Title: Saltburn
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Emerald Fennell
Starring: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosemund Pike
Runtime: 2 hr 11 mins

What It Is: In 2006, Ollie (Keoghan) is a new student at Oxford University. He’s shy yet approachable, leaving Felix (Elordi), a son of the rich and famous Catton family, quick to trust after Ollie helps him in a pinch. The two grow close as they exchange their private lives and thoughts over nights of partying and intimate hangouts. Sympathetic to his close friend’s tragic circumstances, Felix invites Ollie to stay over the summer and enjoy his lavish estate at Saltburn. Ollie gets to become familiar with the folks through family activities and glamorous parties, though the young man’s desires reveal to be something all greater than the Catton’s could have ever expected.

What We Think: We undoubtedly flock to the shocking and perverse, the ‘different.’ Fincher said it himself in his filmmaking and design of characters, towards his belief that “people are perverts.”

Emerald Fennell has also made this a motif in her work, though uniquely, with confidence in characters and their relationships with society versus private relationships. This has been proven through her writing in Killing Eve, Promising Young Woman, and now the erotic drama Saltburn, which feels derived from any sort of mythos or folklore. As they have throughout time, the showcase unabashedly tattles on the contradictory nature of being notorious, greedy, rich, and famous, vignettes of which we’ve seen time and again. But how does Fennell’s work differ, how does it and doesn’t it work as a film? As always: without spoilers, unless you’d like to keep the thematic observations for yourself until watching, because this is worth a stream… just don’t watch it with your parents in the room.

We’re lucky to be able to reflect and concentrate so keenly on the privileged upper classes in this day and age of hyperconsumption and overstimulation, but it is a double-edged sword. Often you find people complaining, debating, and/or arguing about social or political issues, but can’t do so without ironically relying on social media. I speak from the stance of someone who doesn’t consider themselves ‘upper class’, but I’m still lucky enough to be an American in the 21st century, writing this on my laptop next to a space heater in the safety of my trailer. There is no discussing classist, sociopolitical matters without an edge of hypocrisy and irony. To be human is to strive and struggle for our needs first, but once those needs are set, unlike regular animals, we do not rest. Our fulfillment is next, with a level of masturbatory tone-deafness that comes with the individual. Many of us get by, learning our lessons, struggling, coping, and experiencing, but as is on full display by the rich and envied, those individual needs become something far more deranged, obsessive, extreme, flamboyant… Consumption replaces emptiness, obsession replaces numbness on a bombastically expensive level (just look at the dystopically gross Jeff Bezos and his hot wife article in Cosmos… but more so, just don’t). The uber-rich prey on what they think is ‘normal’ to seem, feel, or appear relatable and grounded, seeing as how the phenomenon of the rich ‘cosplaying’ the poor is now an even more common occurrence. The not-rich-enough will do anything to climb their way up to this strange way of being. I think it’s safe to say while we don’t understand the Met Gala or avante garde fashion shows and a lot of performance art, we in some way or another can’t help but eat up those celebrity gatherings, whether to admire or belittle those untouchable faces on our phones, just as those very faces eat up the recognition. In reality, us and them–we don’t actualy know each other unless we have been each other.

Saltburn makes all of this entirely clear after the first watch. It is something you could watch again based on its ‘shocking’ reveal, but the messages are all cut and dry enough (though I guarantee you, the video essayists are scrambling to collect all of the symbols to prove the very point and make connections to demons, angels, and the devil.. and I will probably watch ’em). Through its characters, we bear witness not only INCREDIBLE ranges and daring scenes from the cast members but also their strange, private lives. We don’t linger on the outlandishness of their lifestyle, although the film does allow us to take joy in it through the millions-dollar budget sets and the characters’ carefree giddiness. And, as an added note, the nostalgic 2000s indie-it-kid soundtrack coerces you back to feeling like you are a reckless, free spirit. MGMT and Arcade Fire? Hell-to-the-fuck-yes. But is also interesting and fresh about this film, and I would say also sets it apart from other contemporaries like Triangle of Sadness, Braid, Babylon, Parasite, and, yes, Killing of a Sacred Deer (because Keoghan is frighteningly talented but also… well you have to see this movie first to get it), is its playful, absurd, pitiful notes on how much the Cattons hone in on protagonist Ollie’s woes, both preying on him and other ‘lost souls’ to prop themselves up as more human, while in actuality, the relationship is rather transactional. When they are faced with the terrible opportunity to ‘act human,’ they literally can’t help but… continue to pretend, to keep up some sort of facade. To them, the relationships are harmlessly symbiotic, something you could say of ‘philanthropist’s’ relationships with charities that have starving children’s faces plastered on them. More and more these days we realize that many of these charities are bullshit, and the rich have even more leverage not to pay their taxes, and it makes them look even more human and stunning than they are. Much like what the Cattons do here.

Do I sound bitter? I hope not too excessively, although helplessly, I am. I work three jobs, man. I have dreams, and I have a lot of room to grow, supplemented by the fact that I don’t know what my financial future looks like. I don’t get social security this century. So yeah, jealousy is a natural thing, but also caused by something I think is very unnatural: excessive wealth. So perhaps I could be excessively bitter? After watching this movie, it feels both more or less sensical, being that I watched a film made for millions, will receive millions, that both critizes the wealthy and those who clamber towards them. It ties these things up in a beautiful, nasty, sticky lil bow with how fun yet unnatural it is to have an obsession with both relatability and riches–the drive to have everything and indulge like a “God”, but also to still ‘be human.’ It’s safe to say a good lot of us will never be ‘one-percenters’ and can’t come close to relating–but whether we know it or not, we’re better off, because when literally all human needs are met and can be made out of thin air with the snap of a finger, then perhaps, our individuality becomes lost to an extent that we don’t want to get to. Much like how the every man sweats and fights their way through traffic every morning, struggling not to get into an accident because then they have to pay for that accident despite the auto insurance they’ve been paying off for years despite not being paid livable wages at a laborious and/or meaningless job, the wealthy, well… they just wanna feel real. And the absurdity in comparing those struggles is what makes the whole thing gross, stupid, and hilarious. That too, we can understand from this movie–a twisted, lusty drama that means to distract you with every possible stimulus, holding your hand and leading you into something much darker.

But, the film has a few faults. It’s story is one that, while enjoyable and eye-catching enough, begins to drudge itself with too many “clever” twists that made the film start to feel like it, much like the protagonist, has begun to overstay its welcome, along with being entirely predictable through its motifs, and well, all those damn twists. Believe you me, they (the twists) worked well for thematically and for our entertainment, but the film slows down far too much in its last act, and I believe a good thirty minutes chopped from this film through editing alone could have done the story more justice. Nonetheless, this tense ride persists to be one of the better films of the year. It’s gorgeous in every which way, from the actors to the performances, to the cinematography on behalf of Linus Sandgren (Promised Land, First Man, La La Land, Babylon), to the sound, and of course, on behalf of the director herself conducting such an odd, indulgent thriller.

Our Grade: A-; A glitzy, mesmerizing thriller that entices you to peer in a little deeper. Fennell does it again, and while you may miss the memorable and cleverer slap-in-the-face that was Promising Young Woman, through Saltburn she certainly challenges you to empty your guts and stumble into the rabbit hole that are lost causes, tantalizing frienemyships, and overall bad intentions. Sit back, relax, and it’s okay to let your jaw drop (as did mine) when things get very strange. Just like I said… definitely don’t watch this one with family in the room.