i hope you guys enjoy this video!!!! please ignore what looks like a lump on my eyebrow piercing (i literally couldn't staring at it watching this video back yuck), it's actually a scab (is this tmi) because i caught it on my pillowcase and it turned into an absolute blood bath, who knew putting a concealer on a scab would actually make it look worse 😭😭😭😭 time stamps: 00:00 - intro 05:06 - the premise 06:16 - what i liked about saltburn 14:50 - what i didn't like about saltburn
seeing the rich kids on tik tok do the murder on the dancefloor run through their mansions and estates made my working-class self feel ...something. not sure what
It's my biggest pet peeve when a film wants us to believe that a character is some genius mastermind manipulator, but their entire "plan" would have fallen apart if it wasn't for sheer luck. What if Elsbeth died before Sir James? What if they separated after the death of their children? What if Elsbeth didn't remember him or never invited him back to Saltburn?
this!! thats why it shouldnt have been deliberate or at least not deliberate from the start and more of a spiralling consequence and "well I've come this far, I might as well finish it"
That's exactly my perspective. This movie's story relies almost entirely on things that happen conviniently. What if Felix never drank from the poisoned bottle that Oliver gave him? What if Venetia never killed herself the next day? You're telling me Farleigh briefly stops suspecting Oliver's character after he gives him a hand job?? (which I'm still not sure was even all the way consenual), What exactly did Oliver do during that 15 year timespan?🤔 You're telling he just waited in the shadows that whole time for Sir James to die???😳 And then Elspeth was just so smitten by him, that after not seeing him for 15 years she's just signs over her fortune to him??? How????
The 15 year time jump is my biggest grievance with this movie. Why 15 years. I don’t believe Oliver would’ve waited that long, I don’t believe he would’ve left it up to chance that James would die first and possibly have Elsbeth forget him. There’s just no reason why it had to be such a long jump.
In my opinion, the ending montage depicting Oliver orchestrating meeting Felix, and setting up the murders seemed to be unnecessary. We didn't need to be spoon-fed the ending, and it might have been better had they left Oliver's involvement ambiguous, or even had him be blatantly shady to the audience.
Not really. I think it was the best part, and brought the whole thing together pretty well lol. Writing Oliver in a way that clearly makes him a psychopath but leaving some ambiguity to… quite how much of a psychopath he is ig… wouldn’t have been very effective. If anything I think it would leave the audience kinda confused, like, “so was he supposed to be a psychopath or were we supposed to have thought he was normal until they… drove him to psychopathy? But him lying from the start was obviously deranged… were we supposed to have found him deranged? Or were we supposed to have sympathised with him??’… which wouldn’t be good. It would have just seemed confusing and half-baked.
@@alexbennet4195it wouldn’t have been half baked. Especially because they showed us that he lied about his parents and siblings, him killing the mother and him dropping his innocent facade when meeting the sister outside. And it’s only very obvious he set up farleigh to be kicked out. By the end of the movie it was abundantly clear he was deranged and lying. It just kind of ruins it when we find out he orchestrated all that for what? The house?
This, 100% ! It would have been more impactful if Oliver's actions had been suggested rather than clearly shown. I felt like it made the whole movie look less deep and high quality than it could have been.
Literallyyy, i was like “okay so like 7/10 i think, but lets see the end” and then barry keoghan starts like cartoon villain twiddling his fingers while pacing the room explaining his whole plot, i was like what the heck guys. Cmon…
I’m so glad somebody had the same take about this movie! I wish Oliver kind of destroyed the Saltburn family unintentionally rather than being deliberate. I think it kind of would’ve had more of a message about self-sabotage in the search for comfort/attention or something in that sense? I also feel like the whole ending just holds our hand and spoon-feeds us the conclusion, leading to an somewhat disappointing and cheesy ending.
@tinker_belle41 I didn’t know that! While watching, it seemed like it started with infatuation with Felix that led to deliberate planning once Oliver realized what he could have.
@@mina_rose8965yea I can see people assuming his goal from the beginning was Saltburn but, for me personally, I've known people like Oliver and like Felix so it was very believable. People who get stuck in a lie because they want something and the lie helps them get it so the lie snowballs and makes them want more and more. People who are embarrassed of their wealthy parents obviously being out of touch with the average person yet they are carbon copies of their parents and act just like them but are slightly self-aware. And those types of people tend to attract each other.
@@tkim2320This would make more sense and is what I’d like to believe, Oliver wanting the audience to think that he was far more clever than he actually was. When in reality, it started off as not much more than a genuinely powerful obsession with Felix that gradually snowballed as things unfolded. For example, I don’t think Oliver expected his lies to be completely found out by Felix.
I thought the most disturbing and impactful scene for me was actually the scene where Felix's body is being wheeled away outside and the red curtains are lighting everything in red, the tension and discomfort was visceral.
Yes I agree with this take so much! It's always odd to me when people try to argue that Saltburn isn't about class, because as you said the very set-up means that it becomes class commentary whether Emerald Fennell likes it or not. And honestly to me class anxiety absolutely *saturates* this film - Oliver is not a character who actually reflects the ambitions of the middle class, he's almost a caricature of the fears of the aristocracy, combining "this working class Scouser is actually just faking his poverty" with "the middle class will do anything to climb the social ladder and steal the upper classes' birthright". I think what would've improved the film a lot for me (besides less shallow characterisation) is if Felix had actually been really into Oliver lying, because it feeds his ego that Oliver would reshape himself just to appeal to him, and what really makes Oliver monstrous is that he is so willingly eaten alive by the system.
I left almost this exact comment on another video. The reason Oliver is not a deep or well motivated character is he's a representational character, standing in for the fear the rich have of the middle class.
The movie was so cartoonish in this class struggle that when they arrived at oliver's house I was afraid that that lifestyle was going to be considered middle class, and felix would be delighted in taking in the charity case now that he saw 'poverty' more up close.
I felt it was partly more of a comment on the fact that they assumed he must be working class simply because he had a Liverpool accent and this annoyance at their arrogance.
i was very disappointed with the story of the film, i still had no idea what it was trying to say or how oliver someone who is very creepy manages to charm the entire family into trusting him. i hated the way the film wanted to seem clever by making oliver this master manipulater that plays 4d chess without actually showing us anything. i wanted to see his relationship with felix more than just a bunch of montages, i wanted to see him being conflicted of his love of felix and wanting the wealth that he has, and i also wanted to learn more about felix and his past "toys" that he brought to the house, the ideas are there but the end result says nothing besides "look at this creepy mastermind killing and tricking the rich ppl, isn't he just crazy?"
