Saltburn review
Director: Emerald Fennell
Writers: Emerald Fennell
Stars: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, and Richard E. Grant
Running Time: 131 minutes
Please note there may be spoilers below.
You’re acceptance of Saltburn’s entertainment is connected to your willingness to spend time with unlikable characters. I find the rule of writing unlikable characters (as opposed to dislikable) is that they must be connected to something relatable, even if that something is basic instinct. Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network (2010) is unlikable – he objectifies women, he projects a needy, weaselly attitude, and has no loyalty to really anyone. Yet deep down, Zuckerberg also represents an outsider rebel-figure willing to break society’s rules as portentous, rich elitists try to take him down. No matter how cold and detached he becomes, he remains connected to us as an outsider.
Most of Saltburn’s characters are also part of high society, excessively rich, excessively opinionated, and excessively distant to the plight of ordinary people. Our outsider is Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), a scouser Oxford undergraduate who’s lost amongst the university’s upper-class privilege. He struggles to fit in. He gets the worst seat in the dining hall. He isn’t invited to the Christmas party. He sprouts details of his difficult upbringing to a sympathetic and attractive ear, Felix (Jacob Elordi), a man who Oliver seemingly falls in love with instantaneously. Felix has the kind of affable quality we all crave in a friend. He’s friendly, accepting of Oliver’s flaws, whilst also emanating the chill, relaxed, stoner vibe of someone who has the world at their feet.
During summer break, Oliver ingratiates himself to stay at Felix’s family home, Saltburn, a stately manor richly adorned with classical art and leather bound volumes of Shakespeare you can almost smell. There’s a butler so stilted he’s a genuine parody from a Saturday Night Live sketch, his face so fed up from patiently watching elitist misbehavior, he might kill someone at any moment. If you didn’t know any better, you’d expect Poirot to turn up and solve a murder.
The blunt eccentricities on display remind you that Saltburn is really a genre mashup. The mix of parody, satire, stately drama, and horror show director Fennell’s growing confidence to play with abrupt tonal shifts. So much of the pleasure of Saltburn’s proceedings is its deft mixture of unhinged characters in large stuffy rooms. The sex is intense, vampiric, and often hideous. Violence is lurking somewhere in the shadows. Each character is filled with such an empty darkness, filled with either obsessive longing or materialistic excess, the unavoidable British theme of class cuts through like the shattered mirror in Oliver’s bedroom. No one can say Saltburn is boring. Or playing it safe.
The plot through-line recalls Patricia Clarkson’s The Talented Mr Ripley, although Emerald Fennell has attempted to temper the comparison. Yet the connection is apt for the shared self-loathing of both protagonists. Oliver Quick is so deeply consumed with self-loathing that constructing an imaginary self, accompanied with a tragic upbringing, is more satisfying to him than living his authentic experience. This self-loathing binds us to Oliver. As his fiendish behavior destroys life around him, its fascinating how he remains a distantly relatable character.
And therein lies the fun divisiveness of Saltburn, and I do mean fun. In an algorithm littered homogenized media-sphere, we can’t underestimate the importance of a film taking risks. Here Emerald Fennell has crafted a challenging piece of work, one risking it’s audience entirely giving up on a group of detestable personalities. What’s so clever about Saltburn is its ability to show you the deep insecurities informing these personalities. In other words, the hideousness is compelling because we have insight (from the film and our own lives) for why people could behave this way.
One scene stands out. In the third act, the red lunch scene shows a family (and Oliver) in denial from a character’s death. Steeped in red lighting, the patriarch of the family, Sir James, orders those present in no uncertain words to EAT their meat pie, this occurring as his own dead son is wheeled past the closed curtain windows. It’s absurdly funny – normal people don’t behave like this. We don’t order our butler to shut the curtains to avoid seeing our dead child. But it’s also awful and sad, for it’s impossible not to relate to this extreme from of self-protection when someone we love dies. Hating these characters is part of the puzzle. Relating to them is the other part. The magic trick of Saltburn is getting you to do both at the same time.
There’s another thing. Certain movies have a way of sparking conversation, a way of needling under our social skin. Saltburn is interested in getting you outside to talk to others about the experience – why it shocked, bored, upset, surprised you in the moment. Without divisiveness, we don’t have the type of rich discourse that makes art this interesting. Thankfully, Emerald Fennell is taking the risk.
