Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours, 21 minutes
Writer: Emerald Fennell
Director: Emerald Fennell
Quick Impressions:
I have strong feelings about Promising Young Woman.
That one took me by surprise. Pretty much every year there’s a movie I don’t have huge expectations for that ends up knocking me for a loop. I go in with no expectations, maybe even low expectations. And then I love the film. (Most conspicuously, we blundered into Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit because we were trying to see Oliver Twist and accidentally went to the wrong theater. We bought Were-Rabbit tickets only because it was starting. Then it ended up being our favorite movie of 2005.)
Promising Young Woman was probably my favorite film of 2020. Though I’d never been a particular fan of Carey Mulligan, I thought she deserved to win Best Actress for that performance. I love the bait-and-switch the apparent premise sets up for us. Emerald Fennell pulls out all the stops, using every cinematic convention to portray Mulligan’s character as a serial killer, a villain (albeit a charismatic one). But she’s not. She’s the victim all along. That film is so well done. And Saltburn works pretty well as a companion piece, almost the inverse of Promising Young Woman.
Before I go further, I’ll mention that after deciding Promising Young Woman was my favorite film of the 2021 Oscar season, I gradually discovered at least three people who hated it. Their objections were more than fair, arguing that 1) it’s exploitative of the subject of sexual assault, and 2) lionizing and deputizing into a savior role the defense attorney (Alfred Molina) who has helped acquit men guilty of sexual assault is unfair, unrealistic, and kind of disgusting. Objections like this are totally valid.
I like the film because of the way it plays with genre and conventions. It’s such a well-crafted narrative. I’m looking at it the way I would study a piece of fiction, not the way I’d consider a real-life subject of concern. When we were playing a game called Priorities my daughter bought me for Christmas, my son was horrified to discover I hadn’t ranked “cannibalism” at the bottom of a group of five words, but my husband correctly guessed I’d ranked it second because I find it exciting as a concept (not because I have any desire to practice it). (But would you rather read a book about cannibalism or shoes?) (Do I sound like Homer Simpson saying communism works in theory?) I noticed in college I loved Iago when reading Othello but despised him when watching it (because I admire Shakespeare’s dialogue not Iago’s behavior). I recognize that you have to be careful with this kind of thing. I remember someone in college making a bunch of rape jokes, not because he liked rape but because he liked jokes. Yet because I was sitting in his apartment, and he was holding a knife, those jokes were not funny to me. They were unintentionally menacing.
My point is—I’d better tell you directly because you’ll never guess from what I’ve written—charged subject matter is tricky. I’d assume that like me, Emerald Fennell has no desire to (truly) disturb or harm anyone. I’m not suggesting her films don’t have anything to say. What I mean is, she creates fiction differently than she would create, say, a documentary. Each conveys truth by its own set of rules. Fiction and non-fiction work differently. For some people, Fennell’s films will not work because they try to be clever instead of realistic. This is my long-winded way of saying if you didn’t like Promising Young Woman, you probably won’t like Saltburn either.
My own take is that Saltburn is the lesser film, but, visually, it’s far more impressive. Plus the performances are fun and the characters are wonderful(ly awful). My daughter and I just happened across Edward Gorey’s delightful abecedarium The Glorious Nosebleed while Christmas shopping at Toy Joy. The characters in Saltburn are all wonderfully awful like that. (In fact, I can imagine Rosamund Pike reading The Glorious Nosebleed aloud as her character in this film.)
The Good:
Before watching Saltburn, you should probably read (or at least watch) Brideshead Revisited.
When I first saw the trailer for this film, I whispered excitedly to my husband, “Oh, it’s Brideshead Revisited!” But it wasn’t.
As we watched the movie, I accidentally mentioned this seven or eight times.
“No way!” my daughter smirked. “You’ve never said that before!” Without meaning to, I kept insisting the movie seems to be in conversation with Brideshead Revisited.
Then in a conversation about his family home, Saltburn, Felix (Jacob Elordie) mentions Evelyn Waugh. “I knew it!” I exclaimed. “This is Brideshead Revisisted revisisted!”