This! It could not commit to who Oliver was or who the family was. So I just was confused by the end. Oliver was creepy and off putting the whole movie. The family were like little babies learning about the world. I kinda wish they did what you were saying so you could have felt more pity for Oliver and like hated Farleigh more. Hated Felix more. But I just was like, they were kinda tools, but Oliver was a creepy tool too so who cares? And I just felt bad for Farliegh because he was so obviously right?
I think is completely fair to feel like that, because the last scene is Oliver telling us (via Elspeth) how he was so in controll all the time. But since the film starts by Oliver trying to convince us how he is not in love with Felix whilst being obsessed with him, it kinda shows Oliver is a liar and also I think he's rewriting how everything fell into place to feel victorious and not humiliated again. The movie was kinda messy on some aspects and too on the nose at the end about his participation in the deaths and demise of the family. Still, the way I read it starts by recognizing Oliver was good at taking advantages of the situaton and the things people project onto him. Felix wanted to be the savior of this poor awkward guy. Elspeth, similarly (Felix gets that savior complex from her, mirrored by the scenes where they asked for details of Oliver's supposed tragic past), but in a more gossiping way. Venetia wanted to take one of her brother's "toys" to feel desired.Sir James, well, I just got the impression that he kinda didn't like confrontation lol. The only one that didn't fell for Oliver was Farleight but since his situation was of less power than the rest, didn't directly affected Oliver's modus operandi. Additionally, that family (except for Farleight) was too unaware of themselves due to status, blindend by their economic freedom and unharned by it, therefore easy to "prey on" (like Oliver stated). Oliver didn't aimed for Saltburn from the get go, but it became his new desire and didn't let it go. I think "desire" is pretty much the main theme. It all started with Felix, and since he couldn't keep his love and attention, he kinda started planning to take his place and felt he deserved it as much as the rest of the family (maybe even more so). It cannot be a master plan since he didn't had any merit on Sir James' death, he just (again) took advantage of that. I didn't mind the ending dance, didn't hate it, but it can easily be read as if the reframing Oliver does with his villain monologe is objectively true and it does takes away any amount kf nuances the movie can be given. This might still feel unsatisfactory to you, but I personally think it works hahaha. It could use some improvements, and could be better for what its is. I did like the ways they played with mirrors and reflections on the sences and also the minotaur statue in the labyrinth was a pretty good visual analogy of the story. I don't think it has to be an "eat the rich" story to be interesting in its own merit, even if that's kinda what it ended up as but in a different twisted way lmao.
@@LeapThroughTheSkyTo present a contrary opinion: I didn't feel bad for Faleigh at all. I thought he was the most obnoxious of the bunch. The Cattons were incredibly entitled, but at least they actually had the wealth that allowed them to live in the luxury they desired. Farleigh, on the other hand, did not have wealth because his mother had spent all of her inheritance plus more. He still felt though that he was owed wealth, an Oxford education, to live in a mansion/castle, etc. simply because his mother was related to wealthy people. He also felt his mother shouldn't need to ever get a job or work or learn to save - despite the fact that she had spent all of her money - simply because she was related to wealthy people. Farleigh was also the only one of the family to attempt to outright humiliate someone else just for not being rich (recall his pointing out that Ollie's suit was rented and that he didn't "belong" among the wealthy people in the mansion). So his snobbery and sense of entitlement were particularly distasteful IMO.
@@dorothy6361 fair. I didn't exactly feel sympathetic to Farleigh, I just actively disliked Oliver so I felt able to connect to Farleigh who saw through his shit. None of the characters were particularly likable, not even because I thought they were bad people per say, but they just felt very flat and one note. Oliver and Farleigh were possibly the most complex, and not really. It didn't help that I actually thought Oliver was lying the whole time, I mean I'm poor and half my immediate family are junkies. And while it could have just been poorly written, I just kept thinking no one actually from that background would be trying to milk that for sympathy points because it just sucks as an experience altogether and it's embarrassing. I just also found Oliver so off putting and we got very little insight into him outside of im wanting to be in the in crowd and with Felix. So ultimately I was rooting against Oliver the whole time. And while Farleigh in a different movie, even Talented Mr. Ripley, I would have more easily detested, I just hated Oliver so much that anyone else who hated him became better in comparison.
Word of warning: Don't watch this film with your older or younger family members, particularly your parents. I made the mistake of watching it with my folks, not really knowing what to expect, and let's just say that things got incredibly awkward between us during the bathtub, grave and vampire scenes.
I was worried about this because I saw it with my dad and he is a lot more squeamish than I am but surprisingly he really enjoyed it. His only complaint was that he wished Oliver and Felix had hooked up together ( my dad thought they were cute together before the twists).😄
I think this movie could have been super fun if they went in a Showgirls angle, very campy and vey fun. Like Oliver could be narrating to the audience about how he simultaneously killed and slept with everyone in this family. If it didn’t take itself so seriously I think it would have been so much better
im neutral about the movie, theres things i love and things i dislike - and i completely agree with this, i think campiness is exactly what the film was missing and would have probably made me love it!
I personally think this movie is about obsession. Oliver is obsessed with Felix, initially out of unrequited physical attraction but once it’s revealed that Felix is obscenely wealthy- the obsession grows from Oliver wanting to be with Felix to wanting to become him. The dynamic shifts dramatically to the latter when Felix discovers Ollie’s lies. Oliver becomes so obsessed with Felix that his rejection becomes intolerable. He cannot fathom a world where Felix hates him - so if he can’t have him - no one can. It’s like Yolanda Saldivar shooting Selena after getting caught stealing.
