Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn takes on the social and cultural divide, her second film putting north against South in a summer of simmering tension and frissons of romance. But ultimately, her psychodrama never gets beyond thinly sketched stereotypes and while there’s fun to be had in the various battles of wits, there’s a missed opportunity to truly get under the skin of these characters.

Our narrator is Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), a scholarship student from the North West who finds himself struggling to make friends in his first term at Oxford. A chance encounter with a fellow student from a wealthier background, Felix (Jacob Elordi) leads to a friendship and inclusion in the social circle, despite the scepticism of the rest of the group which includes Felix’s cousin Farleigh (Archie Madweke). That friendship leads to an invite for Oliver to spend the summer at the family home with Felix, Farleigh, Felix’s eccentric parents and their servants. Oliver takes the chance to get to know every member of the family and to understand their secrets and motivations…

There will always be an element of “difficult second album” syndrome when your directorial debut has been so successful, Promising Young Woman winning both BAFTA and Oscar for its screenplay. I’m going out on a fairly sturdy limb to say I don’t think Saltburn will be repeating that double: there’s some early clunkiness establishing Oliver as The Outsider Who Doesn’t Bond With Others, and a fair amount of padding until we arrive at the ancestral home. Fennell is also keen to make sure Evelyn Waugh gets a name drop, just to make sure you get audience members will go home and be led to Googling Brideshead Revisited to see the similarity.

The titular Catton family home is, though, where Saltburn the film feels most comfortable, with Felix’s breezingly wealthy parents a constant highlight. Richard E. Grant is as magnetic as always – wondering if he can wear his suit of armour to a big party with childish glee – while Rosamund Pike blithely wanders through breakfast, lunch and dinner with a jaw-dropping indifference. She’s somehow attracted a hanger-on, “Poor Dear” Pamela, who feels as if she’s just escaped from an episode of Ab Fab. Rounding out the family is daughter Venetia (Alison Oliver), her stoner drifting the physical embodiment of the environmental ennui of the vast Saltburn residence.

It’s when Oliver starts to pick away, as if at the wings of a trapped fly, at the family dynamics that Saltburn is at its most compelling. He gently chisels away at each of the family members, Keoghan’s sort-of Scouser delivering almost insouciant nudges to Felix, Venetia and Farleigh that edge up the familial tension notch by notch. Keoghan is perfectly cast for this, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else weaselling their way into the group’s affections while testing their loyalties so ruthlessly.

While the country estate lends itself naturally to a period setting, period these days means mid-2000s, so while Linus Sandgren’s cinematography and the 1:33 Academy Radio framing could have easily transported us to the time of Waugh or earlier, it’s all an excuse for a banging soundtrack featuring the likes of Babybird and Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Sound, visuals and narrative all work well as individual elements but the whole never quite coheres satisfactorily, leaving those single moments to resonate the most.

While Grant, Pike and Keoghan all deliver to their potential, the other actor getting the most to chew on is Archie Madekwe, whose crucially self-aware Farleigh provides the most stubborn obstacle to whatever it is that Oliver’s actually trying to achieve. Fennell tries to keep us on her toes, but Oliver’s narrative framing, telling the story from an unnamed location in flashback, suggests a narrator not a hundred percent reliable from the very beginning. It becomes less a question of if Oliver is telling us the full story, as to what he’s leaving out as the summer unfolds.

As a dark comic drama, Saltburn is fun enough, with specks of brightness to offset the impeding darkness and the soundtrack keeping energy levels just high enough. But anyone hoping for social commentary or a satire on the class structure should set their expectation levels to “posh people are rich and weird” because that’s about all you’ll get. Saltburn is an enjoyable ride but never thrills, soars or cuts deep; expect it to fade from the memory quicker than two weeks in Torremolinos.

Saltburn screened at the BFI London Film Festival 2023, it opens in UK cinemas on 17 November

Head here for Mark’s LFF 2023 coverage