by Charlie Fabre
Easily one of my most anticipated movies of the year, I finally got to see Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn on Wednesday, and I’m still reeling from it! This review will contain a few spoilers, but they will be marked from beginning to end.
Being a big fan of Fennell’s previous film Promising Young Woman, as well as being a big fan of gothic and deranged literature, I knew as soon as I saw the Saltburn trailer that I’d be in for a treat! The movie did not disappoint at all, and it’s been on my mind ever since. I don’t normally go to see movies at the cinema twice, but for this one I may make an exception…
I won’t give too much away because I believe this movie is best enjoyed with as little knowledge as possible, but the basic plot is this: Oliver and Felix are two Oxford students in the year 2007 and they form a very fast friendship despite coming from completely different backgrounds. Oliver is working class, coming from a family of drug addicts and alcoholics. Felix is from the upper class, and his family resides in the English countryside manor, Saltburn. Felix invites Oliver to spend the summer at Saltburn with his family, and thus the madness begins…
Inspired by many classic novels like Brideshead Revisited, The Go-Between, and Rebecca, Saltburn is exactly the upper class fever dream you would imagine. Lavish dinners and parties, winding halls and countless rooms, old artwork, statues, and books gracing the scenery and serving as delicious foreshadowing. Saltburn doesn’t escape the tropes of its predecessors, but I don’t for a second paint this as a bad thing. And the added touches of modernity only add to the haze as it grounds us in the present days and reminds us that the follies of the 19th century aren’t that far away after all…
What surprised me most about Saltburn is just how funny it is! Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant, as Elspeth and Sir. James Catton, are so hilarious in their roles as the absent and neglectful, yet charming, parents. So many subtle jibes and quick wits, I couldn’t help but laugh despite all the strange activity in the background. I think one of the best parts of seeing Saltburn in the cinema is being privy to the rest of the audience’s reactions as well. We all laughed and groaned and flinched together and it was great fun.
The cinematography is absolutely stunning – Saltburn deserves all the praise for the imagery alone. It’s colorful and dark, it plays with shadows and light so well, and the handful of ‘mirror’ and ‘kaleidoscope’ images create that unsettling but also enchanting feel. The sets are so crammed with detail it can sometimes be hard to let the eye settle on one thing – which I believe to be kind of the point. Visually, it’s a film that knows exactly what it’s saying.
My one critique of Saltburn would be that: as a film that analyzes the class dynamic and the inner lives of the ultra-rich, it doesn’t actually have all that much to say. But then, I feel that that may be the point…
SPOILERS HERE
At the end, when Oliver successfully takes over Saltburn, the house is void of people – though it still stands tall and is still filled with the antiques and the pieces of history, it has lost all of its inviting charm and it has become a shell. This, then, highlights the loneliness of wealth and the fact that despite having it all that ‘all’ can very quickly become meaningless. Oliver had a good life, a decent and normal one that most people will have, but he threw that away for status and for an idea. The film ends here, of course, but I would imagine that if it was continued he would fill the house with fair-weather guests over and over again just like Felix and Elspebth just to fill the void…
SPOILERS END HERE
If you, like me, have read or watched a good amount of similar literature or deranged stories (there has been quite a trend of these lately), then it’s likely you’ll be able to see where the plot is going and predict the major turning points (though there are absolutely some events that no one in their right mind would be able to predict…). The trajectory of the film is clear from the start, and only solidified when the “twist” is revealed. This does not make the experience any less enjoyable though! The best thing about Saltburn is the way that it completely and utterly sucks you in as intended, as it does for everyone.
In fact I think this ended up putting me in a similar position to the character of Oliver, which is something I enjoy a lot. When a writer is able to create a character that the viewer/reader is able to project themselves on to, then it makes the story’s experience that much more entangling. This is what Donna Tartt does with Richard Papen from The Secret History (lovers of this book will be enthralled by Saltburn).
I won’t keep rambling on, so all of this is to say that Saltburn is an amazing and strange and beautiful film which plays on our fascination with the uber-wealthy, and then traps us in a warped and claustrophobic glittery nightmare. Emerald Fennell is a brilliant writer and director (so many lines of dialogue make for terrific bits of foreshadowing!!!) and if you’re a fan of gothic horrors and thrillers, dark academia, and the English country manor as setting, then you will love, love, LOVE Saltburn!
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