I would have liked this angle better, but the whole obsession angle is blown up when he the proceeds to murder/cause the death of the rest of the family. The whole thing would have been better without the whole psycho killer "plot twist"
This is how I feel as well. Almost all of the people I’ve talked to that disliked this film thought it was a class critique and so they feel like it’s hollow and the ending sucks. But if it’s viewed as a character study in which obsession and desire wins, it makes more sense.
just commented basically the same thing (but not as well articulated as you have) in a response to another comment. maybe (and thats just my personal opinion) queer people (myself included) are quicker to clock this idea of an obsessive love/lust cause we’ve seen a lot before
It’s about obsession but that’s literally about it, absolutely shitly done and didn’t go far enough with the theme. If that’s the only theme you’re gonna portray in a film, at least do it all the way
Aesthetically the movie was great, but it lacked a lot of actual substance. I thought the writing was a little clunky, also. I watched The Talented Mr. Ripley recently and that actually messed with my head, everyone was way hotter in it too 😅 Saltburn genuinely felt like a beautifully filmed rip off of The Talented Mr. Ripley. I also wanted to add that Saltburn's music was amazing and I listen to it non-stop.
totally agree, I only read the book and I liked it a lot! It had so much substance and emotion. His motivations were explored and had real meaning in comparison to Saltburn
i think there are a lot of small things that lead you through the film, i feel like its more of a voyeuristic film. the family exist and your kind of just watching them exist and oliver exist in their environment. its a lot of unspoken things tbh, its a film u should watch at least twice in my opinion
I feel like that’s the point. Remember the style over substance conversation when oliver and farleigh are being tutored? The movie is about Oliver’s losing his substance in the pursuit of style
I genuinely thought they were having sex in the maze at the end but then no one talking about this movie mentioned it, so I guess I'm just blonde face blind lol
Felix dropped something like „f my cousin here on accident“ while showing Oliver the house 👀 the undertones of this family loving themselves way to much (literally) was definitely there lol
Saltburn act 3 totally fell apart, was rushed and didn't seem to know how to close the movie. Loved all the aesthetic and cinematography, but the power of the acting couldn't mask the limp climax and falling action
Retweet! The first act had me so invested and interested, the second act had me on the edge of my seat waiting for the ✨big twist✨ but the third act felt really rushed and kinda boring ? Like the “twist” just wasn’t jarring or developed enough for it to be meaningful or interesting
i agreeeeee with this so much 😭 the ending felt so outside of the movie, like to me this feels similar to call me by your name, where it had to do more with character interaction rather than a complete plot (at least this is what i got from the movie lol). and so to be spoon fed the ending so directly felt jarring and unnecessary
That was main issue same with promising young woman! She doesn’t know up to wrap up a film. I need her to get a cowriter or direct someone else’s script because she’s so close to making a great film! I don’t need every director to do it all!! That’s why so many projects are falling flat.
Also it took me two weeks to epiphany this, but the bathtub scene felt like a desperate attempt to recreate a call me by your name peach scene scandal 🙊
As soon as we met Oliver, it’s clear he’s a wrongun and I don’t think the film thinks we understood that. As soon as he said his dad was dead, me and my mate were like ‘he’s bloody not’.
When he said the first time he felt his mom’s throat, it struck me as intentionally salacious like the fake drug addict autobiography. It was interesting how he caught on to what would keep Felixes attention.
I watched it with two friends and none of us predicted it. I also imagined the Saltburn family would be the ones to hurt Oliver at the start of the film, not the other way around
@@avaborch-solem2300Same. His name brings to mind Oliver Twist, so we are already set up from the start to - consciously or unconsciously - associate him with a poor orphan.
i went to rate the film on letterboxd, and underneath it had films that were supposedly similar to saltburn. i saw parasite… im so annoyed w how low the bar is for hollywood that these two films are put on the same level
I LOVE rosamund pike. I think the actors are great and the vibe of the film is immaculate. The plot is easily predictable and didn’t make much sense towards the end(many glaring plot holes like where is the coroner report?!?) but I will watch it again for the vibes tbh
I was like, wouldn't tons of family come out of the woodwork to contest Oliver's inheritance? What about Farleigh? Would it not go to the next heir? The butler definitely fucking knew and didn't like Oliver and would have gladly been on other families sides.
Also I was super confused when they kicked Farleigh out because no one confirmed he ODed. And his parents can't be that naive that they wouldn't think several of those ultra-rich party kids wouldn't have brought drugs in?
Yup, all of this. From a class reading, this feels more than anything like a cautionary tale: "Beware those predatory, monstrous lower classes". I'd even go so far as to say it's a film about the rich's anxiety about the lower classes. And a queer reading is basically the same: "beware the predatory queer friend". It feels at best like we've done this before, long ago, and with more bite (Talented Mr Ripley). Act 3 never worked in terms of logic or tone. The film tries to pull off "he's a mastermind who planned this from the start" and "this is his moment of triumph", neither of which work logically or tonally with the rest of the film.
I felt this way too, and even the "shock value" scenes (bathtub, vampire, gravesite) fell a bit flat for me. They seemed oddly placed throughout the movie, without fleshing out the emotion of the scene beyond simply a visceral aesthetic one. The pacing also felt off, and certain moments seemed to drag on a bit too long, or not long enough.
Okay so my opinion about the film: i didn’t like the ending, specifically that he intented the whole thing to play out that way. it just didn’t feel natural and kinda like a forced „fight club“ -esque twist. it would’ve been so much better if they played more into the moth analogy, him stumbling into all of this and the story unfolding from there, without his planning of everything.
He clearly didn't plan the whole thing out from the start, he did it step by step it wasn't as if he thought immediately he'd manage to kill them all off. As the director said, Oliver's ideal scenario would have been marriage to Felix and living happily with the family. It just doesn't work out that way so he panicks and finds another way. He's not a mastermind behind the whole thing, he just reacted to what he was given.
@@a.carneirozhu8104true, i didn't even think of this but why the fuck are we trusting his narration!! such a good point omg now I have more to think about lol
this video gave voice to all the reasons I couldn't fully describe why saltburn didn't resonate with me beyond the cinematography and acting, so well done, thank you!!
To me it definitely feels like class commentary, but from the upper class against lower classes. Oliver exaggerates his misfortune, is obsessed with and fetishizes the upper class, and while he makes it his mission to unalive the rich, it’s only because he wants to be in their place- simultaneously enamored with them and hating them. Meanwhile the upper class, while they may have problems and flaws, are ultimately undeserving victims. It just feels sad that the acting and filmmaking, even the characters, were wasted on that story.
So I generally enjoyed the film, but my guess for the plot of Felix and his savior complex (especially after it was mentioned several times to Oliver, that he’s not the first person that came to Saltburn for summer) would be that he is some kind of maniac killer of lower class and his family is so rich and powerful that they could cover everything. I’d love to watch that so much!
