Sometimes I thought Saltburn had more bravura in the "I Want the Ultimate GOTHIC Horror/Mansion Look" direction department going on rather than a legitimately clever script (or that it thinks it has a more clever plot than it does), and at other times I thought the script had incredible lines for these very good actors and maybe the film was over-directed.... like, okay, we get it, Fennell, you want to make the most Bronte thing that the Brontes never could.
It is, visually, mostly boldly realized as a piece of hard-R pop provocation that works more than it doesn't, despite its ending changing some perameters with the leads initial ambitions that are tough to swallow. I don't think it is that deep, whether it was trying to dig into thorny Class stuff (it's a more Personal-Obsessive chronicle than that) when practically everyone is a vampire or not, save, tellingly, for who Oliver actually comes from. Frankly, knowing it was inspired by Talented Mr Ripley going in did no favors by comparison (with a bit of, aside from coincidentally "You" season 4, Teorema oddly enough), like at a festival with nothing to go on this might have got to me a little more.
However, even with the obvious influences and one particularly glaring story problem - or just with logic involving a cell phone (you know, genius manipulator kid, you can block a phone number or just turn it off) - this is a glorious showcase for Barry Keoghan to (again!) be an intensely, leering, uncomfortable and yet always in his way natural creepy little confusingly-big shlonged weirdo; he and (second time this month post Priscilla an alluring) Elordi have excellent chemistry, and I can't stress enough that, with actors, in particular a scene-stealing Allison Oliver as the f'd-up sister, Fennell has as strong a grasp on her caat and like how far to let Pike and Grant go and when to reel them in (that scene with the checkbook is wonderful).
If you want meaty acting, this definitely has that (a new category: Acting Over Substance?), and when it tries to be funny it largely is, and while it doesn't stand out as one of the best of the year it is an entertaining film moment to moment. If you were expecting another round of sociological buckshot in your brain, it doesn't have as much substantive things to say as Promising Young Woman did.
Dare I say it now... whatever you got planned for Joker, Barry: bring it.
