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 the 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, 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.
I’m catching Anatomy of a Fall at 1 pm, and then the widely praised All Of Us Strangers at 7:30 pm.