Veni Vidi Vici

Social satire is back! In Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn or Ruben Östland’s work, the privileged classes (ranging from educated bourgeoisie to full-blown aristocracy) are mercilessly pilloried as shallow, heartless, mercenary... and that’s before the plot machinations begin to show how truly nasty they can be when their status is in any way challenged. Veni Vidi Vici (“I came, I saw, I conquered” for those not versed in Latin) adds fuel to the fire, but uses a leaner style and a more ruthlessly logical line of attack.

To retell even the opening, blackly comic gag from this film is to give away too much. Suffice to say, the story concerns Maynard, a capitalist entrepreneur who has ridden to fame and wealth on neoliberal slogans such as “destruction is creative”. He enjoys a pathologically close relation to his family members – for, as his adoring daughter comments, “Family is not important, family is everything”. And this clan proves to be brilliantly manipulative in the way it can absorb outsiders into the family circle – or just as easily reject them.

Directors Daniel Hoesl and Julia Niemann use precise framing, slow motion and understated acting to drive home their satire.

– Adrian Martin