dance through Saltburn feels more diabolical than desirable, an eerie and disturbing display of his social and financial conquest, perhaps, but one that doesn't quite fit the narrative that leads up to that moment.

I kept thinking about movies like Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino's revenge opus that was cut in half by movie distributors back in 2003 because they didn't think audiences would sit through three-hour film. Did you hear that, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott? I keep hoping theaters will bring Bill back in its entirety to experience as the epic it was intended on the big screen - maybe for the 20th anniversary of its second half next year? Anyway, with all the various plots, subplots, flashbacks and Japanese anime, there is a storyline that drives The Bride (Uma Thurman), no matter how many interruptions and setbacks she encounters.

By the movie's end - just when the viewer might think the story is over - Tarantino reminds you there's one more act. And, in that brief moment before the final confrontation between The Bride and Bill (David Carradine) occurs, everything clicks and you know what's going to happen. You may have wondered, "Is Tarantino going to go there?" And, of course, he does, in typically graphic fashion, yet completely in sync with the story he is telling. No matter how disturbing or shocking the outcome, there is still a sense of closure, of satisfaction even, as the credits role. The storyline's arc and the movie's narrative, have come full circle.

So, shock away, Emerald. But don't be so obtuse that we can't figure out what you are trying to do. If, as I've read in recent interviews, certain scenes, including one very graphic display of grief (or maybe remorse?) that takes place in the Catton family cemetery, were not in the original script, but were added after filming began. Keoghan reportedly wanted to try something that ended up in the final cut, which is not uncommon in moviemaking. Still, I got the feeling that Fennell had too many ideas and not necessarily a clear vision for the story. Was she hoping to add depth to the character with this extended scene, create a sense of inclusivity with her cast, or does she just experiment to see what sticks? In any case, I'll never be able to listen to the hymn, "Eternal Father, Strong to Save," in the same way ever again.

What is ultimately frustrating about an otherwise wickedly clever send-up about social class, greed, and obsession, is that it invites us to take a very naughty journey and then dumps us by the side of the road with nary a possibility of calling an Uber. When a surprising plot twist occurs about half-way in (Oliver is not only a voyeur, he's a liar), I was expecting the action to pick up. Instead, it slowed down. The last forty minutes of the movie seemed like an eternity, in contrast to a fairly fluid first ninety minutes. To reveal more plot details might spoil the film for those who have not seen it, so I'll stop here with the story and concentrate on a few other items of note.

If you saw last year's The Banshees of Inisherin you know Barry Keoghan for his Oscar-nominated (Best Supporting Actor) turn as the dim-witted, abused, affection-deprived Dominic who is alienated by the community and desperate to make a human connection. Keoghan tackles this completely different, but equally depraved, role of Oliver with intensity and enthusiasm, using his expressive face - especially his eyes - to evoke Oliver's keen observations and increasingly calculated madness. This is a star turn for Keoghan who may - should - garner an Oscar nom for Best Actor. He's currently not on the very short (re: top five) list, but definitely in the mix. Depending on how the movie fares at the box office and whether it nabs any early awards season recognition (Golden Globes, BAFTA, SAG) will determine if Academy members remember him come Oscar ballot time. Here's hoping they do.

In effect, Keoghan is the glue that holds Saltburn together, as much as is possible, given some of the aforementioned gaps and inconsistencies in plot and character development that distract from the film's overall cohesiveness. In constructing a film that walks the line between very dark comedy, psychological thriller and social satire, Fennell doesn't always completely succeed in any of these genres. The Catton family members - and extended family friends - are all bizarre in their own way, from Felix's gossip-monger mother Elspeth (a fabulous Rosamund Pike - Oscar, are you listening?) to his passive, but promiscuous sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) and their clueless, cuckholded father Sir James (the always entertaining Richard E. Grant), Fennell has crafted an oddball, but familiar troupe of standard upper crust, stiff-upper-lip-with-a-twist British stereotypes. The problem is we don't really see them except as victims of Oliver's increasingly predatory behavior.

An unfortunate casualty of Fennell's overly stuffed cast (I'll get back to the teddy bear, I promise) is "Poor Dear Pamela" (a very goth Carey Mulligan), who lives at Saltburn as one of the many - and apparently regular - Catton family hangers-on. She is reportedly hiding out at Saltburn to avoid a Russian aristocrat's lust (or something), then suddenly disappears after Elspeth decides she's overstayed her welcome. Later, we learn that Pamela has died, or as Elspeth deadpans, "She'll do anything for attention." This is the kind of off-hand character drop that Wes Anderson might employ but here it just seems like an unfortunate piece of filler that is supposed to help Fennell's skewed view of the British upper class, but instead becomes more of a throwaway.

Too bad. There's good stuff here, just not enough to push this movie into the really good, maybe even great, category. Maybe my expectations were too high but, after Promising Young Woman's acerbic script and didn't-quite-see-it-coming ending, I was looking for more substance here, more sarcastic wit and a devilishly sly conclusion that never really happens. Scenes that might have been intended to elicit audience reaction instead border on simply being gratuitous. With the stellar cast and Fennell's writing-directorial cred, Saltburn seems like a bit of missed opportunity.

Early on, some critics compared Keoghan's tale of a "promising young man" to 1999's The Talented Mr. Ripley, based on Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel of the same name, about an underachieving young man who ingratiates himself into the Ivy League crowd and then begins taking extreme measures when his newfound friends tire of him. I would argue that, in spite of Oliver's social rejection and subsequently violent behavior, Mr. Ripley is more cunning and the story more cohesive that what Fennell has presented here.

Both Mr. Ripley and Brideshead Revisited examined class (American and British), exclusion, and personal rejection with a clear eye to the time (pre-WWI and the 1950s, respectively), providing both a context and rationale for ensuing consequences and events. With Saltburn, there's no sentimentality, no nostalgia, and certainly no elevation of understanding about the British class system, the disenfranchised, or the outliers who covet wealth and power in Fennell's takedown of contemporary British aristocracy. Whether Oliver is really triumphant in the end, or completely vanquished by his own greed, is left for the viewer to decide. And, while his raw and exposed romp through Saltburn to the blaring, almost grotesque strains of Sofie Ellis-Bextor's "Murder on the Disco Floor" might be Oliver's ultimate expression of freedom (let's hope not the 21st century equivalent of John Travolta's iconic disco strut in the opening scene of Saturday Night Fever), I kind of wished there would have been some small reminder of the Catton family that at least suggests a crumb of connection to his unsavory deeds.

The cuddly teddy bear that Sebastian cherished in Brideshead Revisited would probably not fit into Fennell's stark, sterile, godless contemporary world, though she makes sure we take notice of Sir James Catton's beloved teddy bear on Oliver's first walk through Saltburn. We never see the cuddly toy again, but then Oliver would have probably ripped the stuffing out anyway.

On second thought, maybe he'd....