Then, like about an hour into the movie, I suddenly said, “I wish I had read Brideshead Revisited.”
My daughter laughed so hard. She laughed for over a minute.
“Look,” I told her defensively. “I never said I had read Brideshead Revisited. I said these works are in conversation.” They are! I just don’t know what they’re saying (because I’m missing vital context).
I used to rely on my mother for all my Brideshead Revisited knowledge. (Of course, she hasn’t read it, either! So what a pair of nitwits we were! As a child, I would always rely on my mother’s knowledge of classic books and films. Then I grew up and studied literature and watched a bunch of movies. But I never got around to Brideshead Revisited. My mom watched an adaptation starring Anthony Andrews. She used to fill in so many gaps for me. Now I’m expected to know her half, too!)
So although I’ve said Promising Young Woman is the superior film, I reserve the right to revise my opinion after I’ve read Brideshead Revisited. (If it’s just the superficial/premise level similarity I’ve already noticed, that’s one thing. But what if Saltburn is filled with deeply meaningful Brideshead Revisited allusions and re-workings. In that case, I’ll rate the movie higher.)
Linus Sandgren’s cinematography is rightfully nominated for a Critics Choice Award, and the film is also nominated there for production design. Saltburn looks like the most glorious place to live (or die). Normally color is not what interests me about a film’s visuals, but Saltburn’s color palette pops. Every scene has such richness of color, not to mention depth.
Rosamund Pike’s supporting performance as Elspeth is my favorite of the film. Both she and Richard E. Grant (who plays her husband Sir James) seem perfectly suited to their roles. Pike is adept at playing horrible characters in dark comedies. If anything, her character here has a softer side than we often see from her. I wouldn’t mind seeing some of her precursor acting nominations result in an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress. We all liked Carey Mulligan in her small but scene-stealing role as Poor Dear Pamela, the family friend who, according to Elspeth will do anything for attention.
My daughter loved Jacob Elordi (so recently Elvis) as Felix, and I particularly enjoyed Archie Madekwe (whom we just saw in Gran Turismo) as cousin Farleigh. We both thought Barry Keoghan made an arresting Oliver Quick.
“He doesn’t usually play the lead,” my daughter noted.
No, I usually see Keoghan in supporting roles, though I notice that until she pointed it out. I’ve never seen Keoghan give a bad performance.
Alison Oliver is good as his sister Venetia, too. I found the character’s tendency to drape herself around the house waiting for Oliver’s gaze particularly amusing.
Best Scene Visually:
Saltburn keeps making me want to use the phrase “shock tableaux.” I wish that were a thing because this movie is comprised mainly of shock tableaux. These horrible, dreadfully awfully bad moments burn into the viewer’s mind. You can’t unsee them. They’re especially grotesque because the movie lets us imagine the vilest parts of them. Surely Edward Gorey would have loved to include them in an abecedarium.
The one image I can’t get out of my head—the one that defines the whole movie for me—is kind of like American Pie but with a grave instead of a pie. (In fact, it’s exactly like that.)
This scene left me with so many questions—about love, hate, obsession, how Oliver feels about Felix, Oliver’s motivations in general.
“But why does he do that?” I asked, expecting one of two answers and not sure which avenue led to the truth.
“Maybe he just felt he had to do something dramatic,” my husband suggested, a far better answer than any I’d anticipated.
“Why is it that movies can include scenes like this with no problem,” I asked, “but any small thing I write draws such scrutiny?”
“That is a good question,” said my husband. “Why do you feel that what you write draws scrutiny? Whose scrutiny? Your own?”
Perhaps. I don’t know how to explain my paranoia about people misunderstanding and taking offense at my fiction. In popular movies by acclaimed directors this fall, Barry Keoghan and Emma Stone are going wild with complete abandon, and I don’t see any pearl clutching going on by the world at large. Why do I worry so much that my fiction will inadvertently cause offense? I don’t know.
A scene featuring Oliver leaning out a window at Oxford made a strong impression on me, too.
“That looks amazing,” I said. “This movie has incredible cinematography. That is a beautiful shot.”
