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      ‘Maestro’ Review: Leonard Bernstein’s Life of Ecstasy and Agony

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      As director and star, Bradley Cooper delivers an intimate portrait of the composer and his many private and public selves.“Maestro,” Bradley Cooper’s intimate portrait of Leonard Bernstein, takes flight with a terrific whoosh of exuberance. The young Bernstein (played by Cooper) has just gotten the phone call that will change his life. He’s been asked to step in for an ailing guest conductor and lead the New York Philharmonic; it will be his conducting debut. Overjoyed, Lenny, as he’s often called, jumps up, throws open a curtain and then sprints out of his apartment to race, bathrobe flapping, into his dazzling, very public future as an American genius.The real Bernstein was 25 and an assistant conductor with the Philharmonic when he took the Carnegie Hall stage on Nov. 14, 1943, to polite applause. The program opened with Schumann, ended with Wagner, and by the time it was over, the house, as Bernstein’s brother, Burton, put it, “roared like one giant animal in a zoo.” The next day, The New York Times ran a story about the concert on the front page. A few days later, The Times followed up on the concert with a small item that likened Bernstein’s debut to a young corporal taking charge of a platoon when the officers are down: “It’s a good American success story.”In “Maestro,” Cooper explores the definition — and brutal toll — of that kind of success with deep sympathy, lushly beautiful wall-to-wall music and great narrative velocity. In outline, it’s a familiar story of a classic American striver. Bernstein was the son of Jewish-Russian immigrants who escaped a dire fate in the family business (the Samuel J. Bernstein Hair Company) to become a 20th-century cultural force. He conducted and composed, wrote for the ballet, the opera and Broadway, and was a fixture on TV. He had gold and platinum albums, was on the cover of Time and Newsweek, and won slews of Grammys and Emmys.It was a big juicy life, one that Cooper — who wrote the script with Josh Singer — has condensed into two eventful, visually expressive hours. “Maestro” is as ambitious as Cooper’s fine directorial debut, “A Star Is Born,” but the new movie is more self-consciously cinematic. Some of the choices — different aspect ratios as well as the use of both black-and-white and color film — nod at the look of movies from earlier eras. The visuals also convey interiority, swells of mood and feeling, as does Lenny’s explosive, at times ecstatic physicality, the full-bodied intensity of his conducting style and the orgasmic rivers of sweat that pour off him.“Maestro” is a fast-paced chronicle of towering highs, crushing lows and artistic milestones, most delivered in a personal key. Cooper packs a lot in without overexplaining the era or its titans (Brian Klugman plays the composer Aaron Copland, one of Bernstein’s closest friends); years pass in an eyeblink, events slip by obliquely or go unmentioned. Cooper is more interested in feelings than happenings, though part of what makes the movie pop and gives it currency is how he complicates the familiar Great Man of History template. Bernstein is rightly the main event in “Maestro,” but crucial to the film’s meaning is his relationship with his family, especially his wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (a brittle Carey Mulligan).Theirs was a fraught, decades-long relationship that begins in the 1940s when they meet at one of those fabulously glamorous New York parties that mostly exist in old Hollywood films or in biographies of very important dead people. There, amid a boisterous crowd of revelers wreathed in cigarette smoke and bobbing together on an ocean of booze, Lenny and his pals Betty Comden and Adolph Green (Mallory Portnoy and Nick Blaemire) are lighting up the room. Lenny and Felicia make their introductions, tuck into a quiet corner to flirt and laugh, their heads and bodies soon listing toward each other. By the time the night is over, they’re walking side by side, seemingly destined for a happily ever after.Cooper, who stars and directs, used different aspect ratios as well as both black-and-white and color film.Jason McDonald/NetflixIt didn’t turn out exactly that way for assorted reasons, including Bernstein’s overshadowing brilliance. He was also gay, though maybe bisexual; the movie nimbly avoids labeling him. (In her memoir “Famous Father Girl,” his daughter Jamie refers to him as both.) Instead, with roundelays of teasing and desiring looks as well as in asides and conversations (including a faithful restaging of an Edward R. Murrow interview), “Maestro” expresses the complexities of Lenny’s private and public selves. After Lenny receives that call to conduct the Philharmonic, for one, he playfully taps drumlike on the discreetly covered rear of his lover, David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer). And