Saltburn (2023)

We've seen this twisted psychological thriller before and in much, much better movies, but to cite the obvious inspiration constitutes a spoiler, so I'll just say, and leave you to guess, this is about an Oxford college social misfit who gets noticed by a cool kid and ends up stepping up over Summer break into this hip cat's lifestyle of the rich and famous, with suspense ratcheting up as holiday's end nears and our misfit's grip on this lavish world and his new best-buddy friendship starts to slip, but it is hard to engage when the story here is delivered not on a sun-dappled Italian coastline surrounded by European art and architecture but in a gothic cartoony manor with a Dark Shadows colour palette, with only bored characters - a dour-faced, laugh-free Addams Family - and with a crescendo of dismaying gothic flourishes that hardly seduce.

★☆☆☆☆

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