That would be great, olier the ruthless manipulator and felix the romantic in that case serial killer with the family being aspects of at least accomplices, you can have esbeth be like she pretends she tries to help him but toys with him and ooh. And oliver too showing his colours. and freaking out stuff he did. Would make a really good movie.
I just watched the movie and actually liked it, however my biggest gripe is how unrealistic it is for Olliver to get away with everything. You're telling me theres no fingerprints/DNA on Venetia's razors, Elspeth's medical equipment (also, how tf would that have been an accident?? Did noone see her body??), on Felix's alcohol bottle? This uber wealthy family wouldnt have autopsies and toxicology done? No criminal investigations? What about the girl Felix was hooking up with who saw Olliver? Youre telling me she wouldnt speak up about how he was the last person seen with Felix and it was an emotionally charged situation? Farleigh wouldn't tell police about the threats Olliver made and how he should be looked into?? Maybe I watch too much true crime, but that really took me out. Too many plot holes with the murders.
I agree. I didn't have any preconcieved notions before watching, I'd only seen the trailer. But after finishing it I was like..."Okay, I guess?" 🤷♀ That was my literal response lol. Seemed very gratuitous - plenty of shock but not much of the value!
I don’t agree with the take that Felix is “kind hearted” bc every time we see him he’s doing something distasteful. For example, he plays eeny meeny miny moe with women to sleep with, he treats Oliver like a toy to the point that he doesn’t want anyone else to play with him (Venetia), and when he was walking with that girl through oxford he never defends Oliver when she was degrading him instead he chuckles. I think there’s more as well but those are the main ones I can think of.
People are telling on themselves with complaints that the rich people were portrayed as being super nice. They quite obviously weren't, and a lot of people here were clearly also distracted by the pretty people enough to not notice how awful they were. That's the point, and this video/comment section are ironically proving it.
i get more of the vibe that yes he is shitty, but he’s also somewhat agreeable. like i imagine a few candid conversations with him would set him straight into understanding. y’know? like he’s got the spirit but he’s also doing objectively shitty things. but also no one calls him out on it and that’s why he continues to do it. although the only caveat is how he responded to farleigh ab race. that was rough ngl
I think ppl who watch this hoping it to be a deep look into class or wealth will not enjoy this. But if u watch it as just a story of an unhinged man becoming obsessed over a man and his life (like the talented mr Ripley), it’s fun. Honestly the reason I enjoyed this was because it wasn’t another cliche “evil rich people, sad poor boy” story. I thought it was unique to make Felix a rather kind person despite being so wealthy.
Yes!! I thought that was very much THE POINT of Saltburn. To lure you in with the narrative of "evil rich people in big house" vs "poor sad boy from merseyside" only to catch you off guard! Emerald Fennell likes to play into people's prejudices and did this a lot in her film Promising Young Woman.
I agree. I was actually kind of baffled that people were expecting this movie to be a deep commentary on class. I thought it was more about Oliver as a character and his infatuation/obsession with Felix, and that obsession is what drives him to initially play the 'poor, troubled' shtick. His obsession is so severe that when Felix resoundingly rejects him, he decides to *become* him and effectively takes his life. In that sense, he becomes the vampire that he references earlier. Oliver doesn't do the things he does as a way to 'get back' at the system and he's a protagonist but he's absolutely not someone you root for.
I agree with you about high expectations, but when the movie is very heavily inspired by its precedents such as the talented mr ripley, it unfortunately falls flat on substance, which is what I think most people’s criticism lies
i agree although i still think the story fell a bit flat, but felix is NOT sweet in the movie, first watch i thought he was because he’s so charasmatic but he’s fr not (and not supposed to be)
Oh Emerals didnt miss the point at all: this IS a film about class commentary, just not the expected one. Saltburn is so loved by the upper class (see how they were gushing over it at the Baftas) because it let them say: see those despicable working class people? They're not even as poor as they claim (yoir point on the media pandering to the porn benefit made me hope you had noticed this) and they just want to take it all from us!". This film is a class commentary and judgement: against the lower classes.
It felt like the twist was for the sake of a twist and making sure the audience couldn’t predict the ending. The characters were so two dimensional and motivations felt so flat. Thank you for this take it’s so refreshing!
I enjoyed it a lot from a quality perspective! Beautiful shots, incredible acting, great soundtrack, just overall a stunning film. But the plot wasn't anything groundbreaking to me, and I also don't think it really had enough commentary about class. I think they could've done a little more to really sell it. Felt like a bit of a missed opportunity IMO.
it’s so annoying when she has beautiful shots and sets up an interesting story in act one and two, but then completely ruins it in the third act. she needs somebody else to just write the ending at this point.
I'm glad im not the only one, saltburn basically felt like season 4 of YOU, it was kinda predictable and without the drastic bathtub scene this film wouldn't be a hit or talked about its very average, I watched in the cinema and the soundtrack was beautiful but it was so average to me
In that the media was all abuzz telling us how shocking the sex and nudity was, I feel like the shock was somewhat fabricated. I thought they were very good moments for Barry to act, but not that scandalous.
@@Gee-xb7rtyou're right, I feel like that's all I heard about it. When I was going to watch it, I was still unsure what the film was supposed to be about. A recent film that I feel uses a lot of shock value nudity, is probably Poor Things.
For all the talk about the shocking scenes I'm surprised nobody talked about how Oliver basically SA's Farleigh... Like maybe its just me but that didn't seem entirely consensual and i found it way more dusturbing than any of the "shocking" scenes
I wouldn't say he SA'd Farleigh. It's more ambiguous and up to interpretation (ex: his reaction of going along with it (kissing, moaning, not resisting, sleeping with him seemingly peacefully after) could've been the freeze/shock of someone who's been S-exploited before (his male teachers used to have non-penetrative intercorse with him when he was a minor) or him just enjoying it) but apparently according to the script, he was reacting positively to it.
I agree. I didn’t love it or hate it, but the biggest thing for me was that it didn’t really have anything to say and that the genres it tried to portray weren’t really explored to their fullest extent. I think Parasite was a much better film flushing out these themes and genres!
The original ending, where Oliver would have come downstairs to eat breakfast, and Duncan would have intentionally made them runny, would have been the perfect ending. That’s a fantastically restrained, unlike the mad dash of craziness we got in the last 7 minutes of it.
