Saltburn (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video) is filmmaker Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her acclaimed 2020 debut Promising Young Woman, which netted her an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. So one could consider the new film at least reasonably anticipated, when taking into consideration the provocative nature of Promising Young Woman, and how Saltburn is anchored by Barry Keoghan, the remarkably talented character actor who creeped us out in The Killing of a Sacred Deer and broke our hearts in The Banshees of Inisherin. Keoghan’s primary vibe is the tiny sliver of overlap in the Venn diagram between a sad, adorable puppy dog and a serial killer – one subtly modified facial expression could push him in either direction, and that’s why he’s such a fascinating actor, especially in this movie, where we’re not sure if he deserves our sympathies or our scorn.

The Gist: “I loved him,” narrates Oliver Quick (Keoghan). Note the past tense, which could mean a couple different things but, you know, no spoilers bro. And then we learn who Oliver loved, and how and why, in flashback, to the early 2000s. He’s the new kid at Oxford, on scholarship, which implies his modest means amidst many classmates who spew a half-dozen silver spoons with every cough. It’s awkward at first, being stuck between the privies (my word for “privileged kids,” and yes, the pejorative implication is intentional) and the misanthropes who hate them, but Oliver soon endears himself to Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), who sometimes seems a bit less like a privy than the other privies. Felix slowly ingratiates Oliver to his friends, who at least make an effort to tone down their snobbery, oh, about eight, maybe nine, percent. There may be a reason why they’re assholes: “All those boarding schools – what do they teach you?” Oliver asks, and Felix reply is, “Latin, water polo and child abuse.”

So being rich as hell ain’t all it’s cracked up to be? Maybe. Oliver shows his first inkling of not being All There when we see him standing in the bushes and peeping on Felix getting all juicy with an attractive young woman. Is your creepo radar beeping? It should be. Oliver tells Felix that his family is a mess – his parents are addicts and the house is trashed and his dad just died and wow, how did he make it out intact? Seems like quite the feat, if you want to believe it, and why wouldn’t you? If you were Felix, I mean, since we saw Oliver peeping on Felix but Felix didn’t see Oliver peeping on Felix. (It’s what your lit prof calls “situational irony.”) The sob story prompts Felix to invite his new friend to SALTBURN for the summer, a name that demands all-caps treatment, and you’re about to find out exactly why.

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So: SALTBURN is one of those haughty-ass names that rich English people give to their disgustingly gigantic estates. This particular estate has a manor on it that makes a castle look like an outhouse, complete with a pool and sprawling meadows and a hedge maze, all maintained by footmen and maids and a stern butler whose demeanor has us wondering if his first gig might’ve been at Dracula’s house. I think Felix is a descendent of a king or three, and if so, they were probably some of the crazier ones, especially when you take into consideration his parents, the highly eccentric Lady Elspeth (Rosamund Pike) and Sir James (Richard E. Grant), who are, to put it bluntly, maniacs. They’re not OTT maniacs who eat bugs and enjoy rich-housewife reality shows, but again, it’s the vibes, man, the vibes. Felix’s sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) exhibits signs of psychological damage; we’re not sure if she wants to shtoink Oliver or just disregard him like he’s yet another hanger-on of the likes that Felix has befriended and discarded many times before. And the shitbirdiest of the pissants at Oxford is here too, Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), who indulges any opportunity to belittle Oliver. It’s quite the summer for our protagonist, being idle in the sun and on the tennis courts alongside the idle rich, and it soon becomes prevalent that gaining entry to SALTBURN isn’t difficult – it’s staying there that’s the trick.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Saltburn is like The Talented Mr. Ripley meets Triangle of Sadness meets, uh, what’s something with a butler and vast gilded staircases and libraries full of suits of armor – A Room With a View? Yeah, sure, A Room With a View.

Performance Worth Watching: Much has been, is and will be said about Pike’s succulent, understated performance, playing a thoroughly moneybrained vacuum of a person who gets a bunch of the script’s best lines. But this movie, ramshackle as it can be, doesn’t even remotely function without Keoghan and his ability to be so tantalizingly unnerving.

Memorable Dialogue: Here’s Elspeth, being so very… Elspeth: “I was a lesbian for a while,  you know. But it was all just too wet for me. Men are so lovely and dry.”

Sex and Skin: Plenty of graphic nudity, and a couple creepy, creepy sex scenes.

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Our Take: You’ll be walking away from Saltburn talking about the oh-my-god moments, many of which involve thee most forbidden of bodily urges and fluids; Fennell starts with a way-too-long lingering shot of a puke-spattered sink and works her way (up? Down?) from there, sensuously capturing the abundantly luxurious SALTBURN estate with admiring cinematography, then all but splattering it with you-know-what from you-know-where. And you can’t help but wonder why, beyond her superficial desire to make us uncomfortable, or maybe to use gross liquids to sully grotesque affluence like a punk spraypainting an anarchy symbol on a Range Rover. Fennell is trying to shock us, and maybe trying a little too hard.

Not that we should complain too much – the film is far from dull, just unfocused in its intent. Fennell wisely leans on Keoghan to maintain our interest, to cultivate character-based intrigue: Who the hell is Oliver, anyway? He’s envious and naive and pathetic and confident and smarter than he seems, except when he’s dumber than he seems. He’s wily enough to transcend the petty rivalries and grievances he encounters among the SALTBURN privies, and you wonder if he secretly wants to be one of them, eradicate them like vermin or subtly torment them. Is he really in love with Felix, or capable of love, or any emotions, at all? Does he know he’s lying, or does he believe his own lies? Does he have any self-awareness? The only answer that makes sense is, all of the above. It’s obvious that he’s a slippery little shit, the kind who fascinates us despite being a contrivance of a character, written to maintain the movie’s unpredictability. And if anyone’s going to do all this and endear himself to us with considerable devilish charisma, it’s Keoghan.

Fennell’s screenplay is loaded with wicked one-liners, delivered with exquisite comic timing by the likes of Pike and Madekwe, while Oliver stirs up Venetia’s psychotragedies (the rare instance of something resembling legit human emotion here) and Grant leans heaviest into satire, playing James with sublimely funny emptyheadedness. There are moments when Saltburn turns off-puttingly glib or absurdly operatic, with mixed results; it also indulges an ending that’s utter nonsense, rendering the film perilously close to saying absolutely nothing at all. There’s joy to be derived from the script and performances, and I guess from the variety of, you know, juices on display. There’s no denying the film’s gross and unsettling, but no one will ever accuse it of being particularly coherent.

Our Call: Saltburn is a calculation that never balances its own equation. But are you not entertained regardless? STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.