Saltburn

Emerald Fennell follows up the tonal high-wire act of her Oscar-winning feature debut, “Promising Young Woman,” with another tricky and ambitious spectacle, “Saltburn.”

Like that 2020 film, which earned Fennell an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay among its five nominations, “Saltburn” succeeds in slashing our expectations about how people are supposed to behave in polite society. This is her particular spin on an oft-told tale. She holds up a magnifying glass to a rarefied world and exposes the truth of human nature: its transactional tendencies, its queasy mix of desire and disposability.

“Saltburn” is deliciously, wickedly mean—seductive and often surreal—with lush production values and lacerating performances. As writer and director, Fennell clearly intends to amuse and provoke, and she achieves both of those goals for a long time.

The dreamy visuals from Oscar-winning “La La Land” cinematographer Linus Sandgren invite us to luxuriate in all this old-world opulence until it steadily devolves into a garish nightmare. Long, warm days of staying just a little bit tipsy by the pool morph into long nights of dressy, drunken dinners. Oliver stalks his prey one by one, resulting in some moments involving bodily fluids that will shock some viewers and cause others to giggle. The primal depravity on display vividly illuminates who this vampiric central figure truly is.

Between languid afternoon viewings of “Superbad” and sunny road trips with The Killers blasting on the car stereo, the tension builds as Oliver insinuates himself further. The mere possibility of how badly this summer reverie will turn out is suspenseful enough; Fennell takes the narrative to a darker place than you ever could have imagined.