Is Saltburn Good?

Ehhhhhhhhh.

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”

—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“That's the coolest fucking story I've ever heard in my entire life! That's insane. Can I hear it again, do you have time?”

—Superbad

This happens every year. Everyone goes home around the holidays, eats themselves into a coma and then watches one new movie that hits streaming at the right/wrong time. 2023’s example of this is undoubtedly Saltburn.

I’ve had more discussions about Saltburn in the last few weeks with people catching up with it than perhaps any other movie, sans Barbie and Oppenheimer. The movie spread like wildfire due to its ingenious marketing strategy, which was essentially “This movie is fucked up, weird and twisty as hell.” It’s kind of those things.

It’s pretty entertaining, centers around a few good-to-great performances and is unbelievably dumb. Like remarkably ill-conceived and irritating. Is it a good movie? I don’t know. What is a movie? What’s the point of art? What are we all doing on this planet? How does one quantify worth during this never-ending march toward the abyss?

In short, no. It’s not good.

It starts with a fan-cam of Jacob Elordi, which … I get it. That’s an attractive man wearing very chic sweaters. It concludes with one of the lamest gotcha moments in recent history. And, it has no clue what kind of story it wants to tell.

The basic set-up for Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s bold(?) follow-up to the not-very-good Promising Young Woman, is a The Talented Mr. Ripley replica in which Barry Keoghan takes the Matt Damon spot and Jacob Elordi fills in for Jude Law. Saltburn is less expansive and a bit more on the nose, but the simplistic but fun premise is that of one young man admiring another young man so much that he doesn’t know whether to become him or love him. Keoghan’s Oliver Quick is poor and downtrodden. Elordi’s Felix Catton is posh and bewitching. They’re opposites. Or ARE they?

[pause for dramatic effect]

It’s a period piece of sorts, as it takes place in the early 2000s—I’ve never felt older than when a Livestrong bracelet shows up to signify the era—and wants to show a mirror to society’s greed and unquenchable lust for wealth that has toxified our world. However, it kind of fights its subtext when audiences can leave the theater to the ideas that “actually, the rich are trying their best” and “it’s the strivers that need to be taken down a couple notches.” Quite the screw-up there.

Saying that Fennell bit off more than she can chew is as strong as an understatement can get, as this movie hits you over the head with a sledgehammer of symbolism from its opening shots to its cruel (and much talked about) musical denouement.

I’m not against a fucked-up movie entering the mainstream, in fact, I kind of love it, as friends are trying out something they might normally ignore, but it’s kind of a bummer when something like this instead of other sex-fueled, out-there movies (Poor Things or Infinity Pool for example) don’t get a similar second life.

A movie with this much star power and backing—Fennell won an Oscar just a few years ago for her Promising Young Woman screenplay—is automatically thrust into the spotlight and should have a clear idea of some sort, instead of toppling over like a house of cards at first inspection.

I love Barry Keoghan, especially as a glorified weirdo like in The Banshees of Inisherin, The Green Knight and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, but his entire story in Saltburn is so obvious and telling that the big twist at the end feels so clear from the opening moments that you think there’s going to be another twist to the initial twist. Nope.

No gears are turning in the protagonist’s brain like in The Talented Mr. Ripley. There isn’t a crescendo or evil building. It’s just a bunch of screwed-up moments one after another, as Fennell’s just throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks.

This isn’t to say that the movie is a total failure. The claustrophobic directing, which comes from the 1.33:1 aspect ratio and focus on the Saltburn residence, and the performances, especially from Jacob Elordi, Alison Oliver and Rosamund Pike give the movie enough juice for the audience (or at least me) to stick with it. Fennell has a strong eye when it comes to making the viewer uncomfortable and some comedy bonafides in which jokes land, without ever insisting upon themselves. Still, the fact that this has become lauded in certain circles feels like a real misfire.

Making a movie in 2023 about the class divide, sexuality and toxic masculinity feels like a worthy attempt and potential classic, which makes it even more of a failure when this maze of a movie ends and you come away with, “Huh, I guess he really did [REMOVED FOR SPOILERS].”

Shock for shock’s sake is lazy. If we’re being optimistic, maybe Saltburn is a gateway movie for many who wouldn’t normally watch this type of thing to try out better, more interesting works.

There’s so much out there that shows this for what it is. A wannabe highbrow movie that is ultimately unrewarding. Watch something better. The tub runneth over … or whatever they say.