then Lenny rushes out the door alone.The opener introduces the idea of Lenny’s life as a performance, which becomes the film’s controlling metaphor. Cooper underscores this idea repeatedly, including when Felicia takes Lenny to the empty theater where she’s an understudy and where they playfully act out a love scene they seal with a Hollywood kiss. Sometime later, in an energetic swerve into surrealism, Felicia grabs his hand, and they sprint from an outdoor meal with friends and into another theater where three dancers in white sailor uniforms are waiting onstage. As with Lenny’s dash out of his bedroom and into Carnegie Hall, Cooper stages this sprint with the camera pointing down at the characters, as if it were running on an overhead catwalk.As Felicia and Lenny race into the theater, they look like performers hitting their marks and a bit like dollhouse runaways. The dancers start performing “Fancy Free” — Bernstein and Jerome Robbins’s ballet about sailors on shore leave in New York — then move into its musical adaptation, “On the Town.” With Felicia and Lenny watching, the sailors begin moving to the infectiously alive, jazzy music, their snaky hips and tight uniforms emphasizing the choreography’s muscular eroticism; and then a sailor beckons Lenny to join in the fun.Here and elsewhere, Cooper makes a point of showing Felicia watching Lenny first with what seems to be admiration, then love and later something darker, sadder and despairing. He’s already a name when they meet and already taking up a lot of room; soon, he is the star around which everything and everyone orbits, including Felicia and the three children they have together. He’s a bigger-than-big personality (flamboyance is a favorite adjective of Bernstein biographers), with a buzzing, heady vitality that feels like a life force or a painfully addictive high. It’s easy to see why she’s pulled in, but the exhilaration that initially lifts the film is a harder sell once Felicia and Lenny begin to fall in love.The movie makes the case that their love was genuine, even if Cooper and Mulligan never convincingly sync up. This disconnect doesn’t seem intentional, but it also serves the story and characters, including early on when Lenny’s and Felicia’s heightened emotions and smiles can feel forced, like an act of mutual will. Even so, you believe they love each other, however differently; and because Cooper spends a lot of time on Felicia, you grow to understand that she knows she’ll never be enough for Lenny. Yet in focusing so much on Felicia, whose light dims the brighter his blazes, stressing what it costs her to play a role in this performance of happy heterosexuality, Cooper also inadvertently shortchanges Lenny.Although Cooper makes Felicia the linchpin of his Great Man revisionism, the film’s most deeply felt scenes involve Lenny with his children and his close male friends. One centers on an anguished encounter he has with David. The other unfolds at Lenny and Felicia’s country home after the birth of one of their children and finds him walking across the lawn, the newborn in his arms. Lenny drifts over to Aaron Copland, who’s sitting under a tree on a swing with a smile. Lenny joins him and gently holds the baby so that Aaron can see the baby’s face. Lenny nuzzles the infant, and the two men just sit quietly as the tenderness of the moment — and the overwhelming cruelty of this world and all its terrible lies — knocks you flat.MaestroRated R for some discreet nudity and a whole lot of cigarettes and booze. Running time: 2 hours 9 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Your Next 10 Steps After Watching the New ‘Napoleon’ Film

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      If you want to read his biography, or even see his horse, you can.With the new Ridley Scott film “Napoleon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby, hitting theaters this week, General Bonaparte is having a cultural moment.Another one.As historical figures go, Napoleon maintains a ubiquity 200 years after his death that far exceeds influential contemporaries like James Madison, Emperor Kokaku or Czar Alexander I. That’s in part because of his historic importance and military feats. But maybe also it’s that hat. (One just sold for $2 million.)Here are 10 more ways to immerse yourself in Napoleana before, after or in lieu of seeing the film.1. Read a biography“Napoleon: A Life,” an “epically scaled” biography.Napoleon has fascinated biographers for two centuries. Andrew Roberts’s “Napoleon: A Life” (2014) is a comprehensive look at the rise and fall of a man who made it from Corsica to the Palace of Versailles to (nearly) mastery of all of Europe.In The New York Times Book Review, Duncan Kelly called it “epically scaled” and said, “Roberts brilliantly conveys the sheer energy and presence of Napoleon the organizational and military whirlwind.” At 900-plus pages, it will admittedly take you longer to read than watching the 157-minute film.2. Listen to a podcastOn “Noble Blood,” the host Dana Schwartz takes a closer look at royals of all stripes. One episode, “Dumas and Napoleon,” reveals an unexpected link with Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (the father of the “Three Musketeers” author Alexandre), a Creole general who served under, but also clashed with, Napoleon.3. Go to a museumThe final resting place of Napoleon in Paris. The skeleton above is a modern work of art depicting one of his horses.Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Musée de l’Armée at Les Invalides in Paris has room after room of Napoleonic banners, uniforms and memorabilia, enough to overload the most ardent fan.Somewhat more ghoulishly, you can see the bed in which Napoleon died in exile on the island of St. Helena. And then there’s his horse, Vizir, and his dog, both stuffed and on display.Afterward, head to Napoleon’s tomb under the Dôme des Invalides.4. See a painting“Le Sacre de Napoléon” by Jacques-Louis David, at the Louvre.Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSince you’re already in Paris to see that horse, stop by the Louvre for one of Jacques-Louis David’s masterworks: “Le Sacre de Napoléon” (1807).At a massive 33 by 20 feet, and packed with historical characters, the painting depicts the moment in 1804 when Napoleon, in the presence of the Pope, crowned himself emperor at Notre Dame.5. Read a novelIn Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece “War and Peace,” Napoleon not only preoccupies the minds of the Russian characters as his Grande Armée bears down on Moscow, but he also appears as a major character himself. Far from a stock figure, he is a fully realized person in the novel, displaying egotism, anger and a liking for snuff.Don’t be put off that upon its release in 1886, The Times panned it.If that famously thick book is too much, there are several film versions. Herbert Lom plays Napoleon in a 1956 Hollywood film starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. And Prokofiev wrote an opera that was last seen at the Met in 2008, but is readily available on streaming services.Napoleon’s towering influence on his era means he looms over many other novels, including William Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” and Stendhal’s “Le Rouge et le Noir.” And it is no coincidence that the pig who becomes a dictator in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” is named Napoleon.6. See a silent filmWorking on the reconstruction of the Napoleon movie of 1927.Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere are many other films based on Napoleon’s life, but one of the classics was made 10 years before Ridley Scott was born. Of his 1927 silent epic “Napoléon,” the director Abel Gance boasted: “I have made a tangible effort toward a somewhat richer and more elevated form of cinema.”The film has innovations to spare: Wide-screen formatting, quick editing and hand-held camerawork all took big steps forward with its release. It can be found for viewing at home, but it also pops up in revival houses from time to time.7. Have a laughNapoleon, played by Terry Camilleri, struggled with bowling in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”AlamyNapoleon, with his distinctive (and usually ahistorical) mannerisms, turns up as a supporting character, or easy joke, in a wide range of films. Marlon Brando plays him in “Désirée” (1954) and Rod Steiger in “Waterloo” (1970).His appearance in the time-travel comedy “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989) is a lot lighter: Terry Camilleri’s Napoleon, collected from a battlefield and thrust into 1980s Southern California, bowls, devours ice cream and enjoys a waterslide at a park called (what else?) Waterloo.8. Play a gameHistory buffs can reshape the world in the long-running computer game Civilization. (“There may not be a game franchise I have enjoyed more consistently over the last two decades than Civilization,” the Times reviewer Seth Schiesel wrote in 2010.)Napoleon appears only as a general in the latest iteration, Civilization VI, but in Civilization V, he leads the French forces. Here’s a chance to finally win the Battle of Waterloo and maybe conquer the world.9. Watch a cartoonIn the Bugs Bunny short “Napoleon Bunny-Part” (1956), Bugs encounters Napoleon and quickly infuriates the easily infuriated caricature, as only Bugs Bunny can, while narrowly eluding the guillotine. A highlight is when he disguises himself as Josephine and rather easily fools the little general. “What’s up, Nappy?”10. Eat dessertA mille-feuille at the West Village restaurant Noortwyck.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAfter all the tomes, films and traveling, reward yourself. You could make a delicious mille-feuille, the puff pastry with cream, using the New York Times recipe. Or just buy one at the namesake pâtisserie Mille-Feuille on LaGuardia Place in Greenwich Village.Oh, yes — the mille-feuille is commonly known as a Napoleon. Bon appétit, mon général. More

