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The main character of Saltburn, Oliver (played by Oscar winner Barry Keoghan) is something of an anti-hero or even an antagonist. Though the audience experiences the events of the movie through his perspective, his actions throughout the film show him to be anything but a typical protagonist. In the beginning of the movie, Oliver is presented as something of an underdog, a socially awkward “scholarship student” at Oxford who is the object of condescension and cruelty from his wealthier classmates. However, his calculating nature is revealed early on as he abandons Michael Gavey, his first friend at Oxford, in order to enter Felix’s social sphere.

At Saltburn, Oliver is dazzled by the luxury of the Cattons’ lifestyle, though his feelings of awe are mixed with envy and resentment. Later revelations in the film, including his lies about his own background, reveal the full extent of his willingness to manipulate and hurt others to achieve his goals. At the end of the film, he confesses to a terminally ill Lady Elspeth about his responsibility for the deaths of Felix and Venetia, and he inherits Saltburn after coldly killing the dying woman. Though he is pleased by his apparent victory over the Cattons, whom he has successfully outmaneuvered, his mourning for Felix suggests that his resentment was mingled with love and that his motivations were more complex than he is willing to admit. In that regard, Oliver occasionally serves as an unreliable narrator of his own actions.  

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