Handsome cast in privileged situation, leading a hedonistic lifestyle, ancestral home shown hazily in the background, check.

Insert relative innocent from a very different social background into the heady mix and all pieces are in place, to provide a 90’s version of “Brideshead Revisited”, with a modern soundtrack.

However, if you are a fan of Downton Abbey this may NOT be the movie for you. Writer/Director Emerald Fennell adds to the basic recipe, a heady fever dream with plot twists and “interesting” directorial choices.

“Oliver Quick” (Barry Keoghan) a needy, socially inept student at Oxford, accidentally falls in with “Felix Catton” (Jacob Elordi). Felix is the person everybody wants to be around, the “in crowd”, handsome, rich and aristocratic.

Circumstances line up and Oliver is invited to the ancestral home “Saltburn”. Oliver is met by a family that puts the “D” into dysfunctional. Headed by matriarch “Elspeth Catton” (Rosamund Pike) and husband “Sir James Catton” (Richard E. Grant).

The family is rounded out with Felix and sister “Venetia” (Alison Oliver), together with various waifs and strays, including American cousin “Archie” (Archie Madekwe). “Poor Dear Pamela” (Carey Mulligan), largely invited to provide callous family amusement.

Oliver is treated like a new exotic pet, “so real, so new” and all is well, evening dress is provided as obviously the family dresses for dinner, white tie of course.

There follows a slow descent into hedonistic madness, sex, alcohol and drugs, imagine peak Rolling Stones with added murder and suicide set in a country estate.

Oliver has a healthy interest in Felix, an obsession that only grows through his stay, leading to various scenes viewers may think, surely not, but yes they do go there.

Is Oliver really who he appears to be, a working class lad with parents suffering substance abuse and metal health issues, evoking immediate patronizing sympathy from everyone?

All the cast are clearly vamping it up “biggly” and having a blast in doing so. Pike is brilliant throwing out sardonic one-liners with wild abandon. Grant does his best Grant impression which is always worth watching.

Elordi is clearly destined for leading man roles and stand-out is Keoghan, leaping into “A” list status with a brave turn, including scenes not within any acting school curriculum.

Whether the film works overall is debatable, maybe some choices are a stretch too far and the denouement requires suspension of disbelief. However, you will never be able to hear “Murder on the Dance floor” again in the same way.

Whether the owners of the real life estate (Drayton House) knew what they were signing up for, would be interesting to know….

Summary

Director Fennell shows flashes of brilliance here but some judicial editing or choices might have made a more coherent whole.

A satirical thriller that may excite or offend in equal measure, arguably should be approached with caution, especially if Grandma arrives for dinner and fancies a gentle evening watch…..