Right from the start, it feels like everything is designed to put the viewer slightly off-balance, from the successfully-used intimate Academy ratio to overblown classical music and unusual graphic design, as outsider student Oliver arrives at Oxford University in 2006 and falls under the thrall of handsome uber-popular Felix, who opens him up to a world of new experiences and feelings, culminating in a fateful long-hot-Summer at Felix's family estate, Saltburn. Prowling camera, intrusive close-ups and the relentless following of the story through Oliver's emotional perspective keep the viewer closely engaged with the film. The story's obvious referencing of Brideshead Revisited is dealt with deftly in a couple of lines of dialogue, but it also has clear echoes of Theorem and The Talented Mr Ripley as Oliver grows in manipulative confidence and worms his way into the family through its various dreadful members (with the wonderful Rosamund Pike delivering the mother's scathing lines with relish). Mainstream viewers have clearly found some of the film's more outrageous moments rather shocking, but even for cinephiles there are a couple of eye-wideningly unexpected sequences that evoke the depth of feelings being portrayed. The film pulls of its end-of-second-act reveal well to lead into an all-bets-off finale. Driven by yet another marvellous performance from a courageous Barry Keoghan, this deeply-dark comedy-drama is very well-made and audaciously entertaining.
No comments:
Post a Comment