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If \u201cPromising Young Woman\u201d was Emerald Fennell\u2019s darkly comic take on the rape-revenge thriller \u2014 one that rode a zeitgeisty wave of discourse<\/a> onto a best original screenplay Oscar in 2021 \u2014 \u201cSaltburn\u201d is the writer-director\u2019s entry in the country house canon. The film (in theaters) is the latest in a subgenre ripe for dramatic tension: upstairs versus downstairs; invited versus interloped; public versus private. Away from prying eyes, characters in these tales tend to revel in their idyllic surroundings as unseen, often sinister, forces work against them, resulting in an unforgettable stay.<\/p>\n In \u201cSaltburn,\u201d Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), a shy Oxford student, accepts an invitation to spend the summer at the family estate of a wealthy classmate, Felix Catton<\/a> (Jacob Elordi). While there, Oliver\u2019s adoration for the charming aristocrat reveals itself to be much more than an innocent infatuation.<\/p>\n With its covetous double helix of class consciousness and homoeroticism, \u201cSaltburn\u201d fits in nicely alongside literary classics like \u201cBrideshead Revisited\u201d and \u201cThe Talented Mr. Ripley\u201d (and their many screen adaptations). Here are five other films where summering at a country house leads to significant power imbalances and lifelong consequences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Joseph Losey, whose 1963 film, \u201cThe Servant,\u201d is its own masterpiece of queer-coded dominance, works once again from a Harold Pinter screenplay to direct this quintessentially British period drama. Young Leo (Dominic Guard) is invited by a wealthy friend to spend the summer at his family\u2019s country house. But when his friend is quarantined with the measles, Leo must devise another way to pass the time. He soon finds himself the fraught messenger for his friend\u2019s beautiful sister (Julie Christie) and her secret lover, the tenant farmer (Alan Bates). Stunning shots of the property\u2019s fertile grounds fuel this Palme d\u2019Or winner with a sense of freedom that its owners are quick to curtail; when the film catches up with Leo decades later, his loss of innocence can be pinpointed back to that fateful summer.<\/p>\n The Art House Country House Movie<\/p>\n Stream it on Max.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The silence of God, humanity\u2019s inability to connect, the secret grudges that quietly tear families apart: all themes the Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman saw fit to set against the peacefulness of a summer house no less than a half dozen times. Here, it\u2019s a searing look at the final days of a woman dying of cancer at her family\u2019s opulent mansion, and her two sisters\u2019 painful attempt to thaw out years of estrangement. As they struggle against the clock to process their emotions, the house\u2019s maid shuffles in saintly servitude. Sven Nykvist\u2019s Oscar-winning cinematography places the white-clad women \u2014 including the Bergman regulars Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson and Ingrid Thulin \u2014 against richly saturated crimson walls, bringing out piercing performances from their icy exteriors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One of the most consequential documentaries of all time serves as a cautionary tale about what happens when you don\u2019t pack it up at summer\u2019s end. When Albert and David Maysles were hired by Jacqueline Kennedy\u2019s sister Lee Radziwill to make a film about their family, the documentarians\u2019 attention quickly shifted to the women\u2019s eccentric cousins: \u201cLittle Edie\u201d and her mother, \u201cBig Edie\u201d Beale. The erstwhile socialites had boarded themselves up for nearly 20 years in their decaying home in East Hampton, N.Y., the stench of garbage and cat urine undergirding their peculiar relationship. With a distinctly American blend of can-do and laissez-faire, the Beales continue their business as usual, impervious to the changing tides of the outside world.<\/p>\n The Cruel Country House Movie<\/p>\n\u2018Cries and Whispers\u2019 (1972)<\/h2>\n
\u2018Chinese Roulette\u2019 (1976)<\/h2>\n