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‘Saltburn’ creepy weirdness; ‘Monk’s Last Case’ on Peacock
‘SALTBURN’ RATED R
Shades of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “Brideshead Revisited” inform the dynamic at play in the psychological thriller “Saltburn,” written and directed by Emerald Fennell, who garnered much attention with the same duties for “Promising Young Woman.”
As with the films of a similar bent, “Saltburn” leans into the class divide where a character on a lower rung, fueled most likely by sociopathic tendencies, seeks to ingratiate himself with the upper class.
Set in 2006, scholarship student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) arrives as a freshman at Oxford University. His humble origins set him apart from aristocratic students entitled by a sense of noblesse oblige.
Oliver’s initial friendship with a nerdy math major is quickly discarded when he sets his sights on tall, handsome Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), the big man on campus who looks like a male model at a fashion show.
Finagling his way into Felix’s inner circle, the needy Oliver, who is actually rather creepy, proves to be manipulative by fabricating a story of lower-class upbringing by parents that are portrayed as addicts.
For reasons that are elusive and unfathomable, Felix takes a shine to Oliver, letting him into the sanctum of entitled Oxford students that you must wonder how they have time to study given nightly forays to the local pub.
When summer rolls around, Felix invites Oliver to be his guest at their palatial home Saltburn, a massive estate that is so gorgeous that it must have once been the residence of royalty.
The Catton family proves to be eccentric. The patriarch is the oblivious Sir James Catton (Richard E. Grant), while the mother Elspeth (Rosamund Pike) is hilariously clueless and good for some choice one-liners.
Felix’s unstable sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) is a train-wreck and Carey Mulligan’s Pamela is a houseguest who has overstayed her welcome. American cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) is suspicious of Oliver’s intentions, and with good reason.
Creepy weird stuff starts happening at the Saltburn estate, gradually becoming more bizarre with strange things involving bodily fluids and graphic shocking events. “Saltburn” is unsettling and disturbing. Take it in at your own risk.
‘MR. MONK’S LAST CASE: A MONK MOVIE’
Fans of Tony Shalhoub’s Adrian Monk, a detective formerly with the San Francisco Police Department, should rejoice in his return in a feature-length movie fourteen years later after the eight-season run of “Monk” on the USA Network.
Peacock brings Monk back in a post-pandemic world in “Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie.” To understand his character, it is important to note that the “Monk” series was about a former police detective coping with the aftermath of his wife’s death in a mysterious car bombing.
During the run of the series, Monk suffered an extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder that caused him to lose his job and being unable to leave his house for years. With some help, he returned to living, of sorts, working as a private eye and consultant to the police department.
In the later years of the series, Traylor Howard’s Natalie Teeger was Monk’s assistant, helping him to fitfully overcome some of his eccentricities. In the movie, she’s in the same role, observing that Monk has a fear of “germs, needles, birds, then heights.”
Actually, there’s a whole lot more that induces Monk’s obsessive concerns. At an opening crime scene, Monk worries about whether he turned off the stove and then speaks of the stove as “one of the longest relationships of my life and certainly one of the happiest.”
Peter Falk as a detective in “Columbo” was an eccentric character with a shambling manner, but he never came close to the obsessions that plagued Monk. And yet, Monk’s anxieties are part of the fun of his character who seems oblivious to his grating idiosyncrasies.
Being a germaphobe can be debilitating in his line of work, but his compulsive behavior is well-suited to grasping the finer details of a crime scene and engaging in painstaking problem-solving.
Monk’s last case turns out to be the tragic death of Griffin (Austin Scott), the fiancé of his stepdaughter Molly (Caitlin McGee), in a bungee jumping accident that may be something more sinister.
In fact, Griffin’s an investigate journalist who’s digging around the shady dealings of Rick Eden (James Purefoy), a well-connected billionaire entrepreneur who has unscrupulous thugs on payroll acting like contract killers.
Of course, Monk has to overcome his wide range of phobias to solve a very personal case involving Molly, a journalist getting ready for a lifetime of happiness in her upcoming nuptials.
Several regulars from the series return, including Melora Hardin as the ghost of Trudy Monk; Ted Levine as former Homicide Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, who worked with Monk; and Hector Elizondo as Dr. Neven Bell, Monk’s psychiatrist.
A mere passing acquaintance with Shalhoub’s Adrian Monk is all one needs to enjoy a lovable character with a range of obsessions that are endearingly amusing. “Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie” proves that a nearly a decade-and-a-half absence of Monk’s story has not diminished its appeal.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
