#im a wizened connoisseur of snobby dark academia

[notsp1derman]

an unimpressed review of saltburn, directed by emerald fennell

[may contain spoilers]

All my friends know that I'm a stubborn little shit that will watch all the new and hyped stuff only MONTHS after everyone stopped talking about it. So to everyone's surprise, especially mine, I watched Saltburn just weeks after its release.

My boyfriend and I decided to do a double feature of Call Me By Your Name and Saltburn, because people kept comparing the two of them, and to those people I say: WHAT THE FUCK? Do you even have a single braincell between all of you? Saltburn actually made me realize how immature my first opinion of cmbyn was, because you can't just take one or two questionable sex scenes in a beautiful queer coming of age movie and compare it to whatever the fuck Saltburn is. I'm dead serious.

This film was tailored to be edited into aesthetic tik toks from people thirsting over Jacob Elordi, which is understandable I guess, and to make all the boring average people of the world SCANDALIZED by o b s c e n i t i e s in this weird wave of exaggerated purity we're having. Then Fennel slapped some stereotypical and dull social commentary right at the end and tried to make it look purposeful, as if it's not just a fetishization of the bourgeoisie and old money.

That's the short version. The long-ish version is that this movie had so much potential, and I'm shocked to see that it was mostly wasted till the end. I'm not kidding when I say that the only thing keeping this afloat is the cast, and they're far from the best jobs of the main actors, despite them all being great at their jobs. Jacob Elordi is the only one not completely stereotypical, Barry Keoghan has only one facial expression, and I don't really care for the rest. At least Rosamund Pike is having a blast. The queen that she is.

The plot looks promising until you basically figure the rest of the movie barely after arriving at Saltburn, and then have to plough your way through montages of rich people Being Cool and Loving Being Rich. It baffles me how we end up feeling pity for them instead of the psycho main character, even though the plot screams at you to take him seriously. Dude, you can't have it all in one film ok? Sometimes you have to choose between a tour-de-force with a weird as fuck main character that is pure entertainment OR a social commentary on the rich with a realistic approach to nuanced themes. Saltburn tries to be both and fails miserably, a little baby bird that flew (not that high, but to some distance) only to fall down in the end. At least the last song is a banger to make up for it.

The rest of saltburn isn't nearly as groundbreaking as it seems, and its use of aesthetics to paint the rich in an elegant and aristocratic light does a great job of obliterating the very same "eat the rich" commentary it tries to shove at us at the end. Instead of the very much real and terrible financial inequalities and its consequences, we get the most unoriginal "look, money doesn't make them happy!1! they're human after all!!1" plot, and oliver just looks like an unhinged dude that's really jealous of the lavish lifestyle of the rich.

So no, thanks, I'll be leaving this film for the 14 year olds on here to thirst over jacob elordi. have fun kids.

★★☆☆☆