Film Review: Barry Keoghan is excellent in Saltburn
Barry Keoghan and Archie Madekwe star in Saltburn
- Saltburn
- ★★★★☆
- Cinema release
To the cloisters, quads and dreaming spires of Oxford, where undergrad Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) arrives as Saltburn (16s) begins.
A working-class Liverpudlian and a “scholarship boy who buys his clothes from Oxfam”, Oliver finds himself entranced by the charismatic, upper-class Felix (Jacob Elordi), who might not be very bright, but who dazzles all the same.
When Felix befriends Oliver, much to the dismay of his well-heeled clique, the pair become something of an odd couple — but when Felix invites Oliver to Saltburn, the turreted country pile he calls home, Oliver quickly finds himself out of his depth.
Written and directed by Emerald Fennell, Saltburn opens like a homage to Brideshead Revisited (“sounds like an Evelyn Waugh novel,” observes one of the characters), but gradually comes to more closely resemble The Talented Mr Ripley.
Quick by name and a quick study by nature, Oliver has a chameleonic ability to blend in and become whoever you need him to be, so that his faux pas when it comes to table etiquette, for example, is swiftly overlooked by Felix’s sister Venetia (Alison Oliver), who scorns Oliver as Felix’s latest toy, and his parents, the dotty patriarch Sir James (Richard E. Grant) and his long-suffering wife Elspeth (Rosamund Pike).
Barry Keoghan is excellent here as the ambitious social climber, equally convincing as the wide-eyed scholarship boy and the ruthlessly scheming snake.
He gets strong support from Jacob Elordi, whose Felix, all careless, tousled elegance, is shallow, genuine, and frequently lapses into thoughtless cruelty, even if Rosamund Pike steals every scene she’s in as the hilariously self-absorbed Elspeth — whose every second line is a laugh-out-loud zinger.
It might lack the stately sophistication of its Brideshead inspiration, but this follow-up to Promising Young Woman (2020) confirms Emerald Fennell as a serious talent.
