Saltburn
MGM + AMAZONIt is hard to know where to start with Emerald Fennell and her sophomore effort Saltburn. Fennell is no newcomer to both cinema and controversy, an actress and writer known for bit parts in small independent British shows such as Call the Midwife, Drifters, and Chickens in the last decades. As of late, however, Fennell has drastically been brought to the centre stage in front and behind the camera after her performance in The Crown and her directorial debut effort in the well-received, albeit heavily controversial, Promising Young Woman, starring Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham. Said film concerns Mulligans' character who, after being traumatised after her friend was raped and the perpetrators go unpunished, sets in a crusade for vengeance with devastating results. Promising Young Woman, like its namesake, showcased a director in Fennell who has a stirring and promising vision but, ultimately, is a film that never takes that next essential step.
Now the time comes to evaluate Saltburn, Fennell’s sophomore effort. Saltburn finds quiet loner and Liverpoodlian Oliver, played by Barry Keoghan, who is slowly entranced into the life and family of Felix (Jacob Elrodi) after meeting him at Oxford University, with severe and devastating consequences. Saltburn, disappointingly so, is an egotistic, vapid, nasty, regressive venture that has no meaning, has no point and, with an inch of its life, can not fathom the characterisation of subtlety or nuance. For starters, the utter hypocrisy of watching an Oxford Graduate (Fennell) craft a venture of the middle class infiltrating the higher class with deadly consequences and in turn ask the audience to have emotive investment and emotive response is ghastly and flat. Essentially, the audience is expected to feel sorry for the sentiment of eating the rich or to find solace in a sadistic narcissist for over two hours and want him to succeed. It is all equally silly and narrow-minded. This is a question that will be reiterated ten-fold, but what does the audience take away from that? What does the film present in showcasing this dynamic? Only an utter sadist would find solace in the acts presented on screen. Engaging material and a competent creation would present the subject or abstract to dissect, to pierce into conversation and have purpose; this feeling is nowhere near to be found and has no interest in presenting. What else is there to engage with bar hollow, empty sensation? By its own craft and creation, Fennell's film falls at the first hurdle of having anything worthy of substance. Nothing here is remotely thought-provoking or gives license for the audience to think or feel. Take the most simplistic form of its soundtrack for starters: nostalgic hits of 2006 echo dance floors and university halls, but listen a little closer, and it just showcases how empty this misfire is. Even the choices of soundtrack are as ill-thought-out and without an inch of subtlety or nuance, someone thought that Murder on the Dancefloor was compelling and thought-provoking, didn’t they? Jesus wept.
Without worthwhile content and depth in terms of tone and theme, Saltburn has one thing resting on its shoulders: aesthetic. Even then, Fennell can not justify certain cinematic choices and decisions. Starting with the most obnoxious and empty of those, is Fennell and co. deciding to opt for an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, and the question remains, why? It adds nothing to the elevate or heighten this feature whatsoever. It does not heighten the supposed claustrophobia of Oliver forcefully pushing his way through Saltburn and its inhabitants, nor elevate the nature of tone, in which the feature’s characters begin to drown and intoxicate in the uncomfortable nature of proceedings. It is not used for any of that aside from being a rich import into being a darling on TikTok and Twitter cinema aesthetic. It is simply a tool to look interesting and is the embodiment of style over substance. What a flagrant nonsensical and lifeless sentiment; such a decision imposed says a great deal about this venture as a whole, but ultimately one that will define this as merely interesting or compelling without a vested interest in anything else of its content or material. It is essentially a big-budget fine art project that never stands on its own two feet, and aside from being superficial, it’ll gain traction for looking good and having zero substance. Tonally, this is the same hollow point Fennell’s film – ironically, just like the context of the film itself – finds the audience falling for, essentially something that isn’t real and never existed but enamoured through visual delight.
