"Saltburn" Review: The Year's Most Bonkers, Electrifying, Disappointing, And Fascinating Movie

Emerald Fennell strikes gold in this ludicrous psycho-drama... she just doesn't find as much as she thinks.

December 8, 2023

In attempting to describe the numerous influences behind her new film, Saltburn, writer-director Emerald Fennell wanted to use every descriptor in the book. One could see the struggle on her face, reaching deep into her internal thesaurus to explain her admiration for films like Cruel Intentions. Ultimately, she settled for putting the word “incredibly” in front of something related to mystique or eroticism. It’s the cardinal sin of any creator: to not simply speak to convey a message but care more for the how than the what.

It establishes that the best hope is for a generally strong effort oozing with wasted potential. As the worst is a crapshoot of ill-conceived decisions and mindless plot threads, it’s worth settling for; the question is: with all its highs and lows, assets and drawbacks, strengths and flaws, often existing in the same scene, is Saltburn worth watching?

In a technical sense, the answer is yes. Saltburn is one of the most unpretentious atmospheric movies ever made. From the shadowy foreboding of the final confrontation in the maze to the subdued madness inside the shades-drawn red-lit dining room, the movie is a wild but intelligent visual ride. The performances are stellar; the music hits every thematic note within a small range of orchestral cues. It’s not overly pronounced in any respect, a far cry from the portrait painted by its trailer. It aims for creative ambition without compromising the final product by giving in to it too recklessly.

The result is a movie that offers something refreshing in many respects but confused and uncommittal in others. It aims to be 1,000 things at once and mistakenly believes that if each gets addressed, even with the lightest touch, it can be each one. If it’d used its intelligence to inform a few points deeply, it would’ve been better than what it ultimately became.

It wants to be a commentary on classism (boooring); where Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite delivered extremism, making the scheming family cartoonishly poor and the rich family ludicrously wealthy, Saltburn plays it sharper by making Oliver - the boarding school student brought into his rich friend Felix’s summer of extravagance - middle-class. He is not reaching so far beyond his means that his machinations have a legitimate sense of urgency, which invites a deeper exploration of why he is so bent on involving himself in Saltburn.

Unfortunately, simply because we get an invitation doesn’t mean the party is worth our time. Sure, it’s nice to get invited, and Saltburn is incredibly conscious of its audience, but in too many wrong ways for the movie to come together just right.

When it’s right, it’s damn-near perfect, predominantly in the small ways it understands its characters. Felix’s earnestness gives a false feeling of sincerity, even if he doesn’t realize it. He’s the quintessential trust-fund fuckboi: a spoiled chick magnet wholly convinced of his virtue, never inconsiderate enough to feel immoral, mundanely inoffensive, and ultimately harmless if you put virtually zero thought into him. Altogether, and thanks to Jacob Elordi’s performance, he’s not a “bad” guy, but something about him feels disingenuous in a way we (to our frustration) cannot quantify.

His mother, Elspeth, is so disconnected from reality, having created her own out of the palatial confines of Saltburn, that her rich-girl earnestness makes her just as much of an accidental villain than a genuine comedic relief. She does nothing to incur our wrath but everything to make us want to inflict it on her anyway. We know these people, often against our will and with sincere and utmost regret.

As Oliver becomes more deeply ingrained in Saltburn, the movie strikes gold by exploring a rarely-discussed truth: the people we want to be closest to are the ones we loathe the most.

It’s a twisted, perverse desire one cannot understand unless you’ve experienced it. It’s a mixture of belief in the propensity for change, a feeling of exclusion from something exclusive, a desire to be special to those who view everyone as expendable, and a reality of inner conflict, where self-worth gives way to the delusion another can give it to us. As heavy-handed as it seems to have Oliver ravenously penetrate Felix’s grave or throw Elspeth’s limp, dead arms around him after killing her to claim Saltburn for himself, it does hit: it makes sense.

When Saltburn makes sense, it thrives, particularly in its expert use of eroticism; everyone oozes overt sexuality and desire without necessarily committing the act. Oliver and Felix often feel on the verge of ripping each other’s clothes off and desecrating the grounds of Saltburn. We get countless shots of their sweaty, shirtless bodies, their lips close enough to steal the shortest (but sweetest) kiss. Yet, that is just as genius as frustrating.

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The film is set in 2006 so that its conclusion can be in modern times and thus not require any elaborate staging; if it had leaned into that time’s social taboos regarding homosexuality and straight male friendships, it could’ve ratcheted things up to a higher decibel. Still, it uses that homoeroticism not to give panting moviegoers a chance to ogle Elordi’s bronzed bod but to explain that need for connectedness. As stated, when Saltburn nails it, it nails it. Sadly, it doesn’t always; when it falters, it crumbles.

It’s a shame because Saltburn takes a fascinating approach: instead of outright lunacy, it plays more naturally, creating scenarios typical to the characters controlling them. We always feel like the goings-on are genuine, regardless of how far removed they are from our lives. So, when it sucker punches you with a late-night, outdoor, period-blood-filled sex-fest, intimate slurping of semen-laced bathwater, or taking a close friend’s grave to pound town, it feels like an earned “WTF” moment, the kind that excites you for what more insanity the movie has planned. Sadly, it’s thus painfully plain that Oliver is not what he seems and how deeply his deprivation runs. The very thing that makes the film work renders it unable to be what it wants.

Even in its final moments, it reminds us how smart it could’ve been while also showing how its desperation to be edgy overrode its artistic integrity, even if they’re more a happy accident of Keoghan’s casting and courage. We see Oliver in all his self-indulgent, triumphant, full-frontal glory. We see a man with, although unconventionally so, a handsome face, fit body, and enviable endowment. He isn’t the type we’d expect to have trouble finding his lot in life with some talent and a can-do attitude; after all, Keoghan has turned in the performance of his life with just that.

Despite all he has going for him, including the borderline psychopathic charisma that allows these schemes to get fulfilled, he’s still insecure. We cannot strip our clothes as easily as who we are inside; it's not until he’s alone that he can do this with abandon, compared to his begrudging agreement to strip in the field earlier in the film.

But the movie ends with Oliver having effectively “won.” Saltburn is his, but what of it? The film earned more of a Graduate ending but didn’t know it, and therein lies its fatal flaw.

Movies, like their makers, must know themselves. As much of a punch to the gut as it believes the grand reveal of Oliver’s deceit to be, it spends the entire movie telegraphing it. Even so, he couldn’t have known Venetia would kill herself, and the movie’s attempt to explain it away with her earlier statement about not living without Felix is a Stretch Armstrong explanation for forcing a square colloquialism into a round plot contrivance.

If Oliver had fallen into good fortune and used his shrewdness and opportunism to capitalize on golden opportunities, this would be a different review. If his meeting with Felix was accidental and his neediness got validated through his manipulations, this would be a different review.

Alas, Fennell, and thus Saltburn, lack that awareness. It wants Oliver’s inner workings to be obvious to earn its big moments but doesn’t understand staging itself as such sacrifices its commentary and the legitimacy of its grand finale. If it had spent more time embracing itself at face value instead of trying to say more than it was able to, it would’ve been better, tighter, and deserving of the sort of nude, dick-swinging dance with which it ends.

Unfortunately, we cannot judge movies for what they could’ve been or almost were; we can only take them for what they are, and while Saltburn is a good movie, it’s more a potentially great movie wrecked by its mindless, unfocused ambition.