NOV 7, 2024 | ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT | By Cate Rosenbaum
Nothing quite rings in the spooky season like Barry Keoghan whispering, “I’m a vampire.” Sure, he’s only saying it because he’s eating a girl out on her period. Some might not call that scary, but it certainly made me jump.
My roommates and I went as “Saltburn” (2023) characters for Halloween. Did anyone understand our costumes? No, not really. But it did give me the chance to rewatch the movie, and there were many things I forgot.
Namely, I forgot how mad it makes me.
There’s a deep, almost primal betrayal I feel when something doesn’t meet its full potential. It’s the feeling of a fictional world being too fascinating and complex for a creator to fully realize it in their work, of a book’s ending being eons worse than its lead-up — the feeling that something’s there, and the creators didn’t go far enough. Maybe it’s my deep fear of failure at play, but the concept makes me shiver.
That’s my main gripe with “Saltburn” — it could’ve been a movie I loved. From the aesthetic to the foreshadowing, the creative film techniques to the strange, campy, psychological thriller of it all, the foundations were there — yet, it fell short.
I’ll start with the things I like, and granted, there is a decent amount. The visuals are stunning. In a world of desaturated blockbusters, Emerald Fennell gives you color in every shot. Not only does it dazzle your eyeballs and tickle your dopamine receptors, but it’s also ripe for the color-analysis fodder that film nerds love. Electronic, early 2000s hits add an upbeat and giddy feeling to each scene they’re featured in. “Murder on the Dance Floor” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor was everywhere because of “Saltburn,” and I had “Time to Pretend” by MGMT on repeat for months after I first watched it. And everyone in this movie is hot. Whether you find yourself drooling over Jacob Elordi’s six-foot-five everything, Rosamund Pike’s ever-alluring stare or even Barry Keoghan’s almost twink-like seduction, you’ll be drooling all the same.
But the most frustrating part is that I liked the story in the beginning. In fact, I found it rather intriguing.
“Saltburn” could’ve been a fascinating dissection of class dynamics and psychology. What is the allure of god-level wealth, and what would you do to secure it? What is the impact of 0.00001 percenters on the working class, both in and outside of their environments? Could one ever truly be seen as their equal? Have you ever been so envious of a person that you wanted to be them? What would it take for you to actually try?
The issue is that Emerald Fennell doesn’t trust you to understand her story. She lays the groundwork as if this is a deep, psychological, thought-inducing work of art, but she never fully commits to it. She probably wants me to write a paper on the use of color throughout the film. She’d like me to notice that the shot brightens when Oliver looks at Felix. She wants the astute viewer to wonder why the first real introduction of Oliver has “God Save the King” playing in the background, even though the movie takes place in 2005 and Queen Elizabeth was still reigning. But it isn’t deep or complex symbolism — I noted all of this, and I was writing a paper while I watched it.
The ending knocks all the wind out of the sails. If the last 30 minutes didn’t exist, I’d probably be writing an entirely different review. It almost feels as if they showed the movie to a test audience and they didn’t understand the plot twist, so they included a giant-blaring-neon sign saying, “There was a plot twist! Did you get it, did you see it? Do you understand that nothing is as it seems?!”
Unreliable narrators are better when their psychology isn’t fully understood. Oliver is a more compelling character when you don’t get why he does what he does. He’s off during most of the movie — the infamous bathtub scene says enough — and understanding him doesn’t make it more intriguing, it makes the themes dull.
The reveal that he’s actually not a poor, simpering and abused child is enough of a horror-inducing and cringe-worthy plot twist to make the entire movie worth a rewatch. I felt so sympathetic, even if I hated him a little bit.
From the beginning of the movie, you see how Oliver interacts with the dynamics of Oxford: while his peers cruise through their classes, he’s had to work to be there, and he’ll have to work every day to keep proving that he belongs. In the Saltburn mansion, he’s thought of as more of a creature than a person, which these wealthy elites have, in their ever-loving generosity, graciously taken in. What if Oliver was driven to murder Felix because of this dichotomy? Was it the extreme level of wealth that made him so disillusioned it led him to insanity?
His lies made him seem idiotic and selfish, but still slightly sympathetic. Maybe Oliver had to lie to Felix about his class: maybe they couldn’t have been friends unless their friendship was fundamentally unequal. Maybe the point of the movie could’ve been that class dynamics, where the rich hold power and the poor are powerless, are ever-present in every inter-class relationship we have. “Saltburn” could’ve been a movie that depicts class disparity as a dehumanizing force on both sides, where conflict is inevitable.
By firmly and explicitly painting Oliver as a cold-blooded psychopath from the beginning, all of that nuance is lost. Suddenly, it’s Oliver who isn’t worth your sympathy, and it wasn’t the movie’s circumstances that made him do what he did.
Fennell is currently planning an adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” starring Jacob Elordi once again. I read the book over the summer out of spite, simply so I could nitpick the product. Given the mishandling of the themes in “Saltburn,” I don’t have high hopes.
But, I guess, given everything, I will still be watching. Even if it is only to complain about it.