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      ‘Leo’ Review: Adam Sandler as a Gruff Lizard, Dishing Advice

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      Adam Sandler plays a gruff old lizard who dishes out advice to fifth graders in this animated comedy.Adam Sandler stars in “Leo” as a grumpy lizard who has spent his entire life in the terrarium of a fifth-grade classroom. He’s been joined by a turtle named Squirtle (Bill Burr), and the two are mostly content to stare out the glass, year after year, commenting like Statler and Waldorf on the various tween archetypes that show up on the first day of school: the motormouth, the class clown, the kid with helicopter parents who’s allergic to everything. But the bubble bursts for Sandler’s Leo when he realizes that he’s approaching 75 — the average life span for his species — and has hardly gotten to live out his dreams as a free lizard.Leo sees an opportunity with the arrival of a no-nonsense substitute teacher, Ms. Malkin (Cecily Strong), after the usual instructor goes on maternity leave. Along with implementing a stricter disciplinary system, she assigns her students at the Florida school to take turns bringing Leo home, caring for him as their own pet. The kids are dismayed, until one of them, the chatty Summer (voiced by Sandler’s daughter Sunny), discovers that the seemingly docile lizard can talk, and begins to open up to him about her problems. Leo, finding fulfillment in his new task, takes on the role of therapist each week, dishing out advice and convincing each student that they’re the only one who can hear him speak.“Leo” is the second animated film from Sandler’s creative house Happy Madison Productions and his newest release for Netflix. Unlike the company’s first foray into animation, the raunchy 2002 Hanukkah flick “Eight Crazy Nights,” “Leo” aims for wholesome family entertainment, combining themes like the challenges of growing older with a healthy dose of G-rated toilet humor (and a few double entendres that will go over kids’ heads).Sandler does a fine job as the voice of Leo, delivering a good mix of gruffness and sweetness into an absurd scenario. The kids in “Leo” confide in him their desire to be understood by their parents and peers, and the film drives home the overdone but nonetheless true message that everyone faces this struggle — even popular girls like Jayda (played by Sandler’s other daughter, Sadie). These tender moments are punctuated by several original songs — yes, “Leo” is a full-blown musical — and a plethora of running gags, like portraying the school’s kindergartners as wide-eyed bobbleheads crashing into walls.Written by Sandler, Paul Sado, and Robert Smigel (who also directed the film with Robert Marianetti and David Wachtenheim), “Leo” sometimes has trouble identifying its audience. The musical sequences aren’t particularly interesting visually and will drag on for adults, yet it’s hard to imagine children sitting through Leo and Squirtle’s extended riffs on divorced parents or the courtship behaviors of reptiles and not getting a little bored. But with the holidays rolling around and families gathering, this will undoubtedly work as something to put on in the background for everyone.LeoRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Genie’ Review: Melissa McCarthy, Granting Unlimited Wishes

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      Melissa McCarthy grants unlimited magical requests in this holiday fantasy film.In conventional, old-fashioned stories about wish-granting genies, the number of wishes is limited to three, the better to deliver a solid punchline or useful lesson. In our consumerist and content-crazy times, a mere three wishes won’t do. “Genie,” a new film directed by Sam Boyd, stars Melissa McCarthy as Flora, a genie unleashed by an overworked dad as he massages an old jewel box he tried to pass off as a birthday present for the daughter whose celebration he missed.Flora offers Bernard (Paapa Essiedu) unlimited wishes by which to save his marriage, delight his daughter, take revenge on his bad boss (Alan Cumming) and enhance his home art collection. Predictably, at least if you’ve seen “Aladdin,” Flora is an ancient being who speaks colloquial American English with a deft command of idioms, but also doesn’t know what pizza is. Her riffing is typically McCarthyesque but feels strained at times. Guessing her new master’s desires, she reaches: “Girls? Gold? Golden girls?” When pressed, would McCarthy claim credit for that bit, or would the screenwriter Richard Curtis?The flights of fancy Curtis (“Love, Actually”) concocts here include the “Mona Lisa” finding a new home in New York. And the ostensible rules of the fantasy shift according to mere plot whim: While Flora supposedly has the power to manifest anywhere, when Bernard is pinched for art theft, Flora can’t help him on account of their physical separation.Fantasy movies are of course free to be far-fetched, but some of the plot turns here are so wide as to suggest shrugging contempt. The holiday themes feel arbitrary and tacked on; one guesses the script was rescued from Curtis’s bottom drawer and spruced up with some Christmas fairy dust. The story, finally, is only about a man who learns the true meaning of punctuality.Also, the flying carpet special effects are lousy.GenieRated PG for a little salty language. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Watch on Peacock. More

