Flasz On Film

Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s newest directorial effort, is one of those movies whose review – at least as far as I am concerned – could change markedly depending on how far removed you are from seeing it. And it might be interesting to wonder why that is.  

Having taken the world (or at least the universe of Film Twitter, because I didn’t fall for any of her shenanigans) with Promising Young Woman, Fennell comes back with a story about a young Oxford student Oliver (Barry Keoghan), who struggles to fit in at this infamously elitist and classist institution as a working-class boy with a strong Liverpudlian accent. However, he incidentally strikes up a friendship with Felix, a well-to-do guy played by Jacob Elordi, to whom he lends his bicycle one day to enable him to make it in time for classes. One thing leads to another, and Felix invites Oliver to his family estate for the summer, the titular Saltburn, where Oliver becomes an interloper in the world of “old money.”  

Hence, Fennell carries us onto this seemingly impenetrable world of opulence completely untethered from any tangible reality you might recognize and allows us to accompany Oliver as he inserts himself into the everyday drama of Felix’s family, entrances his sister Venetia (Alison Oliver), antagonizes his biracial cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) and discombobulates Felix’s parents played by Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant, the latter inadvertently channelling some latent Christopher Walken vibes. As the story slowly unfolds, it becomes clearer and clearer that Oliver may not be who he says he is, as he weaves webs of deceit, charms his way into the world of the one per cent and – piece by piece – unpicks the foundations of worry-free stability bought with generational wealth.  

And…  

If you asked me what I thought about Saltburn immediately after the credits rolled, I would have most probably told you that Fennell almost got me. Almost, but not quite. However, I’d still be ensnared by what I can only identify as immense onslaught of visually provocative ideas I don’t think I’d ever expect Fennell to concoct. Especially having just witnessed how the movie ends with an unbroken take of Barry Keoghan dancing his way through the Saltburn mansion completely naked… which is definitely a bold choice. Furthermore, the entire film is generously peppered with such sexually charged ideas bordering on venturing into the world of taboo, clearly put in place to unsettle the viewer. After all, nobody inserts scenes of two characters engaging in oral sex with someone on their period, or a character performing a penetrative intercourse with a grave without having a good reason to do so. Unless, of course, all they are after is simply eliciting a response.  

Sadly, the more time I had to pontificate over those truly memorable directorial decisions, the more convinced I became that Emerald Fennell may not have had a better reason to include those scenes than simply because they came with their own shock value. They were there to upset for upsetting’s sake. Which immediately threw my entire understanding of what I thought Saltburn was about into question. With each minute spent analyzing this movie’s motives, it became clear that there wasn’t all that much there.  

What I initially mistook for a piece of visually inspired and refreshingly provocative satire on class, turned out to be nothing more than an interloper in disguise… ironically like Oliver Quick. With the film’s stunning departure in terms of its holistic cinematic language – from the aspect ratio and the colour palette to grainy close-ups and musical choices contrasting the Downton Abbey visages with the abrupt modernity pouring from the speakers – Emerald Fennell was positioning her movie as a sibling to The Bling Ring, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Call Me by Your Name. In fact, had she been successful in emulsifying these influences into a cohesive unit of emotionally packed storytelling, I think she’d have a bona fide masterpiece on her hands. And indeed, if I had to write this text immediately after returning from the cinema, I could just as well have convinced myself that it was the case. Because just like Oliver Quick, Saltburn had the cavalier charisma to charm its way into your mind and convince you it was a great movie, while it was in fact an impostor.  

Once you recognize that all those connective elements tethering Saltburn to Coppola, Guadagnino, Minghella and others are purely superficial and performative, you’ll see that what looks like a vibrant display of artistic wrath is like that quote from Macbeth – full of sound and fury… signifying nothing. Fennell’s film is a cinematic equivalent of someone who learned to use long words, dress up like a gentleman and act the part to come across as confident, self-assured and sophisticated, but upon close investigation and when interrogated by someone who actually knows their stuff, falls apart like a cheap suit. Crumbles like a house of cards because its poise and insight are merely ankle-deep.  

Granted, in a movie so pervasively saturated with hot-button ideas, culturally recognizable themes and trendy stylistic flourishes it may be occasionally difficult to cherry-pick those seemingly mercurial identifiers that would lead you to figure out all of it is a sham. Upon first glance, Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant are perfectly normal looking and whatever it is those obnoxiously rich people are up to seems appropriately out of touch. But they are all manufactured. Their story is a figment, and the entire narrative is merely a conglomeration of conveniently strung together logical fallacies that only look the part from afar but make absolutely no sense.  

Such is the fate of Saltburn – a cinematic fraud who impersonates others, like Mr Ripley, and leeches off their clout without contributing much to the conversation apart from base-level shock value. If you pay enough attention to this movie – and I hope you will do so instead of falling under its spell like a would-be victim of a psychopathic serial killer – you will see that literally nothing about this story makes sense or hold enough water to pass for a logically-engineered narrative rooted in any form of rudimentary reality. It is nothing but a fairy tale concocted in an ivory tower where the screenwriter has locked herself to imagine what people look like and sound like without necessarily venturing into the world to meet anyone real. Granted, verisimilitude is not a requirement for a satire to be successful and in fact Ruben Ostlund’s work could pretty well counter this statement, but the issues the satire raises must be somehow connected to what you or I might recognize.  

Saltburn does none of that. Its ire is hollow. Its expression is merely an interpretative dance about eating the rich. In a way, it is however a fascinating study because the subject matter of the movie – an impostor creeping into the lives of its wealthy benefactors to slowly subject them to terminal necrosis – mirrors what the movie is itself. It isn’t anywhere near as classy or iconoclastic as it makes it look. It’s all wind and no trousers because once Barry Keoghan finishes his dance and the adrenaline following what I can only call a bout of semi-cannibalistic cunnilingus finally subsides, there isn’t much Saltburn has to say. Much like Promising Young Woman was a TED Talk about the patriarchy, this movie is an eat-the-rich tattoo – intricate, ornate, utterly cliché and mindbogglingly useless.