Posted on 9.1.23: “I’ve just come out of Emerald Fennell‘s Saltburn, and it’s all about diseased psychologies and relentlessly dislikable people except for the delectably good-looking Jacob Elordi.
“It reeks of class hatred, oddness, perversity, arch upper-crust attitudes, callousness and class resentment, the slurping of dirty bath water, a nude Greek satyr finale featuring a fairly sizable schlongola, ‘wrong time of the month’ fingering + cunnilingus, high-impact visual punctuation for the sake of high-impact visual punctuation.
“Or, if you will, bold style amounting to absolutely nothing except bold style.
“Yeah, it’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, all right — Barry Keoghan, owner of the most famous and obtrusive bee-stung nose I’ve ever been forced to contemplate in film after film, is Matt Damon, and the incredibly beautiful Jacob Elordi is Jude Law, and Keoghan-the-interloper is one slinky, clumsy, weird-ass sociopath who hates himself, his parents, rich people, all people….he loves only Elordi except he’s not gay as much as (quoting Alison Oliver‘s Venetia character) a moth…a moth attracted to a glittery, super-wealthy flame.
“Saltburn is deeply divisive [among Telluriders], inspiring intense like-hate reactions…fans so far include Matt Neglia, Erik Anderson, Clayton Davis, Greg Ellwood. Haters include myself, David Ehrlich, Peter Debruge, David Rooney.
“I despised it so much that I took a 10-minute lobby break around the 70-minute mark.
“TheWrap‘s Tomris Laffly: ‘Saltburn works as a distinct and wildly entertaining probe into familiar waters of privilege, rather than the definite word on it.” Except it’s not a ‘distinct and wildly entertaining’ anything unless you have some kind of incurable aesthetic cancer festering inside you.”