Arthouse cinema with a capital A for those who have never seen an arthouse film before, Saltburn is a beautiful but vapid satire from Emerald Fennell (yes that is her real name) which fails to bring anything new to its take-down of overprivileged layabouts or say anything about class struggle that hasn't been said before, whilst its self-satisfied narrative of obsession is just Brideshead Revisited by way of Patricia Highsmith and Pasolini's Teorema, for the Indie sleaze generation.

It's a film with so many attempts at provocation it seems almost designed just to provoke a reaction, to get people talking about that scene in particular (and there's plenty to choose from), which all amounts to shock value without substance. Barry Keoghan is one of the brightest young talents around and the go-to guy if you want unfiltered weirdness to permeate the screen, but he's in his thirties and looks every bit as old, so trying to accept him as a fresh-faced first year Uni student is tough to swallow, otherwise it's a compelling performance from the Irish star, whilst the supporting cast are little more than eccentric super-wealthy stereotypes—bored, out of touch and kooky, lacking any semblance of self-awareness. The plot piles on one shocking event after the other but then has the audacity to reveal a 'twist' ending that's basically been telegraphed from the very beginning which even audiences only paying the bare minimum of attention would have already realised.

All this eye-rolling is entertaining in a sense, Fennell's direction is certainly not lacking in confidence and the first half of the film is also very strong, only floundering in a second act that doesn't know where to stop or how far to go.

Prime Video.