Movie Review: Anyone want to talk about Saltburn?

[Pamela Jo]

How did Saltburn become the most talked-about film of awards season?. Emerald Fennell is a very interesting writer/ director. "Promising Young Woman" was edgy and visually stunning. Saltburn is...definitely not something I want to watch again. The most interesting thing about it is the zeitgeist it seems to have caught. I still cant decide whether it was a waste of time or worthwhile to watch. Imagine a structure where everything happens in the reveal in the last 10 minutes or so.

 

[TimRees]

I have watched half so far and not sure whetgher I want to watch the rest. No emotional connection with any character, so I really don't care enough about what happens next...

 

[Vagabond Heart]

It was a bit too easy to guess some of that 'reveal' though, didn't you think?

SPOILER ALERT
Plus there was an almighty plot hole. As soon as the pretty boy was found dead, an autopsy would have been done and the poison, that creepy guy put in the wine, discovered. The coroner couldn't rule it as 'death by misadventure' without an autopsy. And when sis conveniently took her own life days later, the police would have been hounding them all, surely.

 

[Pamela Jo]

It was a bit too easy to guess some of that 'reveal' though, didn't you think?

SPOILER ALERT
Plus there was an almighty plot hole. As soon as the pretty boy was found dead, an autopsy would have been done and the poison, that creepy guy put in the wine, discovered. The coroner couldn't rule it as 'death by misadventure' without an autopsy. And when sis conveniently took her own life days later, the police would have been hounding them all, surely.

Yeah, all that stuff. And yet it is winning awards. Critics hated it. Target audience of young people - buying the soundtrack. Is this Sally Rooney Normal People stuff? Just stick in some nude whacked gross-out scenes. Bob's your Uncle, you've got a hit?

I think we were supposed to get at the last reveal that he is super smart and therefore researched the wine poison so it wouldn't turn up for the coroner. He was planning on doing it all along. From the beginning.

Plus fill-in blanks when rich young people top themselves it's covered up. The whole DR scene was to show how the family controlled everything. If they wanted it forgotten and the narrative rewritten-that is what happened. So when Sis topped herself because she couldn't live without the incestuous relationship with the brother....

But the rich people don't have natural predators premise is bullshite. Look at the Royals. All that hunting stags and foxes, first blood stuff. The old country house families have been taught to be stone cold killers for centuries. And need we talk about the psycho tendencies of the new wealthy? The Tories are eating their own.

The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith did it so much better.

 

[Pamela Jo]

I have watched half so far and not sure whetgher I want to watch the rest. No emotional connection with any character, so I really don't care enough about what happens next...

It's really a gimmick kind of plot. But it's working. Much bigger audience than the directors first film "A Promising Young Woman." The only reason to finish it is research into what audiences are into.

 

[Pamela Jo]

Yeah, Class war on the dancefloor: how rich gen Zers started a Saltburn craze that is beyond satire