This is an ideal and ideology that Fennell’s film is cleverly devised as a simplistic, faux outrage venture with vile sequences devised to get attention. Just saying that last sentence aloud and reminiscing back into Fennell’s attempt with Promising Young Woman brings incredible red flags to mind, but that is for another time. Nevertheless, this is a feature that is so hollow in craft and content without substance, that the lack of nuance and subtlety acts to cover up the gargantuan holes left by the dire writing. Forcing the viewer to bear witness to horrid sequences of vile nature in the viewer's face prevents said audience from asking deeper questions about the film and its morals, asking questions upon themselves or the acts depicted but is regulated to discuss the obscene. It is a basic fast-food recipe in that it’s quick and easy, but nobody knows what its ingredients are nor the moral backstory in how it is created. There are two clear-as-day examples of this, the first being the obvious queer-bating to gain traction within the online Twitter crowd to “ship” these actors and characters thus gaining online traction to the film itself through Twitter dialogue and stan accounts that dedicate their entire existence to actors and actresses. What hollow, superficial bullshit that is for cinema in 2023 to retort to in gaining traction. The second is similar ideals in depicting quite graphic sexual acts that are both uncomfortable and unnecessary to get a point across.
The issue with the latter – once again – is the rampant diabolical use of the non-existent nuance or subtlety, and to make a point of having to repeat this is just ridiculous and tedious in writing but is so consistently true within this venture it is hard not to repeat said perplexing attribute. Alas, Fennell has seen cinema, she has acted and been around the ideals of what makes writing and cinematic craft engaging and prolific but retorts to the most mundane and obvious cinematic conventions imaginable. The second aspect – like the Twitter problem – is that using these moments of dire set-pieces is that it becomes the nature of the beast when getting word of mouth and growing within the cinematic hemisphere. Granted, for the smaller ventures within cinema this is a wonderful opportunity for greater reception when budget and allocation of spending is limited but for an MGM and Amazon joint venture and Bafta Academy award-represented director and film to retort to such tactics for infamy is laughably inexcusable and exhausting, and once again, showcases so little merit in the fact that Saltburn has anything to say.
Touching on the dynamic of what Saltburn has to say comes back to Fennell herself. Having had the privilege of attending University myself (nowhere near as prestigious as Oxford) and still paying for it in mind, Saltburn is a venture that has been thought up by a group of people smoking weed in Daddy’s mansion during summer break and brainstorming the most thought-provoking sentiment that only these people in there nightmares could think of being a 21st-century hell at the manor fort: a commoner coming to stay for tea. It has been done before within this medium in the frame of a stranger disrupting the peace from Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt to Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank. Saltburn, however, is laughably and ludicrously undercut and underrepresented and just screams an Oxford graduate who does not understand the real world and does not know what reality is. A quintessential example of this is that Fennell laughably mentions the race dynamics of Saltburn in the "help" being Black, and their operators/employers being white. Without hyperbole, this in contrast is four seconds long and has a character glance at another minority character. That is it. Fennell has no sheer idea of what to do with this story and character arc for the rather terrific Gran Turismo lead Archie Madekwe, and just throws it in the wind. Why then implement it; why touch on this incredibly rich and important topic within the establishment to brush it off? All because it gives the idea that if it is mentioned, then it means it is acknowledged, which is exactly the characteristic of why these power dynamics still occur in the first place, doing the same thing Fennell attempts to chastise her characters for themselves contextually in the features topic of grief. Laughable.
Granted, a sense of embellishment in the grandiose is not necessarily a problem, but it is the dynamic of being so obtusely superfluous and presented in an insipid manner of pandering and faux insight into this world that makes it more condescending. There is no nuance to this venture because as lifeless and empty as it was thought up, is resultingly flat in how it is crafted. Fennell could come out and predispose the intentions and argument of what this film is truly about and what it has to say, and if she does, knowing the patronising societal dynamic of the plot, its insipid and vile connotations of using mental illness as a character motif, its lethargic and regressive conventions of stereotypical design, what would that say about her? This then leads to the issues presented within the content which deserves to have the controversial label upon it in its horrifyingly patronising and vile usage. Fennell optimises the most superficial and obvious of traits and conventions to craft the “working class” in drug-addicted parents from Liverpool of all places (why not the streets of Heroin Glasgow if playing the game guessing stereotype?) and then fire even bigger shots at the likes of bulimia and suicide, using them as nothing but entertaining set piece and shock value. What a startling and shitty proclamation to make and say. To not give these matters the substance they deserve and use them as empty vessels to build character moments of uncomfortable nature is as hollow and vile as they come. Bulimia and suicide are not elements that should be off the table, but to use them so poorly and indiscreetly comes with the feeling that Fennell should leave these things alone.
