Saltburn
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
An Oxford scholarship boy and the aristocrat's estate; the bathtub scene reorganised dinner-party conversation for a season.
Oxford, 2006. Oliver Quick, a scholarship student, does not fit in among the rich. He befriends Felix Catton, handsome, popular and from an old family, who is moved by Oliver's stories of parents lost to drink, drugs and mental illness. When Oliver says his father has died suddenly, Felix comforts him and invites him to spend the summer at Saltburn, his family's country estate.
There Oliver meets Felix's parents, Sir James and Lady Elspeth, his sister, Venetia, and Elspeth's friend Pamela, and runs into Felix's American cousin Farleigh, who has disliked him since Oxford. He charms everyone except Farleigh, and his obsession with Felix deepens. After watching Felix in the bath, he drinks the water Felix has left. He has sex with Venetia; Farleigh sees and tells Felix, and Oliver denies it. He creeps into Farleigh's room at night with advances and threats, and soon afterwards James throws Farleigh out over a report from Sotheby's that he means to sell some of James's valuable ceramics.
The Cattons plan a party for Oliver's birthday. Felix surprises him with a visit to his mother and discovers that Oliver has lied: his father is alive, his parents are sober and well, and they live in a comfortable suburb. Felix keeps the secret to spare his family, but tells Oliver to leave after the party, and rejects him when he declares his devotion. The next morning Felix is found dead in the hedge maze. Oliver lets the blame fall on the drugs Farleigh supplied, and James banishes his nephew. Oliver mourns alone, lying naked on Felix's grave. Venetia accuses him of destroying her family; soon she is found dead in the bath, having taken her own life. James pays Oliver to go.
In 2022, after James's death, Oliver contrives a chance meeting with Elspeth, who takes him home to Saltburn. As she lies dying, he tells her everything: he engineered his friendship with Felix, poisoned him in the maze, used Farleigh's email to offer the ceramics for sale, encouraged Venetia's suicide and staged the meeting in the café. Elspeth has left him everything she owns. He switches off her life support, then dances naked through the house that is now his.
Starring
Barry Keoghanas Oliver Quick
An Oxford scholarship student who seems out of place among the rich and becomes obsessed with Felix and his family's house.
Oliver Quick’s story
Oliver wins Felix's pity at Oxford with stories of a father just dead and parents wrecked by drink, drugs and illness. At Saltburn he charms the family, watches Felix in the bath, sleeps with Venetia and threatens Farleigh, who is soon thrown out. When Felix discovers that the broken family is a lie and rejects him, Felix is found dead in the maze the next morning. Oliver lets the blame fall on Farleigh's drugs and stays on until Venetia too is dead and James pays him to go. In 2022 he stages a meeting with the widowed Elspeth and returns to Saltburn. At her deathbed he tells her everything: the friendship engineered, Felix poisoned, Venetia pushed towards her death. She has left him all she owns. He switches off her life support and dances naked through the house.
Jacob Elordias Felix Catton
A charming, wealthy Oxford student who befriends Oliver and invites him to spend the summer at Saltburn.
Felix Catton’s story
Felix, admired and at ease at Oxford, takes Oliver up out of sympathy for a hard-luck story, comforts him when Oliver says his father has died, and asks him to Saltburn. There Farleigh tells him that Oliver has slept with Venetia; Oliver denies it. For Oliver's birthday Felix drives him to see his mother as a surprise, and finds a comfortable suburban house, a living father and sober, ordinary parents. He keeps the lie from his family to spare them, but tells Oliver to leave after the party, and when Oliver declares his devotion, rejects him and tells him to get help. The next morning he is found dead in the hedge maze. Years later Oliver says that he poisoned him there.
Rosamund Pikeas Lady Elspeth Catton
Felix's mother, a gracious and careless aristocrat who takes Oliver to her heart.
Lady Elspeth Catton’s story
Elspeth and James plan a birthday party for Oliver in his first summer at Saltburn. After Felix is found dead she insists that Oliver stay on and draws closer to him, while her daughter, Venetia, accuses him of destroying the family and is soon found dead herself. James pays Oliver to leave. In 2022, widowed, she runs into him in a London café, apologises for the way her husband treated him, and invites him back to Saltburn. After some months together she falls terminally ill. At her bedside he tells her that the meeting was staged, that he poisoned Felix and pushed Venetia towards her death. She has already left him everything she owns, Saltburn included. He switches off her life support.
Alison Oliveras Venetia Catton
Felix's restless sister, who comes to see what Oliver is doing to her family.
Archie Madekweas Farleigh Start
Felix's American cousin, who has distrusted Oliver since Oxford and is the first to be pushed out.
Why it matters
Saltburn is about class as an object of desire. Oliver wants Felix, and he wants the house, and the film is never quite sure where one longing ends and the other begins, which is its point. Emerald Fennell, in her second film after Promising Young Woman, set it in 2006 to knock the glamour off, and gives her aristocrats a careless charm that makes them easy to envy and hard to pity: they take people up the way they collect ceramics, and set them down as lightly. The transgressions are deliberately excessive, and they made the film a talking point when it reached Prime Video, where it became one of the most-streamed films; its closing dance sent Murder on the Dancefloor back into the UK top ten. Beneath the provocation is a colder question: what a family's ease costs the people let in to amuse it, and what one of them might do to stay.