I wish they'd kept that ending, it would've been a much better ending that actually would've made it feel like the film was saying something about class, or just anything in general
@@christianwise637 and also that you can get everything you want in life and still be unhappy. Which is to say, “money can’t buy happiness.” You can be happy without money, and be more happy with money, but you can’t be unhappy and improve your life exclusively with money. That’s what the Sigma Grindset guys don’t understand.
@@grace-ef9mj ikr?!? That’s a really subdued ending. Must be the studio wanted something flashy. Promising Young Woman kind of ends with a twist, so maybe she’s into that.
@@imdoneplus yess thats actually exactly what i thought too! the 'promising young woman' ending wasn't actually the original one either tho. apparently she wanted for it to end originally with those two guys burning the mc's body in the woods, which is kinda dark but would rlly have hammered home the themes of the movie yknow. apparently the 'production financiers' didn't want a negative ending, which is why they created the plot twist with the police crashing the wedding. its funny bc i wouldve enjoyed the movie more if they went w the original ending too lol, i hated the wedding crshing one. tbh that means there's a chance that the flashy ending in saltburn wasn't the directors choice, and she mightve wanted to keep it more ambigious (ugh i wish). if that's true, i feel kinda bad for her, bc ive seen a lot of ppl trashing on the ending for being too on the nose etc, and it mightve not even been her choice
I don’t understand where Oliver’s parents are during all this? They’re a middle class family and they were happy to see him when Felix took him home and he has siblings, it’s weird that they have no involvement especially when he’s takes over salt burn? I think it would have been better if he did come from a poor family
i think it made sense that oliver's parents weren't present when he took over saltburn. he just left them behind, he doesn't care about them now that he's ascended classes. hell, he never care about them when they were in the same class. oliver is written out to be a very selfish character that thinks of himself and this makes sense for him
So I had an experience a little like this. I was a scholarship kid at a haughty private school and my good friend invited me to the Hamptons with her over break. I got to her mansion and met her mother and she HATED me. Lol.. I was wayyy too uncouth for her. So this whole movie rang totally untrue for me personally. It was predictable as Oliver never came off as working class. Even his walk was posh. So he really blended in effortlessly. So I think they missed the mark there. I also think it plays into this ridiculous idea the wealthy have that the people below them are so desperate for their position they’ll do anything to get it. And that’s just not true. My good friend was miserable. Her mother put way too much pressure on her. There was nothing about that situation I envied at all. I had freedom. Because I was “poor” and did not grow up around false pretenses. In my experience, it’s usually the wealthy who will do anything to stay wealthy. For me, I don’t think anyone involved in this movie was truly “working class”. And it shows and spoils the whole premise imho. Great commentary though 🤓💚
This could’ve and probably should’ve been a series. Like if there was a 7 episode mini series of it and the characters could be well rounded. But also it’s important to remember that oliver only knew the family for 6 months. Maybe we didn’t see the other sides of them because we (being oliver) don’t really know them? But it could also very much be that the director is a nepo baby and unconsciously wrote the higher class family as not that bad compared to oliver, however lower class than Felix.
I think you could be right. The reason I hated the movie was both the piling plot holes and how all the characters felt like caricatures, not fully fledged characters. It added even more insult to injury when she made all the rich people tepid villains, innocent, gullible and honestly, very dumb. All the while the upper middle class guy was a villain master mind. It felt like she wanted to cater to rich with a cautionary tale since she's a heir herself, but even that falls flat. And to me, it falls flat because she could not add nuance to her caricatures and plot.
I dont hate the movie, I hate 90% of the discourse surrounding it. This movie rlly exposed who has media literacy and who doesn’t lol. I’ve seen people say their takeaway from this movie was that “Oliver was in love with Vanetia”???? Like huh??? Edit: I spelled discourse wrong 😢
Like, ofc this movie doesn’t have anything to contribute to class commentary. It wasn’t, and never claimed to be, a class commentary/ “eat the rich” movie. There are just rich people in it. I think that the recent rise in “f the rich” movies (Glass onion, the menu, ect.) made people automatically label this movie as a class commentary just because the characters are wealthy. Edit: I can’t spell for shi 😭
Still, I’d give it a solid 6.5/10. Kinda predictable and the “plot twist” at the end was tacky. I think people definitely overreacted to the “crazy” scenes, they weren’t that bad.
Im loving your edits hahhahaha but also I agree, I've had discussions with so many people on my course (im a film bro, apologies) and it's been so interesting hearing everyone's takes.
its literally "yeah rich peopIe can be kinda mean sometimes, but reaIIy it the poor peopIe who are wrong" but they were afraid that oIiver being working cIass would upset too many peopIe so they "upgraded" him middIe cIass, thinking it would fix the issue The movie is good for one thing, it really is a good insight into just how out of touch and twister rich peopIe's world views are. And yes Im talking about the director
I don't think that's the message she was going for. I mean, don't get me wrong it was utterly unimpressive film class-wise, but it was more to do with the real obsession the middle class have with becoming wealthier; aristocratic. This is a real thing that exists and it's a funny fear the upper-classes have held since the beginning of the time (see the sumptuary laws of the 13th century which banned luxury clothings for the "new rich" even tho they can afford it!) The twist is significant because rich people do see some poor people as little side projects they can dote on until their next distraction. So I think it's unfair to say Ferrel was targeting the working class but under some facade decided she didn't want backlash. Her biggest crime was just not adding anything to the catalogue other than being scenic.
omg your opinions on this movie were like identical to me! I didn't hate it either, justfelt like it was boring, zero class commentary, and the only thing that saved it was Rosamund Pike
I read an article where the director said the audience should be on oli's side if theyve "done their job correctly" as filmmakers and ive been confused about what saltburn is trying to say since then bc what
in general, it seems like the pov of Farleigh would have been much more interesting to explore considering his connections to the Cattons and him being the 'upper-class in debt' character.
Not so much the poor, but the aspirational middle class who want to be in the aristocracy (like Kate Middleton, ironically enough. The press constantly accused her and her family of being Fortune hunting).
why make this a personal attack on the director 🙄 not everything you don’t like has to be the result of some moral failing on the part of the creator. That’s so unsophisticated.
@grandempressvicky6387 I suppose it is two-pronged. What I initially meant was that Felix THOUGHT that Oliver was poor and leant him his sympathy, which led to the events that happened. What you say is also true though :)
@@rynb4868 you not liking a piece of work doesn't mean the person who created it is a bad person, baby boo. the fact that fact that you feel empowered to make out-of-pocket statements about a creator's personal beliefs because they made a piece of work that didn't contain a moral message indicates to me that you should probably stick with after-school specials.
