Saltburn review — terrible toffs go wild in Emerald Fennell’s latest creation
★★★☆☆
They say “write what you know” and, boy, does the film-maker Emerald Fennell know the upper-class milieu of this, her follow-up feature to Promising Young Woman. The 38-year-old Oscar winner here takes judicious swipes at what she’s termed the “grotesque privilege” of her upbringing, and thus sets the film, in 2007, among wealthy university cliques and the buffoonish aristos of giant country manors.
One such pile is Saltburn, an estate that was, claims the screenplay, beloved of Evelyn Waugh but is now home to Sir James Catton (Richard E Grant), his ex-model wife, Elsbeth (Rosamund Pike), his disaffected daughter, Venetia (Alison Oliver), and his sweet but dim son, Felix (Jacob Elordi).
These characters are immaculately drawn and reason alone to see the film.