Then there comes the comedic embellishment of the higher class and tonal discourse, which is as hollow and empty as they come. Discussions and gossip on how the other half live in comedic moments about drug abuse, sexual abuse and, once again, suicide are presented in a manner of “laugh at us” but undeniably presented in a disturbing message of “laugh with us”. It’s all just so laughable, underwritten and presented, and shockingly inept. Carey Mulligan and Rosamund Pikes' characters are the major two faults here in how they’re presented as bubbling bimbos who live off men and say and do nothing for themselves. Why? These two characters are quite interesting to divulge on paper, but the final product utilises them to ridicule rather than invest. The whole set of characters here, in fact, are simplistic caricatures and one-dimensional beings that have absolutely no material or substance. How is an audience meant to invest and be immersed within this world if what is presented as such does absolutely nothing to make it all believable or authentic? And if anyone utters the ideals of it being a satire, what a colossal load of tosh is easily something the film attempts to hide behind in its shortcomings, confirming that if this is satire, it certainly has no idea it is not as smart as it thinks it is.
Having to sit through this slobber and ignorance is one thing, but for two hours and eleven minutes should be a criminal offence. Made all the more demeaning is that even when it’s over, the film has another thirty minutes of utter perplexing tripe with dire, insignificant and barbaric moments of faux meaning and ideal to poison its viewer even further. This is the portion that will push anyone over the edge in terms of indulgence, character choices and narrative reveals, deserving none of what it tries to establish in said decisions. Simply put: the last portion of the viewing encapsulates and exemplifies what a piece of diabolical waste this experience is, watching it trudge on into nothingness and a Twitter-sphere of visual plaudits without an inch or hair of resonance.
Alas, to end on positives, the film does boast a terrific melody on visual texture and touch. Certain sequences here just dazzle in how Fennell captures sweat dripping or teardrops rolling down raw and burning eye ducts. It is sensual and oftentimes sexualised from the POV of Oliver and does, to its credit, reinforce the uncomfortable nature of what Oliver sees and his projection of his reality. But all this is sadly lost in the fact it cultivates in small drops of something quite proud and touching into large pools of meandering nothingness, and what a shame that is. The second is the standout of Jacob Elrodi and newcomer Alison Oliver. The former understands the assignment completely and crafts something quite compelling in a character who is essentially working in conjunction with the audience, following an equal trajectory of frustration and pain before it’s all over but is constantly charismatic and charming. Alsison Oliver acts as the sweet taste in all this poison. She is outrageously effective and never raises her voice to enrapture the viewer. A devilish smile here and an impromptu drop of all thought in the next with a constant acknowledging of knowing so much more than the audience does, but as stated in the many complaints above, is regulated to nothingness and done so dirty within the dynamics of this screenplay.
Promising Young Woman was, and still is, described as a dangerous and controversial film, and equally so will Saltburn for the forthcoming tyrannical years of it being a Twitter darling. However, while Promising Young Woman touches on ever so poignant and unsettling themes with a degree of success, nothing in Saltburn is remotely daring, new or compelling. It is from a creator who does not seem to understand the basic constructs of cinematic landscape, convention or intention. Instead, falling and selling its soul to the crowd of infamous Twitter darlings and not to any degree being infamous or dangerous whatsoever, and especially nowhere near having the guts and gall to stand up and say anything worthy of note. This is now the second attempt of Fennell taking strong poignant themes and trouncing them with her heavy-handed approach both visually and thematically for a crowd. In her first film, there was an acceptance to her approach in themes, yet here it is regulated purely on an aesthetic front – which so disappointing to even have to write – and is doing so to stand out within the standout crowd without earning anything to state as such. But what more can be said about an Oxford graduate from money wanting to faux-attack the higher class but ultimately sabotages itself: sounds awfully like Saltburn.
