Is Saltburn the Worst Stylish Film of All Time?
It's definitely the worst film and best dressed movie I've seen all year…and I loved it.
On Friday night, I procured tickets on Fandango to go see Emerald Fennell's sophomoric effort, Saltburn come Sunday evening. I hadn't seen her freshman film, Promising Young Women, but it was released to wide acclaim and even won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. My girlfriend had some choice words for the film, which is why I still haven't seen it three years later. From what I understand, Emerald Fennell is a divisive filmmaker. Saltburn currently sits at 59/100 on Metacritic, which isn't great. If you listen to TikTok and Podcasts, however; you'd think the film was going to be sitting atop the Sight and Sound top 100 films of all time 2032 list.
I'll be divulging details about the film, so if you haven't seen it already and plan to, now may be the time to look away. The film centers around a character named Oliver Quick, played by Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin, Dunkirk), a lower-class scholarship-boy attending Oxford. He admires the popular, charismatic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi of Euphoria and Priscilla) from afar. Through a chance encounter, Felix and Oliver become best friends. When Felix invites Oliver to live with him over the summer break at his family estate in rural England called Saltburn, everything begins to get weird.
Oliver is first seen as a shy, perhaps even traumatized boy at the start of the film, though there are flashes of extreme confidence and competence throughout the story, leaving viewers confused as we see them unfold. It's a classic tale of "boy is not who he seems," in the same vein as The Talented Mr. Ripley, which Fennell clearly uses as inspiration for this film. There are twists and turns, and a surprise ending that feels like a callback to a certain 90s film that I love (I cannot say which one. I've been trying to get my girlfriend to watch it with me and she reads this, so I cannot spoil it for her).
At the end of it, we were left saying "What was that all about?" What was all of that for? I would say the movie is a fun one to watch. It's hilariously dark and nihilistic while poking fun at the idle wealthy. It's kaleidoscopic, maximal, and beautiful to look at with some of the more breathtaking shots (i.e. shots in the castle shot with natural light, reflections in water, etc.) that you'll see in a film this year. I was entertained throughout, but the question still remains: What was all of that for?
What were Oliver's actions motivated by? Why did Fennell need to include some of the more grotesque scenes in the film? What was the point? If the film seeks to purely entertain, the Fennel did her job. If she was seeking to make a grand proclamation about the nature of wealth and class and the overall human condition (which seems to be the case), she flunked the test. Some movies are just that - movies. They tell an entertaining story that we spend 2 hours with and when it's over, we move on. Others are staggering works of art, challenging us to think deeply about specific topics at hand. Some movies make us better. Saltburn isn't that, but then again, most films aren't. If the point of Saltburn was to entertain, then it was a good movie, but I don't think that was the sole objective, which is why I categorize it as a bad movie in my humble, non-film-critic mind. In the end, it felt directionless, lacked continuity and didn’t hit the mark it was intending to.
That being said, Saltburn was the most stylish film of the year. It might be the most stylish bad movie I've ever seen. Nothing has made me want to be tall and skinny like watch Elordi promenade around his English countryside estate sockless in a pair of straight-leg, vintage-looking blue jeans with a pastel-colored long-sleeve oxford shirt with the cuffs rolled and 2-3 buttons undone. The film takes place in the early 2000s (Oliver's character is supposed to be part of the Oxford University class of 2006) and traditional prep is still very much a staple in the film. Elordi can be seen wearing an array of jeans, Polo Ralph Lauren oxfords, long sleeve polo shirts rugby shirts or just a bathing suit in the summer. He wears a vintage Rolex Oyster Perpetual. British GQ ran a story about the watches that Elordi and Keoghan wear throughout the film:
“Felix’s old gold Rolex reinforces his chilled nonchalance to the audience. The watch probably doesn’t keep the best time, is on the small side [34mm], and is gold when most people at that time were wearing stainless [steel] – all things I'm sure Felix couldn’t care less about,” explains (propmaster Phil) Smith, adding that he and director Emerald Fennell liked the idea of the watch being a family heirloom that he just grabbed from his father's dressing room one day.
“The Rolex Bubbleback was not an expensive watch, especially in 2006,” says Brynn Wallner, writer and founder of watch platform, Dimepiece. “So, on the surface, it doesn’t seem like a flex [for a rich kid like Catton], but it actually signifies generational wealth.”
Elordi's Felix is a laid-back, old money kid. He knows that his life is supposed to turn out a specific way (though it sure doesn't in the film). He dresses as such. He always toes the line between put together and "idgaf," which is a personal style goal I want to hit.
Keoghan on the other hand is dressed a bit more tight wound. He wears well-fitting jeans and a tucked-in dress shirt upon arrival to the Saltburn estate. He appears more nervous, which is understandable because he allegedly doesn't come from money. His life is supposed to be a bit more of a struggle. The more we find out about his character, the more we learn about how calculated he is. He wears a $20 digital Casio watch, which is partly used to represent accuracy and calculation.
There is a scene early in the film where at the end of the school year, the Oxford students are wearing black tuxedos and one of the students asks Oliver if his tux is rented because the sleeves are too long. Later on at Saltburn, he wears a perfectly fitted tux provided by Felix's family. There is a lesson in there which can be paraphed simply by "if you know, you know" or "the devil is in the details." In an early-2000s- Tumblr-like moodboard of a scene, there is a montage done by to MGMT's "Time to Pretend," where Felix, Oliver, Farleigh (a biracial cousin) and Felix's sister Venitia are playing tennis while wearing tuxedos, followed by shots of them reading Harry Potter in their bathing suits by the pool. It's fun to look at, yes, but the scene feels like it is trying too hard to be on the nose. The song choice feels like it borders on parody.
There is a lot of aspirational style in this film. There's a lot of beauty in the film, but it lacks substance. There are strange plot holes in the film. On one occasion, Felix's sister makes an illusion to another student who stayed the summer before. We're led to believe that the darkness lurks beneath the surface among the family at Saltburn, but the film never addresses it. While Barry Keoghan plays his character so well, there are so many questions that I have about the motivations of his character. The movie left too many loose ends. The style distracted from the flaws, and the lack of ideas in the movie. Outside of the gorgeous visual elements, it's empty. I left the theatre learning nothing, feeling nothing. Amused? Sure. But the question stands, what did Emerald Fennell want to say? The whole point of the film isn't how sweet it is to be young, hot, and rich, but that's the closest I can come to finding a theme. At the end of the day, the film said nothing, but is enjoyable because it’s so pleasing stylistically. So maybe that’s the point?
Peace and Love
