A young, middle class man at Oxford finds himself unable to fit in. Soon, he makes a new friend who invites him to spend the summer at his family’s estate.
I have never watched a film that made me want to un-see… not for the joy of experiencing it again, but so I could forget it ever existed. That’s how I felt after finishing Saltburn.
The film is all over the place… it’s puzzling. Not in a “this is so profound and meaningful” type of way but a “wtf were they thinking when writing this” way. The penultimate scene showing Oliver puncturing Felix’s tire, pretending to be broke at the bar, etc, is meant to be some insane revelation (based on the score and build-up), but anyone with a brain had already put two and two together. Oliver’s nature was given away so many times: the bathtub scene, the realization that he lied about his parents’ situation, the period sex scene, and countless others.
If you look at any other film in its genre–Black Swan, Silence of the Lambs, Parasite, Funny Games, etc–they all leave you with something to chew on. The best psychological thrillers leave some information for the reader to deduce and fill in the blanks, which also leads to some engaging discussions, fan theories, what have you. I can’t count how many times I’ve discussed Shutter Island, for example, with my friends and had really engaging conversations each time. Saltburn just doesn’t offer that; it’s written in the form of a Sparknotes page, where every event is explained thoroughly right after it occurs.
Not to mention, it ruined bathtubs for me… and graves.