Actress Emerald Fennell, who can be seen playing Midge in this year’s mega-hit Barbie, made her feature writing and directing debut with the 2020 film Promising Young Woman, which didn’t do much at the box office but did get a lot of positive reviews (you can read our own Chris Bumbray’s 9/10 review at THIS LINK) and ended up being nominated for five Academy Awards – resulting in Fennell taking home the Best Screenplay Oscar. Now her second feature, the thriller Saltburn, is set to receive a limited theatrical release on November 24th. With that date just three months away, a teaser trailer for Saltburn has arrived online, and you can watch it in the embed above.
Starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, and Fennell’s Promising Young Woman lead Carey Mulligan, Saltburn has the following synopsis: Academy Award winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell brings us a beautifully wicked tale of privilege and desire. Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family’s sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.
Fennell produced the film with Josey McNamara and Barbie lead Margot Robbie.
The writer/director, who has described Saltburn as a “very British tale of excess”, told Vanity Fair the story is about characters who explore debauchery and carnal desires, and she expects them to make viewers squirm. She said, “My favorite thing in general is sympathy for the devil. The sorts of people that we can’t stand, the sorts of people who are abhorrent—if we can love them, if we can fall in love with these people, if we can understand why this is so alluring, in spite of its palpable cruelty and unfairness and sort of strangeness, if we all want to be there too, I think that’s just such an interesting dynamic.“
What did you think of the Saltburn teaser trailer? Does this seem like a movie you would like to check out? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
After Promising Young Woman, it’s a guarantee I’ll be seeing anything Fennell makes.