Beauty can be a crutch in film. Actors tend to be much prettier than the average person because they're more pleasant to watch, not because there's a talent inherent to being better-looking. Costumes and sets tend to be the same; seeing expensive linens and luxe apartment buildings gives us access to a world we don't have and easily communicate a reality that's "other" than our own lives. 

There's no shortage of examples of mediocre stories buoyed by beautiful people, places, and things, at seemingly an increasing rate. Shows such as Succession and White Lotus have focused on the somewhat repetitive excesses of rich people being cruel, to huge ratings success; movies like Triangle of Sadness and The Menu have covered the same ground, to equally shrug-inducing ends.

Saltburn, out last month from director Emerald Fennell, is the latest film to bravely ask the question, "What kinds of awful things do wealthy people do?" And Fennell's answer is not just less interesting than the already-dull aforementioned examples, it's also somehow both grosser and more derivative. 

The movie opens with hand-illustrated calligraphic credits over a backdrop of mid-aughts Oxford. We learn it's 2006 at the start of a new school year, and are introduced to Oliver, a lower-income student whose parents deal drugs and raised him in a troubled home. An older, seemingly wealthier Oliver, interviewed in a shadowy room at undefined point in the future, cryptically narrates an introduction about love. The object of his supposed love was Felix, older Oliver recites, a gorgeous, wealthy, popular student in his class. We see young Oliver peering through windows, wistfully glancing across crowded bars, and glumly living outside Felix's orbit for most of the first year. 

As luck would have it, though, Oliver helps Felix recover from a flat tire and starts hanging out with the rich boy and his rich friends. The two grow close and, despite some initial tension, Felix is a kind and welcoming new friend to the outcast Oliver, going so far as to invite him to spend the vacation months at the family's summer estate, Saltburn.

Unsurprisingly, Saltburn is stunningly beautiful and monstrously ornate, and Felix's parents, family, and friends there are full of ugly gossip, back-stabbing, and snide comments about finances, clothes, and personal choices. Oliver appears shaken by this initially but quickly acclimatizes to the drama, beginning to spread rumors himself and play the self-centered Catton family off of one another. Conniving plans ensue from all sides, and debaucherous, evil, and violent ends put everyone staying at Saltburn at mortal risk. 

As in Fennell's feature directorial debut, Promising Young Woman, the best parts of the film are all in the set-up before she can totally fumble the plot, themes, and messages. In the case of Saltburn, this starts at Oxford, where Linus Sandgren's beautiful cinematography uses a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, evoking dainty postcards from faraway places. It continues at the estate, where Sophie Canale's costume design emphasizes old money gaudiness with expensive baubles and loud patterns. Production design, art direction, and set decoration from Suzie Davies, Caroline Barclay, and Charlotte Dirickx respectively make the manor feel simultaneously both untouchable (invisible butlers fix broken mirrors over night) and lived-in (even with their wealth, the family uses only a tiny flatscreen TV for karaoke and Superbad).

The casting, fortunately, is mostly better than Promising Young Woman, where the choice of Carey Mulligan didn't ring true to the character of Cassandra. In Saltburn, Jacob Elordi is captivating, warm, and beautiful as the rich Felix; Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant are perfect as Felix's frustrating mom and sheltered pushover dad; Alison Oliver is appropriately cranky and Gen-Z as a horny younger sister; and Archie Madekwe aces his sour scowl as an American cousin. Mulligan actually makes a brief appearance as a manic, quirky friend of the family, and elicits some of the biggest laughs of the film. 

The biggest miscast happens to point us towards the film's unraveling. Flavor-of-the-month Irish star Barry Keoghan plays Oliver, and although he does his best to seem simply awkward and out of place, his past villain typecasting (such as in The Killing of a Sacred Deer) and general off-kilter look never allow us to be convinced us that he's as innocent and well-meaning as he lets on. Moreover, his vibe makes it even harder to buy that the Catton family would welcome him in so warmly, or so unwittingly bend to his machinations. Compare him to, say, Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley — a similar supposed ingénue, yet one whose boyish face and sheepish American wiles make his conning so convincing.

That unraveling continues when Saltburn tries to be anything more than an Architectural Digest cover story. Cringeworthy writing and TikTok-bait gross-out scenes incrementally detract from the film, but the nail in the coffin is a series of events in the movie's second half that are not just highly implausible but in fact undercut the socioeconomic themes that the first half spent so much time building up. We lose the biting, satirical, cruel-but-entertaining joy of the set-up and instead too much time is spent hitting the audience over the head with overwrought plans and unbelievable interactions, not to mention multiple(!) instances of necrophilia. In particular, when the focus turns more onto Keoghan, the cast's weakest link, he can't carry the film to a strong finish (besides an impressive dance number). 

Fennell again strikes gold (emerald?) with another clever concept and talented crew, but yet again fails to deliver on the script. As with Promising Young Woman, it's immediately forgettable other than a bad taste in the mouth.