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      ‘Stamped From the Beginning’ Review: Examining Racist Thought

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      The documentary, based on Ibram X. Kendi’s 2016 book, looks at the ugly history of anti-Black ideology.The documentary “Stamped From the Beginning,” based on the 2016 book by Ibram X. Kendi, begins with a trick question and ends with a sage retort.“What’s wrong with Black people?” asks the director Roger Ross Williams of the film’s heady roster of Black female scholars as they consider the ways in which the slave trade created anti-Black racism and, as Kendi argues, not the reverse. The formidable interviewees include the novelist Honorée Fanonne Jeffers; the historian Elizabeth Hinton; and the activist and scholar Angela Davis. When Davis discusses the work “not done” at slavery’s end to retool “the entire society so that it might be possible for previously enslaved individuals to be free and equal,” her words are as muscularly poignant as they are pointed.The subtitle of Kendi’s book is “The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.” And Williams employs several methods to distill the National Book Award-winning tome’s ambitions as it moves from the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, back to the Portuguese enslavement of Africans and forward to the rise of Trumpism in reaction to the presidency of Barack Obama.In addition to interviews and archival images, film clips and news footage, Williams (“Cassandro” “Life, Animated”) leans into animation. In an engaging gambit, the director utilizes a mix of visual effects, painting and collage to tell the stories of the poet Phillis Wheatley; the author Harriet Jacobs and the journalist and anti-lynching pioneer Ida B. Wells. In a film brimming with visual gestures, these mini portraits of anti-racists are among its most memorable.Stamped From the BeginningRated R for some violent content, language, drug content and nude images. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘No Need to Worry,’ Says ‘Wallace and Gromit’ Film Studio, After Clay Supplier Shuts Down

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      Rumors that Aardman Animations, the makers of stop-motion films, had lost their supplier worried fans. But fear not, the studio reassured, there is plenty of clay.It might have been an existential question for the creators of the beloved stop-motion animation characters Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep: What would happen if they ran out of clay?Fans spent the weekend worrying about the fate of Aardman Animations when the British newspaper The Telegraph reported that the studio, based in Bristol, England, would be facing its “hour of knead” after the only manufacturer of the special clay used in its creations had closed its doors earlier this year. Having bought what it could, The Telegraph reported, the studio had enough clay left to make only one more film, a new “Wallace and Gromit” feature coming next year.But no, the studio’s foundations are not crumbling. Aardman Animations said on Monday it had plenty of clay to keep molding.Fans had “absolutely no need to worry,” the studio said in a statement. The studio has “high levels of existing stocks of modeling clay to service current and future productions,” it said.The manufacturer of the clay, Newclay Products, announced last month that it had stopped selling its products in March. The company had become known for Lewis Newplast, a Plasticine beloved by animators that is malleable enough to mold but strong enough to keep its shape during filming. Newclay Products did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“Shaun the Sheep.”Cinematic/Alamy Stock PhotoBut its directors, Paul and Valerie Dearing, told The Telegraph that they were retiring and had decided to close the company’s doors after they couldn’t find anyone to take it over. They said Aardman had bought about 400 kilograms, or almost 900 pounds, of the remaining Newplast stock.More than a ton of modeling clay is ordered for each of the studio’s feature films, and about half that is used to shape the characters, according to modelers for Aardman.Aardman on Monday sought to reassure fans, telling them that once its supplies of Newplast were gone, it had plans to transition to new stock.“Much like Wallace in his workshop, we have been tinkering away behind the scenes for quite some time,” it said, referring to the eccentric inventor who is one of Aardman’s most beloved characters.The studio is famed for its signature Claymation style, producing hits such as the “Wallace & Gromit” franchise, the spinoff series “Shaun the Sheep,” and the 2000 film “Chicken Run.”A sequel, “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” is set to be released on Netflix on Dec. 15, and the studio will also release a new “Wallace & Gromit” film in 2024, premiering on Netflix and the BBC. More

