The Saltburn We Should Have Had

This review contains major spoilers for Emerald Fennell’s ‘Saltburn’ (2023)

There are few films that are able to generate as much buzz among Oxford students as Saltburn (2023), a sophomore project directed by Greyfriars alumna Emerald Fennell. It is easy to see why: glittering performances from the towering 6’5”, Euphoria up-and-comer Jacob Elordi and Oscar underdog Barry Keoghan, who promised audiences as disturbing a performance as he delivered in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017); confectionery-sweet visuals from cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land); and, of course, the Rad Cam in its full, sunlit splendour. In those aspects, Saltburn certainly delivered – even if the Rad Cam was only on-screen for about 30 seconds… So why does Saltburn, full of promise, fall so flat for its naysayers?

Saltburn begins with Keoghan’s Oliver Quick on his first day of school, heading towards the fictional Webbe College (which we know to be Brasenose). Oliver, meticulously attired in his college scarf, is reticent and takes everything in. Elordi’s Felix Catton, on the other hand, has all the makings of a college BNOC – except that he is a little bit more charming and a lot more generous (as we come to know). Oliver and Felix, through a series of plot contrivances, become unlikely friends. Then we are treated to a beautiful montage of fresher shenanigans, with shots in flashing neon lights from the club floor; and images drenched in sunset hues which paint the skies of the rooftop scenes. It’s nostalgic. It’s ephemeral. The honeymoon of their new friendship ends once Oliver tells Felix that his dad has just died. The prospect of going up ‘North(?)’ to Prescot to return to the broken home that awaits him once term ends is so undesirable that Oliver doesn’t think he’ll ‘ever go home again.’ So, Felix invites him to stay at Saltburn.

A ham-handed reference to Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (‘a lot of Waugh’s characters are based on my family, actually’), and plot points liberally borrowed from The Talented Mr. Ripley, are early hints at the flaws in Fennell’s screenwriting. Once the Saltburn Manor chapter of the film commences, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore just how much rot there is in this film’s woodwork. 

There is a level of Skins-type cringe here that is forgivable. Saltburn is bookended with Oliver’s ‘Was I in love with him?’ (I don’t know, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me) monologue. It also features one of the most guffaw-inducing lines of dialogue, which comes (again) from Oliver before having oral period sex with Alison Oliver’s Venetia, Felix’s sister (‘It’s lucky for you, I’m a vampire’). We can laugh or roll our eyes at these moments while also seeing what Fennell was trying to achieve, even if she goes about this with painfully little subtlety. Similarly, the most shocking scenes designed to get everyone talking and tweeting were handled with a Lars Von Trier level of pretension and bravado. These scenes were every bit as subtle as a melancholic woman faced with the threat of death by a rogue planet named ‘Melancholia.’ But Fennell’s most egregious sin is the bait-and-switch that occurs just over halfway through the film, when we find out that Oliver’s broken home is in fact…a red-brick detached house? More than that, his dead dad is very much alive, and his mother seems more likely to watch the dog-show Crufts for recreation than to take any drug stronger than Yorkshire Tea. At this point in the film, the viewer is violently removed from what seemed to be Oliver’s perspective, and is forced instead into the third-person. Any motivation that we may have discerned from Oliver’s backstory is stripped away, making us dependent on what Oliver tells us his motivation is. It leaves us at the mercy of Emerald Fennell’s writing. 

Some critics of Saltburn suggest that the film’s ending was its biggest let-down. One could argue instead that the film falls flat after Oliver’s lies are revealed, because, from that point on, it must find a more nebulous reason for Oliver’s interloping. The Saltburn we get is one in which Felix and the rest of the Cattons generally come out morally unscathed, while Oliver himself is cartoonishly villainised by the end. All nuance is gone. Any chance for meaningful class commentary instantly vanishes. I don’t believe Fennell’s Saltburn has anything meaningful to say about desire. The Saltburn we could have had is one in which Felix is not rewarded for his presumptuous optimism in meddling with his friend’s family affairs. That Saltburn would have been one in which Felix could have been forced to confront the rough from which his brilliant friend came from. If Felix – after learning too much, and realising he knew so little – had pulled away from Oliver, some of the film’s better moments could still have been kept. Oliver still might have apologised for not being good enough for Felix anymore; but, in the end, when Oliver finally says that he loved him but hated him all the same, we would understand why.