Good movies come and go, but I can’t forget the most biting directorial debut from Emerald Fennell in 2021: Promising Young Woman. So, what does Fennell do with her follow-up, but pair with perhaps the most vicious villainous performer of the past decade, in Rosmund Pike ☠ Now, I think on the heels of Ari Aster’s efforts this year, and his varying catalogue, I must remind myself that one’s good work on one project may not be a complete reflection of their breadth as a creator. Just because Promising Young Woman was such an in-you-face thriller, doesn’t mean that Saltburn will be the same, so check those preconceived notions at the door! One thing’s for sure though, Saltburn is one of my most anticipated movies of the year. Bring on the Saltburn!
When Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) attends a rich college on scholarship, he gets completely obliterated trying to make friends. Fortunately, a good deed done for one of the most influential of Olie’s classmates brings about an unlikely friendship, and Olie and Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi) quickly become drinking buddies, with Felix very much taking Olie under his wing. So much so that Felix invites Olie to stay with him over the summer, at his family’s estate called Saltburn, where once there, Olie will go to great lengths to consume a wealthier lifestyle.
The movie is a lot more sinister than that, but you can’t give it all away at the beginning, now, can you? I went into Saltburn knowing just as much as I said in the opener, and I believe that was for the best 😇 Oh, but before the pair get to Saltburn, Olie and Felix’s dynamic feels quite familiar, and I couldn’t put my finger on an example until a thought of, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower?” – that’s one of my favourite movies since the turn of the century, so I may be powerless in loving this movie. But then, the movie comes with a darker twist, to make it perhaps a cross between The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Talented Mr. Ripley, before Saltburn is so good that it defies all comparison.
Some among us shout “tax the rich”, while some use the slogan, “eat the rich” – Olie just games the rich, and might just do the other two in the process 😈 I like that Saltburn doesn’t include a case whereby the first act is disconnected from the rest, and in some movies, the pair’s time at college could simply contain some heavy-lifting characterisation before the proper bones of the movie comes to be; but if Saltburn had stayed a college movie, about a boy from the wrong side of the tracks and his unlikely friendship, then I think Saltburn still would’ve proven highly classy and entertaining. Saltburn’s first act sort’ve underhandedly questions if sophistication and popularity are somethings you are born with, or if one can adapt if given the chance, which pays off later when we find out that Olie has been three steps ahead the entire time. When Olie does decide to break bad, I initially felt like it came out of nowhere; but so is the mystic of his polite boy act, I guess. Licking sisters and tonging plugholes – for a long time I wasn’t even putting any stock in whether this was a romantic love story or a love story, but then, no, drinking spunk-infused bathwater would be a deciding factor, and the sexual element of this conspiracy is visceral and undeniable. I do wonder if the movie could’ve gotten away with not making Olie out to be such an unceremonious liar though, as his parents are alive and well, and if the movie could’ve still walked the same thin line, making us eager for Olie to win, while also, feeling guilty for wanting it. The Catton family are so insufferable, I didn’t mind seeing them ramrodded from the beginning, and Saltburn is so enthralling from go to woe, jumping genres, and tipping the scales back and forth on who is more justified, and who we should root for. It becomes clear that it only matters to the Catton’s that everything remains proper, so if Olie can steer the conversation through frivolities, to the point of complimenting the loveliest font to put on a headstone, then you keep their minds sedated, and Olie uses that to his advantage. In the end, Saltburn works as is, and becomes a story of a boy who saw looming chess pieces over his potential affluent future and blasts a path through them. I also love that the camera is always in extreme close-up when Olie is getting to business, or getting exposed in a talking to, as it adds to the atmosphere of how most things in this giant house are fake, and the only time for truth is in an intimate whisper. Barry Keoghan did cameo as Joker for Matt Reeve’s The Batman, and I think we just got his origin story.
Barry Keoghan is going places; and let’s be frank, with his Oscar nomination at the beginning of this year, and the performance he puts in for Saltburn, he’s probably already there. I think we have a dance to rival Tom Cruise in Risky Business by the end, paired perfectly to Sophie Ellis-Bexter’s ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’; although do you know what other pop song came boldly into mind for this movie’s closer? “Dancing with Our Hands Tied” by Taylor Swift – what do you think? 🤔 And you know Saltburn is brilliant when Richard E. Grant can’t make the top five things about it. I think Archie Madekwe is a standout in the supporting role, and I probably shouldn’t overlook Jacob Elordi for playing the pretty boy Felix, and one of those pure people who doesn’t realise how unique they are, because that might take work too. The movie’s dialogue is so good at chipping away at these characters – for there’s the moment where Felix tries to affirm to his sister that their parents would’ve given their cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) anything he wanted, as if Felix hadn’t just had a conversation with Farleigh saying his mother was to be cut off, showing that Felix has learnt some of his mother’s duplicitous ways, presenting a chink in his perfect manner, for sure. Also, Venitia (Alison Oliver) previously informed Olie that her family was cold blooded, so then later when she means to say that Olie makes her “blood run cold” as an insult, she’s also really confirming that Olie has played his part in the Catton family excellently. The reaction Venitia gives when she first lays eyes on Olie is one for the ages, and Alison Oliver’s performance culminates in the climactic speech about moths as well. And from one Gone Girl psycho killer to victim, Rosmund Pike passes on the torch, but shouldn’t feel too bad, as her daft dandy gets the best one-liners of the movie.
Emerald Fennell has shot up my list of favourite directors with a rocket. Give her the trophy; give her all the trophies! No, wait, let’s just start with nominations, and we’ll work the rest out later. But if I am one day able to create something a tenth as exuberant as Fennell’s work to date, then I’ll die a happy man. The way she is able to use filmic language and iconography to tell a different story is also what homage is supposed to be all about. The way Felix sports angel wings like he’s Juliet in Romeo + Juliet, doomed to be poisoned, and the way Venitia uses moths as an analogy quite reminiscent to the wicked ways of Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, are examples of this. I even praise the way Olie’s narration asks us if he needs to tell us what happens next, when Felix is dead, because the movie is riding alongside with us, and gives us the benefit of the doubt that we’ve known Olie has been going to kill Felix for the last 10 minutes. We also have the hedge maze, first seen while butler Duncan (Paul Rhys) warns Olie that people lose themselves at Saltburn, much like we know they do at the Overlook Hotel too, in The Shining. And we have the obvious hell motifs, through the red curtains, shielding depravity and anguish, while Olie sports horns at the party, as if he were Loki, or Lucifer himself.
I also love how Emerald Fennell has been adept in knowing the appropriate amounts to hold back, and when to show us a gruesome detail for a quick jolt, in both her movies. Thinking about Lady Elsbeth (Rosmund Pike) flopping around in that speedy wheelchair at the end still gives me shudders. I duly believe it’s a true skill, which takes a special consideration, not to be too blunt or garish with detail over mood – it’s a taste thing, it’s an etiquette, and it allows the more surreal shots to pop. I think I’m going to be grateful for Saltburn for quite some time 🤗 Here, I’ve had a clear number one movie in my mind so far for 2023, but little did I foresee Saltburn coming along to potentially unseat it. I expressed in my opener how I should check my expectations after Fennell’s fantastical debut, but it turns out I had nothing to worry about. 2023 has been a very decent year for movies, and Saltburn seems to me to be an instant classic.
5.0
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