SALTBURN is my film of the year. We’re talking cinema, baby – attitude, style, irreverence, confidence, rebellion. It’s out there. I didn’t care for Emerald Fennel’s previous effort, Promising Young Woman – but this one makes up for it. The most accomplished new European voice since Ruben Östlund.

I really hate to harp upon our wonderful critics, but they gave it only a 62 Metacritic score. Most of them saw it at Telluride, where it screened AFTER the rhapsodically received All of Us Strangers (91 score), and they seem to have expected the same boring, method-acting, “nuanced,” “character-driven” piece of politically correct gay banality (more in another post). Instead, they got an expressionist opera: Brideshead Revisited meets Idol/Euphoria and Tom Ripley (with a big dollop of Barry Lyndon). Giving away the plot would rob you of the constant unexpected twists, including the truly inspired last shot. And unlike Searchlight’s Strangers (whose theatrical potential is low to non-existent), this one at least has the feel of a possible commercial arthouse hit (to the extent that such creatures are not extinct). Here’s hoping.