What happened to Felix in ‘Saltburn?’

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for the ending of Saltburn.

Saltburn, one of the buzziest films of 2023, has continued to cause a stir in the New Year following its recent arrival on streaming and its nomination for two Golden Globe awards.

Directed by Emerald Fennell, the psychosexual thriller spawned multiple viral moments (we’ll never look at bathtubs the same way again) and included enough eyebrow-raising moments to leave viewers with some lingering, and frankly troubling, questions.

For those who need a refresher, Saltburn follows the friendship (or love story) between Oliver Quick and Felix Catton, two Oxford University students played by Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi, respectively. After a meet-cute on the campus grounds, the uber-wealthy Felix invites Oliver to his family’s luxurious estate for the summer, where some questionable antics (and a razor-sharp turn from Rosamund Pike) naturally ensue.

How exactly does Felix’s tale come to an end, and what is Oliver’s role in the Catton family’s untimely demise? Final warning: Spoilers inbound!

What happened to Felix in Saltburn?

After becoming fast friends at university, Felix invites Oliver to the Catton family’s sprawling countryside estate, eponymously called Saltburn. Oliver receives the invitation after sharing news of his parental woes with Felix, telling his new friend that his father has died and that his mother suffers from alcohol and drug addiction.

After arriving at Saltburn, the Catton family take pity on Oliver, both because of his father’s supposed death and his lower-class status. Oliver’s infatuation with Felix reaches gradually questionable levels, to the point that he voyeuristically watches Felix take a bath and sexually pursues Felix’s sister, Venetia.

Apart from Oliver’s secretly sinister behaviour while luxuriating at Saltburn, all appears to be going swell for the Cattons during their summer vacation. That is, until Oliver’s birthday, when Felix surprises him with a visit to Oliver’s parents’ house in Preston. It’s there that both Felix and the audience learn of Oliver’s deceit, as the pair arrives at the Quick household to find both parents alive and well — a far cry from the story of addiction and death Oliver had previously told Felix.

The pair’s relationship deteriorates from there, with Felix asking Oliver to leave Saltburn once Oliver’s birthday party has finished. At the party, Oliver tries to apologise to Felix multiple times, chasing him around the estate before finally confronting him in a backyard hedge maze. There, an inebriated Oliver confesses his love for Felix, who again rejects him before taking a swig from a bottle of alcohol Oliver hands him.

The next morning, the Catton family awakes to find that Felix is missing and they feverishly search the mansion until they find their son dead at the center of the hedge maze. Audiences later learn that Oliver had not only poisoned Felix with a drugged alcohol bottle, but had plotted the entire Catton family’s death ever since his meet-cute with Felix at university. 

After a truly bewildering graveyard scene at Felix’s funeral (seriously, it defies explanation) each member of the Catton family dies, with Oliver either directly involved — as was the case for Felix — or suspiciously close to the deaths. Viewers learn in a final monologue that Oliver handed razor blades to a susceptible Ventia, who later dies by suicide, and that he also withdrew a ventilator from an ailing Elspeth Catton (Pike), which leads to her suffocation. 

All of it, Oliver later tells us, was a plot to secure the Saltburn estate for himself. With no family members left — the Catton patriarch, Sir James (played by Richard E. Grant) dies off screen — Elspeth signs away her wealth and the countryside property to Oliver, who later revels in the success of his eat-the-rich scheme with a naked dance through Saltburn in the final scene. 

Oliver’s final monologue is crucial in unveiling his plot, which saw him intentionally pursue Felix from the start, orchestrating all of their interactions and securing an invitation to Saltburn to later become its successor. While the film’s messaging has been somewhat divisive among critics (since it is the middle-class Oliver who is the true villain), Salburn makes one thing clear: always check your surroundings before taking a bath.