I will gladly pass on a horror film full of nothing but jump scares for an enthralling thriller any day.
There’s nothing more exhilarating than watching a film that stays with you weeks after you’re done watching it.
Director Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn” is now one of those thrillers that send chills down my spine and yet, my brain keeps replaying its most disturbing scenes.
In “Saltburn”, Oliver, played by Berry Keoghan, and Felix, played by Jacob Elordi, meet at Oxford University after Oliver lends Felix his bike on campus to go to class.
Later, they run into each other at a pub and Felix helps Oliver pay for a round of drinks when he can’t afford it.
Felix and Oliver start to become great friends and grow closer, even though Felix is popular and Oliver is withdrawn.
Oliver’s father passes away and he tells Felix his parents are both drug addicts and the plot thickens when Felix invites Oliver to stay at his family’s estate for the summer.
Oliver spends his summer with Felix and his blue-blooded family. The scenes of the wealthy family and Oliver sunbathing on estate grounds and drinking wine were delightfully memorable.
Most people will bring up the infamous bathtub scene while talking about “Saltburn”, but it's nothing compared to the funeral scene.
Until this point of the movie, I was convinced that Oliver just had an unreciprocated crush on Felix and that’s why Oliver stalked him. People do crazy things for attention if their affection is unrequited.
What Oliver does in the bathtub is in private and there’s an ominous foreboding that Felix might catch him in the act, but what happens in the graveyard scene occurs outside, while Felix is buried in the fresh grave.
To me, this scene was Oliver’s way of showing Felix the power dynamic between them has changed because Felix is dead and can’t do anything to stop him now.
Felix was my favorite character because he treated Oliver with kindness when his entire friend group — including his cousin Farleigh — judged Oliver’s clothes and quirks.
I believe Felix had no intentions on being this dominant figure in Oliver’s life and that’s what makes the graveyard scene so disturbing to me.
Eventually, Felix finds out Oliver actually comes from a normal, middle-class family.
After confronting him for lying, Felix decides Oliver needs to leave Saltburn, but the next morning, Felix was found dead in the Saltburn maze.
The first sign that something was wrong with Oliver was when he followed Felix to the pub and stood outside of his window while he was getting intimate with a girl, but it wasn’t until the graveyard scene that it clicked in my brain that Oliver was not in love with Felix.
Oliver actually has always been a sick person the entire movie, but since he is the main character, I didn’t want anything to happen to him.
In fact, there were scenes I was relieved when Oliver got away with something, like when he lied to Felix about hooking up with his sister Venetia.
Oliver reveals he killed Felix and Venetia to his mother Elspeth who was in hospice at the end of the movie.
After his father James asks Oliver to leave Saltburn and cease contact with Elspeth, she invites Oliver to come back to Saltburn years later now that James died.
The audience can assume that Oliver caused her to be sick since he was responsible for Felix and Venetia’s deaths.
Keoghan portrays the most tragic yet realistic death in “Saltburn” when Oliver yanks out Lady Elspeth’s breathing tube while sitting on top of her, once again demonstrating the power he has over this family.
Oliver inherits the house once every family member is dead, and he dances naked through the huge Saltburn estate to the pop song “Murder on the Dancefloor” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
There is nothing the audience can do but watch him do it because we are frozen, similar to Felix and his family who are deceased.
I loved “Saltburn” because while some may say it is an “eat the rich” or “if I can’t have you, no one can” trope, I think it’s just an easy cop out to interpret the film.
Oliver could’ve afforded those drinks at that bar after all.
His family doesn’t come from generational wealth, but they do well for themselves.
Fennell shows the audience that Oliver decided to wreak havoc on Felix and his family just because their kindness made it so easy for him.
Also, no one in their right mind would have sex with a grave that holds a person they love.
“Saltburn” is so twisted because it shows the audience that some people don’t need reasons to validate how they harm people.
Sometimes, it’s just because that’s who they are at their core and they’re good at hiding it until they don’t need to.