I loved this video! I definitely agree with a lot of your points. I think Parasite is a popular example of a movie that successfully explores class differences in a comedic dark thriller framing, and the pacing/energy of that film always keeps you on your toes!
My boyfriend called it contrived and I think it was a great descriptor. We felt disconnected from the characters and that everything was forced including the character to character relationships.
I will say, as someone who's unfamiliar with Brideshead Revisited but has seen the movie adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, I couldn't help but draw parallels between it and Saltburn. Enigmatic young man meets rich guy his age who seems like he has a perfect life (good looks, universal popularity, a lot of money and an affluent family that loves him) and the two of them strike up a friendship despite the enigmatic young man being an outsider and unpopular with a snarky guy who's close the rich guy and immediately distrusts the enigmatic young man, and all goes well. At least until the enigmatic young man shows he's obsessed both with rich guy and the idea of being the rich guy, crossing boundaries, and making the rich guy realize that he really doesn't know the enigmatic young man as well as he thought and decides to end the friendship, leading to his unwitting death and the enigmatic young man cannibalizing the rich guy's lifestyle for himself. While Saltburn has its stronger points in the form of solid acting and excellent cinematography, it's too similar to other works that are better cohesively and some of the original ideas (the middle class infiltrating the aristocracy being a reasonable thing to be terrified of, in fact) are off-putting.
For me and my friends, I think it sparked so much interest because it made us think and talk about something we haven’t really given much thought to before. Being a 16 year old in a poor small town and me and my friends being either working class immigrant families or working class British parents who were able to move up to middle class, none of us know anyone who’s upper class, me talking about going to uni is a really cool thing but it’s not a reality for a lot of us. During the Oxford party sences my friends joked about omg when you get into Cambridge invite us to your parties and I think we sort of feel like the kids at school who are out of the loop when imagining this rich life where they can act without a lot of consequences. We didn’t love it because the film was amazing, we loved it because we stayed up all night speculating about different aspects of the film and how we felt about it. It was less about the film itself and more about the subject matter. We’ve never really spoken about class other than jokes about me and the other middle class family girl being the “rich ones”.
Finally someone who agrees!!! I honestly hated that movie so much, I found it visceral and honestly? The worst thing is that the movie tries to act like it’s so clever when really it’s not
instantly subscribed. i’ve been struggling with this one because i didn’t like it much at all. glad to hear someone verbalize some of the problems i also had with it. great video, very incisive commentary
i loved this commentary. i had the same reaction to the movie as you described and i couldnt put my finger on why, now i get it. it feels exactly like what the movie really is, vague. not absurd enough neither critial. pure shock value that, because it lacks depth, is not even shocking at all.
I feel like they only scratched the surface of how unhinged everyone should have been by the end. Like the ending should have been more horror/thriller and just letting us see these characters down to their bare bones. Like desperate terrible people who have surrounded themselves in this paper thin delusion. Like give me the big emotional catharsis. Give me brutal and meaningful deaths. Give me a good antagonist to work against Oliver so we are left wondering if he will be okay. Like everything just feels…vague in a bad way.
This movie it's not parasite, it's not eat the rich. This movie is about obsession with generational wealth, social climbing (Because no matter what Oliver did, even coming from an upper class family, he could never have a castle), why rich people have a close inner circle and normal people can't enter because they feel that those can take advantage from them, so this movie it's screaming protect your assets, and the toxic hustle culture from the 2000s (take everyone down to take their place, and opportunity it's the key), Oliver feels that he worked his ass for this money so he deserved it, that's why he dances at the end. This movie, it's a cautionary tale for rich people.
here for the Ready or Not love! that's one of my favorite films ever, everything about it makes sense: the dialogue, the casting, the performances are great, the horror and suspense really works, the class aspect is very well explored, and the comedy is actually funny! I feel like it's hard to make an actually good horror comedy that has something to say, because you need writers AND actors who can do two very opposite things: intense drama and horror, and being funny with good comedic timing. plus you need a story that actually makes sense. and it can't be too long - if a horror movie is longer than 100 minutes, it's taking itself too seriously.
I really agree with the obesrvation of Saltburn being, essentially, a remake of The Talented Mr Ripley (which is a masterpiece), but something I think is really interesting in terms of the whole class debate is watching this film as someone who has closely studied revolution, especially the French Revolution. In the film, the simultaneous critique of the middle class/bourgeoisie as "the only real winners" and also the aristocracy alongside them (while the lower class goes underrepresented in the world of the film) is INCREDIBLY interesting to me. However, I am aware that I could be giving Emerald Fennell a lot of credit for this interpretation. The fact that Oliver masquerades as lower class to further his motives of gaining aristocratic levels of power and wealth (a.k.a taking over Saltburn from the Cattons) speaks to the way that upper-middle class bourgeoisie and lower nobility rode the coattails of the hardships of the lower class in the French Revolution with the aim of achieving a higher level of status and power than was available to them under French society's existing limitations during that period. I see a lot of parallels between the anatomy of a revolution and Saltburn, which is the class angle that I'm choosing to focus on post-viewing due to my interest in the topic. This is why I found the film very thoughtful, as well as being highly enjoyable on an aesthetic level.
I was thinking a similar, but comparatively less developed/historicized version of this. Generally, under capitalism there are people who aspire to be wealthy/wealthier, but this desire is parasitic and requires immense manipulation and exploitation to achieve since it’s about playing into preexisting structures of economic inequity, rather than dismantling them. Oliver seems like an extreme example (perhaps a rather ham fisted one too) of this and displays the kind of violent acts, whether discursive or literal, required to accumulate wealth and move up classes. He has no interest in wealth redistribution, but will appropriate the aesthetics of any class to get what he wants . A class trader, whose bought into the hyper-individualistic ideology of capitalism and has come to believe he is somehow more deserving of wealth than the Cattons. He’s obsessed with their bodies and fluids too, especially Felix’s, because they are materializations of the kind of wealth he wishes to embody. He wants to devour them and their wealth. And I think we should walk away not liking Oliver because he’s been nothing but selfish and an unreliable narrator. I don’t mourn the demise of the Cattons. They are caricatures of the ways intergenerational wealth rots your brain. But getting rid of them without some larger movement or social upheaval doesn’t change a thing. This is how I at least like to interpret the movie to get something interesting from it 😂
I appreciate how you break down every aspect of the film - the cast, the soundtrack, the camerawork, the background of the filmmaker, etc. This was a really well thought out and well presented review.