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      The Best True Crime to Stream: Family Matters

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      Four picks from television, films and podcasts that show blood is not always thicker than water.Family secrets, tumult and trauma are at the heart of so many — if not most — true crime stories, and breed some of the most bizarre betrayals. Here are four picks including podcasts, television and films that explore unforgettable crimes involving families, all of whom prided themselves on presenting a perfect image until the truth came crashing through the facade.Docuseries“Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal”Watching a true crime documentary that is following events that are presently unfolding — where those telling the tale also have no idea of what’s to come — is particularly gripping. And this tale of greed, corruption, outlandish cover-ups and murder in the lowcountry region of South Carolina is a doozy. It is, as the New York Times television critic Mike Hale put it, an “unbeatable crime story.”The first three-episode season, on Netflix, premiered midway through the trial of the family’s patriarch, Alex Murdaugh: the disgraced personal injury attorney and an heir to the area’s legal dynasty, who was accused of killing his wife, Maggie, and son Paul in 2021. The second season picks up from there, covering the march to the verdict. Both seasons were released this year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      ‘Saltburn Review’: Lust, Envy and Toxic Elitism

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      In the new film from Emerald Fennell, Barry Keoghan plays an Oxford student drawn into a world of lust and envy at a classmate’s estate.“Saltburn” is the sort of embarrassment you’ll put up with for 75 minutes. But not for 127. It’s too desperate, too confused, too pleased with its petty shocks to rile anything you’d recognize as genuine excitement. This thing was written and directed by Emerald Fennell, whose previous movie was “Promising Young Woman,” a horror flick about rape that was also a revenge comedy. So believe me: She wants you riled. Fennell’s seen the erotic thrillers, studied her Hitchcock and possibly read her Patricia Highsmith, and gets that if you name your main character Oliver Quick he’s obligated to do something at least arguably Dickensian. The question here, amid all the lying, lazing about and (eventually, inevitably) dying, is to what end?We’re dragged back to 2006, where two boys at Oxford — bookish Oliver (Barry Keoghan) and rakish Felix (Jacob Elordi) — forge one of those imbalanced, obsessive friendships that one of them mistakes for love and the other tolerates because he’s needier than he looks. It goes south or sideways or to outer space but also nowhere. Well, that’s not entirely accurate, since it also goes, for one summer, to Saltburn, Felix’s family’s estate, a grassy expanse that boasts a Baroque mansion with stratospheric ceilings, one cantilevered staircase, copious portraiture, a Bernard Palissy ceramic platter collection and one of those garden mazes where characters get lost right along with plots.These two meet, in earnest, when Oliver loans Felix his bike, a moment Oliver’s been waiting for. The best scenes in the movie happen during this Oxford stretch when Oliver experiences Felix as an intoxicant, and Felix’s prepster coterie experiences Oliver as an irritant. There’s some crackle and dreaminess and post-adolescent instability here. Identities are being forged. It’s been better elsewhere — John Hughes, “Heathers,” Hogwarts, Elordi’s HBO show “Euphoria.” But Fennell squeezes some hunger, cruelty and passable tenderness onto these moments. When Oliver tells Felix his father’s just died, Felix extends his Saltburn invitation out of sincere compassion.Now, what happens over the course of this visit amounts to a different movie — or maybe three. Lust and envy take over. As does Fennell’s tedious, crude stab at psychopathology. Felix hails from one of those stiff, pathologically blasé clans where “clenched” counts as an emotion. Everybody at Saltburn seems ready for a new toy. And Oliver’s A-student impulses make a sport of ingratiation. His erudition, availability and blue eyes impress Felix’s droll mother, Elspeth (Rosamund Pike); his mere arrival arouses Felix’s self-conscious zombie of a sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver). In a different movie, their enthusiasm for this newcomer would make you sad for Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), a schoolmate and old pal of Felix who’s already on the premises, practically a member of the family and flatulent with attitude by the time Oliver shows up. He’s the one nonwhite major character in “Saltburn,” a fact the movie considers doing something intriguing with but abandons. His eyebrows are just chronically Up to Something. Is Farleigh worried about losing a financial lifeline? Is he jealous that Oliver might consummate things with Felix before he does?But this isn’t a movie in which anybody’s reaction to new developments is straightforward — and not because there’s anything complex or psychological going on with the screenwriting or the performances (Richard E. Grant pumps Felix’s father full of drollery). It’s because Fennell is more drawn to — or maybe just better at — styling and stunts than she is the tougher work of emotional trenchancy. If she gives us one music-video bit (a montage, a whole tracking shot), she must give us half a dozen. When the time comes for the movie to make its switch to gothic mischief, it’s like watching the first half of “Psycho” turn into the video for “When Doves Cry” or George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90.” What’s that look like? Well: Oliver sneaks a peek as Felix masturbates in a tub, and once the coast is clear he bends over and sips the draining bathwater. It’s a fine shot that’s also an absurd thing to have this guy do. Which is how you know the movie is failing as a good work of trash. I didn’t laugh or gape. I just sat there watching an actor do his damnedest to save the rest of the movie before it heads down the drain. Fennell keeps going, though, turning her mild protagonist into someone ripe for the cover of a bodice-ripper: a crafty virgin discovers the lethal weapon of lust.This was the gist of “Promising Young Woman,” too: that sex was like a chain saw or a gun. When it landed in 2020, the moment seemed right. Fennell had found a way to turn a premise you’d propose at a dinner party or while tipsy in the back of a cab into something tight and mordant: a “rape culture” revenge-o-matic. But it was so morally and formally tidy that it punched its own teeth out. The “o-matic” won. “Saltburn” has the same seductive sleekness — the nerve. But none of the dread or poison kick.The film’s comic centerpiece was also the star of Fennell’s other movie: Carey Mulligan. Here, she’s deadpanning her way through a chicly ratty mess named Pamela. Mulligan does blinkered, stammering and sad like if Tama Janowitz had written Miss Havisham first. It’s just Helena Bonham-Carter karaoke. But the movie needs it. Pamela has maybe three actual scenes, then we never see her again. She’s overstayed her welcome at Saltburn. But the movie misses the campiness Mulligan’s giving. You’d like to see her and Pike try on the vulgar farce of “Absolutely Fabulous.” But Fennell is going for real opulence, not a comedy of it.If “Promising Young Woman” had feminist vengeance on its mind, what’s “Saltburn” thinking? I spy three hovering text dots. It’s got some twists and a handful of good lines (nearly all of them belong to Pike), but it doesn’t have many thoughts and even fewer feelings. Here is a movie where gay things occur, but homosexuality abuts, alas, corruption and conniving.I suppose Fennell has made a movie about toxic elitism, but she’s done it in the way Ikea gives you assembly instructions. And barely even that, since the most blatant class indictment is outsourced to the Pet Shop Boys’ “Rent” during a bout of actual karaoke with Oliver and Farleigh. Staging the warfare between two strivers isn’t a bad urge, but that doesn’t go far enough, either. The movie does for “posh” what “Soul Plane” did for “ghetto”: luxuriate in what it’s pretending to blow up.I’m even left doubting Fennell’s expertise in main characters. Are we meant to clock a nerd who, when he sheds the clothes and spectacles, makes you as horny as Felix is supposed to make him? Barry Keoghan is trying to create a role out of the disparate parts of other ones (Norman Bates, Tom Ripley, Patrick Bateman), yet doesn’t get all the way there. He couldn’t have. There is no “there.”The whole movie seems to exist for its coda, and presumably the prosthetics designer whose name appears in the closing credits. It’s another music-video fantasia, but so cynical, literal-minded and literally cheeky that I cringed my way through it. And it asks a lot of Keoghan, who could have built a memorable, original character for Fennell. But real acting is not what Fennell’s after here. Oliver has a decent amount of strategic sex and Keoghan does his share of nudity, but the only pornographic thing about the movie is the house.SaltburnRated R. Throw a rock. Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes. In theaters. More