“I noticed they use the lighting for contrast a lot,” my daughter said. “And so much is done with windows.”
Best Action Sequence:
Oliver’s naked dance scene reminds me fondly of both Risky Business and Love Actually. Watching, I also thought immediately of the ending of Dumb Money. (Remembering the name of that movie took me forever. For whatever reason, I use the same mental placeholder for Dumb Money, Blackberry, and Air. All three are good films that came out in 2023. I don’t know why my mind wants to remember them as a single movie.)
Is 2023 the year of “running with your dick out” (as Dumb Money puts it) at the end of a film? Is that how we’ll be remembered in future clip packages?
Best Scene:
That grave scene is the movie for me.
My daughter and I agree that the karaoke scene is well done, as is the subsequent bedroom scene with Farleigh. She also particularly likes an earlier scene when Oliver has a conversation alone with Elspeth. She loves the way this conversation shows us Oliver and noted eagerly that he looks so different to the audience depending on who is controlling the narrative. At moments when he has less control, he seems so different to us. For me, one strength of the movie is that even after witnessing moments like this, I was still never completely sure what to make of Oliver until the big reveal at the end of the film.
One of the film’s strongest scenes for me is the moment when the family sits down to dinner without Felix. The father can’t stop talking. Venetia can’t stop pouring her wine. The butler can’t get the windows shut. There’s something extremely humanizing about this moment. It’s hard not to feel for this family in this moment. Plus we get the sense that they’re drowning in their own excess, and they’re always being watched.
The Negatives:
As the movie ended, I said in vague distress, “Oh, I don’t know…”
“You didn’t like it?” cried my daughter in shock. She loved it. But she’s about to turn fifteen and enjoys a good unreliable narrator.
It’s not that I didn’t like Saltburn, but I need to watch it again. Maybe I wanted something a bit cheerier for Christmas.
Despite its pervasive awfulness, Poor Things, which I saw recently, features an increasingly uplifting, almost heartwarming arc for its protagonist. In that film, we see all the tenderest qualities even of those supporting characters who make morally questionable decisions. Even the horrible abuser is useful for lawn maintenance.
In this movie, everyone is so nasty and bad. And that’s funny to a point. Were everyone so nasty and awful and bad, then fine. But I kind of feel sorry for the mother…and the sister…and the father. And actually Felix is very kind…and even poor dear Pamela, and Farleigh for all his animosity to Oliver. Meanwhile, Oliver keeps getting darker, and darker…
“He just wanted to eat the rich,” my daughter joked with mock innocence.
I think I would like the film better if Oliver infiltrated their horrible, rotten family and then…taught them all to play the glad game like Pollyanna or something. I don’t know.
Promising Young Woman concluded with what felt like a hard twist. I found it magnificent. In the beginning it teased us with the idea, “I’m going to show you a villain.” Not only does society paint victims as villains, the film did it, too, for us, using so many cinematic conventions to make Cassie look like a serial killer. But she never was. Saltburn does the same thing—just the inverse. We get cinematic conventions that make us form one impression of Oliver, and then at the end—surprise! It’s just the opposite!
Except by the end, this isn’t such a surprise. Granted, there is a very creepy (and misleading) undercurrent of, “Well, love makes people do strange things,” that it’s all too easy to buy into. But with Oliver, there’s a far more gradual reveal, so by the end, we’re not all that surprised by what we get.
I don’t find it as intellectually satisfying as Promising Young Woman. But it’s also not as emotionally rewarding as something like Poor Things (which I mention because it’s an awards season competitor, recent release, and a similarly awful delight). It’s horrible in such a pedestrian way, not quite horrible enough to excuse its lack of warmth. For all the richness of its warm color palette, there’s something about Saltburn that leaves me a bit cold.
Overall:
Saltburn is a gorgeous movie about horrible people—except they’re not that horrible. This is the wrong movie to watch if you’re anxious or depressed. Don’t expect it to lift your spirits. But if you want to see someone defile a grave, consume menstrual blood, or slurp up thoroughly used bathwater, then Emerald Fennell has got a holiday treat just for you. I’d watch it again, though. I feel it deserves a second viewing.