Would love more movie reviews! 🤩 I love everything you geek out over bc it’s like I’m talking to a buddy. I don’t even watch reality shows but I’m always here for your take 😆🫶🏼
i’m glad i’m not the only one feeling this way! it’s been so interesting hearing all the different takes though whether i feel the same or not. there’s a lot to discuss!
after seeing the bathtub scene and the dancing scene i guessed the entire plot, read the wikipedia page and was like "yeah thats what i expected" and i am fascinated that people are so fascinated and gagged like ?? this is the most predictable shit ever lmao
if it makes you feel better about a badly timed eyebrow piercing; i got mine pierced right before michael clifford got his in 2014, like the same month or the month right before. but i still have mine lol! 💙
20:35 I don’t think it’s implied that sir James died by suicide. He was an older man, and the time skip made me think his death was potentially sped up by the loss of his children. You can’t read the obituary, so maybe it’s left up to interpretation.
i appreciate you making this video so much!! so glad i'm not the only person who did not really love this movie😭 after i finished saltburn, i thought it was quite underwhelming and not as effective with what it was trying to comment on as everyone else was making it sound i did enjoy the movie and i thought it was beautifully shot, i just wouldn't agree that it commented well on the upper class society. the way that it dealt with oliver's character was just so... i don't know icky to me i just feel like it could've been so much better if the themes were stronger and more aware of how social actually class works and effects people in the real world additionally, i thought it was just so corny that it turned out that oliver planned it all from the beginning, i think that was my least favourite part, and it took so much away from the already half-baked messages i love social class commentary and i find it so interesting, especially with studying sociology at a level, and this movie.... just did not do it for me
Personally, saltburn for me was an exploration of morality rather than just class divides. There’s a juxtaposition of expectations for the “poor”and rich: the rich are predatory consumers that are out of touch and the poor suffer from this. Although parts of this are true, overall, saltburn challenges our views on morality, as the roles are now switched. Oliver as the predator and the whole family as the prey. The book Pedagogy by the Oppressed by Paulo Freire explores this concept further with oppression being a continuum rather than something binary. I don’t think it’s a film about social mobility, rather, it is the expression of twisted morality and the cycle of human oppression.
I just want to tell you that I absolutely love you in the most non-threatening, cishet, Australian, working class, Gen X woman solidarity way possible. Most of the time I just feel so politically tired and you are exactly the kind of younger person who fans the tiny embers of hope in my cynical heart. ✊🏻
I called it the politician redemption arc for I’m a celeb I absolutely hate it they’ll always bring out the most hated one at the time as well and try to guilt trip us into seeing them as “equals” like “look they’re one of us” 😒😒
i didn't like saltburn that much either and i couldn't quite place my finger on what the issue was. watching your video really helped me clarify what was missing in the movie. i kept watching and nodding my head like "oh yeahhh!" really great video, i love it.
people keep saying how beautiful the film is- Linus Sandgren was the DOP/ cinematographer; worked on loads of incredible projects, also Victoria Boydell on the editing. congrats to them
I honestly cannot look at those actors and believe they are freshmen in college no matter how good they might be at acting. That's a grown man. That's a man with a mortgage. 3 months away from his midlife crisis
22:23 maybe (maybe!!) the middle class “twist” was supposed to poke fun at the bourgeoisie, in the original definition (I think!) where people in the middle class aspire to be upper class and align themselves with the upper class concerns In this aspirational way even though they have more in common with the working class and should have class solidarity with working people. Maybe? maybe. //*edit*: making all the middle class characters the “joke” is still punching down tho and not funny imo
yeah that's the vibe I got, which is certainly a choice but not a movie for me. And, I think sometimes we just have to realise that. I was never going to enjoy a film that satirises the middle class for the aspiration (albeit violently tragic) they have to be wealthy. because at the end of the day, it's more pitiful to me than funny. Ferrel probably sees humour in it because she is surrounded by those folks, ultimately hence she satirises both the upper class and middle but falls flat in this because she has obvious biases. In that way Jordan is completely right, its a pretty bad class film but I was pretty neutral on it and the stylistic choices were fun imo
There is no such thing as middle-class if we use the original, Marxist definition of bourgeois. Petit-bourgeois would be the closest thing, but it does not carry the same connotations that "middle-class" does. The actual, material class distinction is between those who labor and those who own the means of production.
The creators of this film were definitely like “we’re gonna shoot this film in 4:3 aspect ratio, it’s gonna be so deep and metaphorical” without actually knowing what metaphors they were trying to convey. It feels so surface level
It's about how the middle class is obsessed/wants to consume/become the upper class. You just like really flippantly brush this theory away, but it's supported by the many food and sexual consumption themes throughout the story. Just because they are "miles down the food chain," as you say, doesn't mean we (I'm middle class) can't be satirized for the benefit of becoming a better society. I think we can agree that the less we obsessed over/wanted to become the rich, the better we'd be off bc we'd have more class solidarity against the rich. That's why the twist that Oliver is middle class and not poor is actually pretty brilliant. The audience is expecting a movie that will harpoon the rich for taking advantage of the poor, or even celebrate the poor for taking revenge on the rich, but what they get instead is a movie that makes them look at themselves. Also, one of the more obvious recent examples of the upperclass having their own set of rules to see who belongs that must be learned. I thought the surreal scene after the first death was a great cap to this point. So, not the most concrete or nuanced class commentary, but you can hardly say there's "nothing to do about class."
Literally I think this movie had more in common (theme wise, definitely not vibe wise) with Do Revenge than it did with class satire thrillers like knives out or parasite. It was about one dude's homoerotic fixation on his unattainable friend and his family, who honestly wasn't portrayed to be that unattainable? He was just like, a rich playboy? Like what are we trying to say here? At least Do Revenge knew what it was & gave clear motivations & personality traits to the characters.
