‘Saltburn’ is a positive disappointment

As I settled down in my seat for the movie, with a bottle of water in the cupholder to my right and a packet of M&M’s in the cupholder to my left, I was apprehensive. I had watched the trailer for the movie I was about to watch and thought it interestingly seductive – dangerously so. As I cast my gaze around the cinema, my apprehension only grew as I realized that I would share the screen with a gaggle of individuals in their late teens, excitedly murmuring and giggling with one another. I knew that they were expecting a romantic drama, a homoerotic fantasy between Jacob Elordi and Barry Keoghan, be damned their characters’ names. This was to be 2023’s Call Me By Your Name. And so, I leaned back in my seat, opened up my packet of M&M’s, and crossed my fingers that these women would leave the cinema disappointed.

It was an orgy of disappointment, which worked precisely because it resisted the urge to indulge in the type of orgiastic sexuality which so easily could have seen it derailed

And disappoint it did. It might be said that Saltburn is the disappointment of the year, and I mean this in a positive way. It was an orgy of disappointment, which worked precisely because it resisted the urge to indulge in the type of orgiastic sexuality which so easily could have seen it derailed.

Of course, the relationship between the two lead characters, the aristocratic Felix (Elordi) and the working-class Oliver (Keoghan), was pregnant with sexual tension. The two share a bathroom at Felix’s magnificent country house, which acted as something of a portal to inner corporeal desires. It was a liminal space of desire, but one which never actuates into a space of sexual fulfilment. A snatched glance and a kiss of the sinkhole is all we get. Even Oliver’s admission of love to Felix is rejected, the uncertain sexual energy between the two dissipating into the air rather than solidifying into a dreary and stable object.

But whilst the homoerotic potential of this movie pleasingly never achieves fruition, it is certainly true that the Director, Emerald Fennell, offers plenty to shock the audience. Oliver’s flirtation with Felix’s sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver), is dangerous and bloody (literally), whilst Oliver’s later scene in the graveyard, which I defer from describing for reasons of decency, gives a measure of a film which seeks to provoke its audience.

Ordinarily, I would be disdainful of these attempts to shock. I have no particular love for blood, sex, and gore being shown explicitly upon the screen as it usually acts as a cloak which bad writing and directing hide behind. However, in both its visual style and narrative substance, Saltburn avoids this fate and therefore (just about) justifies its more shocking moments.

The extra height to the frame allows us to take in rooms from floor to ceiling, giving a far greater expression of scale and grandeur than would otherwise be afforded

Visually, the choice of Academy Ratio over the usual wide-screen cinema scope is a clever one, particularly in the way it can capture interior scenery. The extra height to the frame allows us to take in rooms from floor to ceiling, giving a far greater expression of scale and grandeur than would otherwise be afforded. At the same time, due to its greater narrowness, the framing condenses the characters together, creating a sense of social suffocation. This wonderful contrast, between the expanse of scenery and closeness of characters, works perfectly in a movie which, more than anything, wants to contrast the grandeur of its location with the pettiness of its people.

Narratively speaking, the plot is constantly growing and outrunning its audience. We are never left to ponder a character arc for too long, something which could easily cause a film to become static and boring. This wonderful pacing, lingering long enough to explore the dynamics of a scene or relationship, but never long enough to induce stasis, provides the film with a momentum which cannot fail to enrapture its audience.

Our entry point into the movie is the relationship between Oliver and Felix, beginning at Oxford but eventually moving to Felix’s family estate: Saltburn. Here, the relationship traverses its rise, zenith, and fall. On its own, it is compelling, and yet this relationship arc is overlayed with others, such as that between Oliver and Venetia, as well as that between Oliver and Felix’s parents (brilliantly portrayed by Rosamund Pike and Richard E Grant). In fact, by the time we are over halfway in, Felix’s prominence begins to fade as he becomes just another member of the Saltburn set who Oliver must befriend and seduce. This provides the movie with a wonderful ambiguity, as Oliver’s status at Saltburn is not determined by a single relationship but rather a web of relationships which he has meticulously cultivated.

This ambiguity is on show in other facets of the movie also. Fennell herself has described Saltburn as a vampire movie, but what is so clever is that she leaves the audience unsure as to who the vampires are. From rooting for Oliver, the audience is left, by the end, sympathising with the Saltburn set – an incredible achievement given how odious they seemed when first introduced. This is a movie, therefore, without a clear divide between protagonists and antagonists.

This choice not only contributes to a compelling screenplay, but also contributes to the overall message of the movie. Fennell could so easily have taken the easy option and directed a diatribe against wealth and privilege. I am reminded of 2022’s Triangle of Sadness which, despite winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes, was in reality a vulgar and shallow satire of wealth, with all the complexity and subtlety of an A-Level Politics essay.

Fennell’s treatment of her subject is sympathetic. Instead of denouncing and dehumanising the rich as evil bloodsuckers, she instead shows how they are socialised into a certain way of thinking and acting

Instead, Fennell’s treatment of her subject is sympathetic. Instead of denouncing and dehumanising the rich as evil bloodsuckers, she instead shows how they are socialised into a certain way of thinking and acting. The Saltburn set are not malicious; they are just fantastically naïve. To return to the theme of vampires, it is not they who are vampires but rather the house itself, which locks these aristocrats within a cocoon of their own ignorance and sucks the humanity from them. And just as it corrupts them, so it corrupts the upstart Oliver, who finds its trappings irresistible. The Saltburns thus become victims of their own social surroundings, their own constructed sense of superiority, a tragic sacrifice to the social edifice which they themselves helped create.

And so, picking up my bottle of water and discarding my now empty packet of M&M’s in a nearby bin, I left the cinema in a rather good mood. Those leaving with me bore the scars of the experience in the expressions which adorned their faces. Their disappointment was obvious, my satisfaction manifested.