Fennells

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeEmerald Fennell may have got tongues wagging with her divisive drama Saltburn, but viewers also can’t stop talking about the titular country home where the film’s dramatic action takes place.The latest film from Promising Young Woman director Fennell, Saltburn follows Oxford university fresher Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) as he becomes obsessed with aristocratic fellow student Felix…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeSaltburn actor Jacob Elordi has named the actor who almost played the lead role instead of Barry Keoghan.Keoghan stars in the film as Oxford university student Oliver Quick, who is taken under the wing of aristocratic fellow student Felix Catton (Elordi) for a summer of debauchery on his luxury estate.The actor earnt a Golden Globe nomination for his role, and while the film has proved…

Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletterStay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter It was the semen in the bathwater scene that did it. The moment my mother cracked. There we were, two nights ago – mum, me, dad, in that order – wedged on the sofa watching Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s lavish country-house thriller that’s had the nation clutching its pearls over Christmas with its squirm-inducing “scenes of a sexual nature”.…

Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning debut Promising Young Woman stars a miscast Barry Keoghan (he’s way too old for the role) as Oliver, a first-year student at Oxford who finds himself drawn into the rarefied inner circle of beautiful, privileged Felix (Jacob Elordi). Felix is the heir to Saltburn, a huge country pile that comes complete with its own maze and a collection of elegantly louche relatives and damaged hangers-on. Oliver, whose background is rather more modest, is unhealthily fascinated by Felix…

In 2020, Emerald Fennell made one of the most stunning directorial debuts in recent memory. Promising Young Woman makes brilliant, unconventional choices as a revenge story, a thriller, and a dark comedy – sporting an ending that hits like a bus– and it’s executed with intense, colorful style and stunning performances. It instantly certified Fennell as an extreme talent to keep an eye on, and three years later, Saltburn has arrived with zero evidence of a sophomore slump. It doesn’t quite have the same bite as her debut,…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeWhen Emerald Fennell let loose on the world her directorial debut, 2020’s Promising Young Woman, the reaction to it quickly turned into an all-out brawl. A woman fakes intoxication in order to trap and confront predatory men, and is drawn into a dead-end act of revenge against the man who sexually assaulted her best friend. Was this a feminist triumph? Or a betrayal of those same…