Entering theaters in a limited release on Nov. 17 before a highly-advertised release on Amazon Prime, “Saltburn” was the movie on everyone’s minds this winter. With a groovy soundtrack and a strange bathtub scene, the film was a staple of discussion on TikTok and Instagram. With all the buzz generated and the option to view it for free with an Amazon Prime membership few can resist the lure of watching — but is it worth the 127 minutes of weird sex scenes and castle shots? Yeah, pretty much.
The film centers around Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) as he tries to navigate the awkwardness of his freshman year at Oxford. His social life seems to be a series of awkward missteps. He brings on his own social demise when he suggests that his tutorial partner, Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), is lazy, and we can’t help but feel some class tensions as the wealthy Farliegh neglects his work and breezes through university. However, Oliver’s luck turns around when he befriends hotshot Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), Farleigh’s cousin, through a chance encounter. Felix takes friendly pity on Oliver and invites him to spend the summer at his family’s palatial estate, Saltburn.
Tensions build as Oliver comes to realize that Felix sees him as his play-thing charity case, and Oliver develops an unhealthy attachment to Felix and the lavish lifestyle he represents. The lines between envy, hatred and sexual attraction blur in a creep-fest of turns and strange behavior, and as the film wears on, we get the sense that Oliver is not all who he says he is.
“No spoilers” is basically the hippocratic oath of movie reviewers, but I must say, some major twists occur, and these twists are what seem to have the film community divided on the merits of “Saltburn.” From the beginning, the film takes on a sort of psychological feel. The emotional close ups of faces and hands, Oliver and Felix’s little secrets, and the Oxford setting all contribute to this intellectual and intimate feel, and we think the whole film is going to be about understanding the psychology of these characters. But when the twist comes, some people, namely my CAMS major friends and an Airplane Mode blog I read, feel that all the character building has been undone and their time has been wasted.
While I definitely was at first jarred by certain revelations, I was able to appreciate that feeling as something intentionally conjured by the director. From the beginning, it’s hard to tell who to root for. Oliver is framed as the scrappy underdog, but we also get a sense that his social ostracization may have more to do with his self-loathing than his socioeconomic status. Felix naturally has the villainous qualities of being rich, popular and out-of-touch, but otherwise, he is quite affable and generous. The turns in the film prevent the story from being a simple allegory on class struggle of the virtuous poor vs the fat cats, but instead captures how capitalism and greed create an amoral landscape that pull every class stratum into its web. This move away from a direct allegory also seems to show significant development in Emerald Fennell’s directing — her best known film, “Promising Young Woman” being an excessively on-the-nose-piece about a woman taking revenge on sexual-predators.
While I will defend the twists themselves, I can see how some viewers felt they dampened the experience. The sense of an impending twist can take us out of the film if carried on too long, but foreshadowing and discomfort are important techniques in a film. Critical opinion of “Saltburn” is likely linked to our underlying ideas about pretension and “artsy” films. Oftentimes films touted as artsy feel like they were made to intentionally confuse us or throw in twists to give the illusion of artistry, relying on shock value to hide flaws. Critics of “Saltburn” likely feel the film is one of those pieces, going through the motions of an artsy film, but not really delivering. But I feel that its twists deepened meaning in the film, the false characterizations of the first half setting up exciting revelations in the second. In all, it’s a film with flaws, but enjoyable and worth the watch — especially if you like graves.
