Saltburn (Emerald Fennell, 2023) wr. Emerald Fennell; Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike
WTF? I thought this was going to be a(nother) simple story about social class in England. When it suddenly turned out (SPOILERS) to be a murder mystery – except that the murders had been conducted previously, and we already knew who dunnit (tho not at the time) – I had to reconsider everything I had just seen, even before the film ended. It suddenly trivialised the whole piece from another Brideshead Revisited or at least Downton Abbey into Murder on the Whatever, and the butler in the library with the candlestick. I had been tricked into considering the film in terms of art, whereas it was in fact mere entertainment, using obscene acts as one of its prominent tools.
It was 'my fault', of course. I try to watch films, whenever possible, without knowing anything about them. In this case, I didn't even know Saltburn was a place. Like I thought Aftersun was about tanning! (I still have nfi why it's called that.)
So ... ... judging the film by the criteria I assumed were appropriate as it began, I thought that most of the main characters were well portrayed: Richard E. Grant was a believable batty aristocrat, Rosamund Pike a plausible power behind his throne (her lines were very well written and she delivered them well), and (mainly) Jacob Elordi was both Upper Class and also human. ... Only the main character, Barry Keoghan's responsibility, did not fit into the matrix, because Keoghan can't act much – and he's ugly! This made sense only at the end of the film, when it's revealed that he's a one-dimensional, shallow, ugly murderer, who wants only to take what the rich have.
I hope to forget this film asap.
Garry Gillard | New: 9 January, 2024 | Now: 10 January, 2024