PARASITE (SALTBURN)

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Oh Lordy. 

What are we to make of 'Saltburn'?

Is the film a work of genius or an empty exercise in audience baiting?

Is it a sharp satire or an unholy mess that has jumbled messages about class?

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Few movies this year have divided audiences and critics the way Emerald Fennell's follow-up to 'Promising Young Woman' has.

Beautifully shot by the Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren, it's deliberately provocative and guaranteed to stir passionate debate.

But is it any good? 

Set in the early 2000s, Barry Keoghan is Oliver Quick, a young lad from Prescot near Liverpool who initially feels like a fish out of water at Oxford University.

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Surrounded by hard partying Hooray Henrys, he is initially excluded by them and finds himself hanging about with Ewan Mitchell's overbearing maths genius Michael Gavey.

At his first seminar, Reece Shearsmith's Professor Ware is shocked that Oliver has consumed the entire reading list prior to going to Oxford, including the King James Bible.

Yet despite this, Professor Ware seems more impressed with his fellow student, Archie Madekwe's Fairleigh Start who hasn't put in half the effort but whose mother he lusted after in his student days.

Oliver has a want, though and that is to hang about with Fairleigh's cousin, Jacob Elordi's handsome aristocrat Felix Catton.

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Opportunity knocks when he comes across Felix while cycling through Oxford whose bicycle has a puncture.

With Felix desperately needing to attend a tutorial, Oliver offers him his bike.

Felix is really impressed by his gesture and starts to take him under his wing despite Fairleigh's reservations.

He is further touched when Oliver tells him he is from a deprived background, with  parents who have a history of addiction and mental health struggles.

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After Oliver visits his room in a state of distress about the death of his father, Felix senses his dread about returning to Merseyside for the summer.

He invites Oliver instead to spend the summer at his family's country estate Saltburn, insisting his parents will be comfortable with him staying there.

Oliver is blown away by the opulence and the generosity of Felix's eccentric and curious family.

Rosamund Pike's matriarch, Lady Elspeth peppers him with questions on his arrival about his family.

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Richard E Grant's Sir James is welcoming.

Their daughter, Alison Oliver's Venetia is curious and flirtatious.

Fairleigh remains antagonistic.

It is clear, though, that another hanger on, Carey Mulligan's tattooed and over made up Pamela, a friend of Lady Elspeth, has overstayed her welcome.

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Oliver is in awe of Felix but as the summer progresses, it soon becomes clear not everything is as it seems.

During a late night conversation, Venetia implies Felix collects friends and then drops them.

Oliver starts exhibiting dark behaviour too.

Fairleigh continues to undermine their guest - in one sequence he even weaponises a Pet Shop Boys song during a karaoke session.

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Eventually everything comes to a head when Lady Elspeth decides to throw a lavish birthday party for Oliver at Saltburn where events start to spiral widely out of control.

Written as well by Fennell, 'Saltburn' is an intoxicating mix of class tension, deception, betrayal and outrageously bad behaviour.

Like 'Promising Young Woman,'  it's very stylishly executed and designed to raise heckles.

In fact it's even more outlandish than her debut feature, with one character supping another's bathwater and a vampire like scene involving menstruation.

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The shock tactics will clearly not be to everyone's taste - especially those who think they're going to see another 'Brideshead Revisited'.

'Downton Abbey,' it ain't either.

This is more like 'Brideshead Revisited' mashed up with 'Kind Hearts and Coronets,' 'The Talented Mr Ripley,' 'The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover' and 'The Innocents'.

In addition to Sandgren's exquisitely lit shots, Fennell's film benefits from magnificent costumes by Sophie Canale, Suzie Davis' clever production design and some intelligent editing by Victoria Boydell.

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There's some cleverly chosen needle drops by Fennell including tracks by MGMT, Bloc Party, Sophie Ellis Bextor and, yes, even The Cheeky Girls. 

The film has a barnstorming lead performance by Barry Keoghan that really pushes boundaries.

Keoghan has that ability to look really innocent and gullible one minute and malevolent and knowing the next and it's deployed to exhilarating effect here.

There's a homoerotic charge too to his scenes with Jacob Elordi who is wonderfully charismatic as Felix.

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Cork actress Alison Oliver turns in her best screen performance to date as the promiscuous and vulnerable Venetia.

Archie Madekwe is terrifically cocky and spiteful as Fairleigh, while Mulligan is as reliable as ever as the flighty Pamela.

It's great to see Richard E Grant and Rosamund Pike as blue bloods in roles they seem born to play, delivering some of the funniest dialogue in the film.

Even the fringe performances by Shearsmith, Mitchell, Lolly Adefope as an easily bored dinner guest Lady Daphne, Shaun Dooley and Dorothy Atkinson as Oliver's parents and Paul Rhys as Saltburn's creepy head butler Duncan are on song.

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Does the film work as a provocative satire?

To an extent, yes.

Fennell uncomfortably zones in on Britain's obsession with class and especially, its aristocracy.

The film is undoubtedly provocative - even if the vampire analogies are laid on a little thick. 

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At times you feel the satire is heavy handed and you know some audience members will recoil at a movie whose characters are dislikable.

However if you're willing to go along with it, 'Saltburn' is a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

It's uncomfortable in many places but it's designed to give you a bit of a buzz after disembarking.

It's certainly a feature film you'll not forget in a hurry.

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If it hooks you, you'll want to revisit.

If it doesn't, that's okay too.

Does it skewer the obsession with social class as masterfully as Bong Joon-ho's 'Parasite'?

No but I, for one, am definitely going back.

('Saltburn' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on November 17, 2023)