At least Alec Guinness' character in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) had a convincing reason to kill the family. By contrast Saltburn an ultimately meaningless set of overheated visuals, perhaps best seen as a vehicle for Keoghan and Elodi to squint and look vaguely 'male model'-ey whilst wearing clothes straight out of "Old Money Style" Pinterest board by someone who has never been to the UK.
If Promising Young Woman had feminist vengeance on its mind, what’s Saltburn thinking? […] Here is a movie where gay things occur, but homosexuality abuts, alas, corruption and conniving. […] I suppose Fennell has made a movie about toxic elitism, but she’s done it in the way Ikea gives you assembly instructions. And barely even that, since the most blatant class indictment is outsourced to the Pet Shop Boys’ Rent during a bout of actual karaoke […].
— Wesley Morris (The New York Times)
What begins as a genuinely entertaining and well-pitched dramedy quickly becomes ridiculous and out of touch, as Fennell positions her wealthy characters as naive but well-meaning and everyone else as a scheming crook desperate to get their mits on someone else’s inheritance.
— Hannah Strong (Little White Lies)
Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton, who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family's sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.