Regarding the disturbing scenes, I also felt like they were there for shock factor and to hint at Oliver being sinister and sick, but the relationship of Oliver w Felix wasn't coherent with his overall motivation that is revealed in the end, not to mention it kinda spoils the end because it becomes so predictable and underwhelming after knowing what he's already capable of. Also the fact he intentionally poisoned Felix and then went on to ... His grave is so off brand. Like if he was that obsessed with him I would at least expect his murder to be more violent and spontaneous, so the "regret" or grief would make sense, but the fact that he did it deliberately and planned it, idk just paints Oliver as being "quirky" and sick and "unpredictable" while not making sense at all character wise. The obsession with Felix wasn't actually explored, Oliver kinda changed hats after the bathtub scene and after the "big reveal" in the end the whole obsession didn't make sense in the first place. I feel like this entire film was trying to momentarily entertain and be shocking while as a coherent piece there's so many plot holes and missed opportunities.
I heard a pretty good take on why it is revealed midway of the film, and I also have my own thougts on it. The take was that kt plays on the rich southeners vs. Poor northeners perception. The Cattons are very rich southeners who don’t even question when a northener comes in and says his family is just drug addicts. They want to adopt a summer charity case, a story to tell their rich friends in the future. A middle class normie is not an intriguing story or charity case. By that point of the film, there are several little hints dropped that Ollie isn’t who he performa as. Morphing himself to every person he interacts with - lying to each and everyone of them. It’s the point where the audience ”officially” start to second guess Ollie as a reliable narrator, as he’s autistically coded and the underdog (which personally I believe was a part of Ollie’s act.) It made me want to rewatch the film and discover those kernels of snake venom you realize as the first shoe drops. The rest of the movie is womdering what his actual goal was, as in the beginning he does talk about loving Felix.
i hope you guys enjoy this video!!!! please ignore what looks like a lump on my eyebrow piercing (i literally couldn't staring at it watching this video back yuck), it's actually a scab (is this tmi) because i caught it on my pillowcase and it turned into an absolute blood bath, who knew putting a concealer on a scab would actually make it look worse 😭😭😭😭
time stamps:
00:00 - intro
05:06 - the premise
06:16 - what i liked about saltburn
14:50 - what i didn't like about saltburn
love ur videos girl i haven’t even watched this yet but ik it’s a good take 🙏
you really can't even notice it!! im watching on my PC and only noticed after reading ur comment lolll
don't worry my vision is crap it looks great
truly couldn't notice! i also think the piercing looks really cool! :)
I love your critique!!!
seeing the rich kids on tik tok do the murder on the dancefloor run through their mansions and estates made my working-class self feel ...something. not sure what
(If ur anything like me) high blood pressure ?
*“IRONIC INNIT???!!??”*
hungry
@@Lucy-yx5vgI came here to comment this 🍽️🍽️🍽️
rage
It's my biggest pet peeve when a film wants us to believe that a character is some genius mastermind manipulator, but their entire "plan" would have fallen apart if it wasn't for sheer luck. What if Elsbeth died before Sir James? What if they separated after the death of their children? What if Elsbeth didn't remember him or never invited him back to Saltburn?
truuuue i love this perspective didn’t think think ab this
this!! thats why it shouldnt have been deliberate or at least not deliberate from the start and more of a spiralling consequence and "well I've come this far, I might as well finish it"
@@shonaalannah Imagine emptying someone's bike tyre and thinking "there we go, and now to wait 15 years to inherit this guy's entire wealth."
That's exactly my perspective. This movie's story relies almost entirely on things that happen conviniently. What if Felix never drank from the poisoned bottle that Oliver gave him? What if Venetia never killed herself the next day? You're telling me Farleigh briefly stops suspecting Oliver's character after he gives him a hand job?? (which I'm still not sure was even all the way consenual), What exactly did Oliver do during that 15 year timespan?🤔 You're telling he just waited in the shadows that whole time for Sir James to die???😳 And then Elspeth was just so smitten by him, that after not seeing him for 15 years she's just signs over her fortune to him??? How????
The 15 year time jump is my biggest grievance with this movie. Why 15 years. I don’t believe Oliver would’ve waited that long, I don’t believe he would’ve left it up to chance that James would die first and possibly have Elsbeth forget him. There’s just no reason why it had to be such a long jump.
In my opinion, the ending montage depicting Oliver orchestrating meeting Felix, and setting up the murders seemed to be unnecessary. We didn't need to be spoon-fed the ending, and it might have been better had they left Oliver's involvement ambiguous, or even had him be blatantly shady to the audience.
Not really. I think it was the best part, and brought the whole thing together pretty well lol. Writing Oliver in a way that clearly makes him a psychopath but leaving some ambiguity to… quite how much of a psychopath he is ig… wouldn’t have been very effective. If anything I think it would leave the audience kinda confused, like, “so was he supposed to be a psychopath or were we supposed to have thought he was normal until they… drove him to psychopathy? But him lying from the start was obviously deranged… were we supposed to have found him deranged? Or were we supposed to have sympathised with him??’… which wouldn’t be good. It would have just seemed confusing and half-baked.
@@alexbennet4195it wouldn’t have been half baked. Especially because they showed us that he lied about his parents and siblings, him killing the mother and him dropping his innocent facade when meeting the sister outside. And it’s only very obvious he set up farleigh to be kicked out. By the end of the movie it was abundantly clear he was deranged and lying. It just kind of ruins it when we find out he orchestrated all that for what? The house?
This, 100% ! It would have been more impactful if Oliver's actions had been suggested rather than clearly shown. I felt like it made the whole movie look less deep and high quality than it could have been.
Literallyyy, i was like “okay so like 7/10 i think, but lets see the end” and then barry keoghan starts like cartoon villain twiddling his fingers while pacing the room explaining his whole plot, i was like what the heck guys. Cmon…
That ending was such cartoon villain buffoonery I HATED it
I’m so glad somebody had the same take about this movie! I wish Oliver kind of destroyed the Saltburn family unintentionally rather than being deliberate. I think it kind of would’ve had more of a message about self-sabotage in the search for comfort/attention or something in that sense? I also feel like the whole ending just holds our hand and spoon-feeds us the conclusion, leading to an somewhat disappointing and cheesy ending.
@tinker_belle41 I didn’t know that! While watching, it seemed like it started with infatuation with Felix that led to deliberate planning once Oliver realized what he could have.
@@mina_rose8965yea I can see people assuming his goal from the beginning was Saltburn but, for me personally, I've known people like Oliver and like Felix so it was very believable. People who get stuck in a lie because they want something and the lie helps them get it so the lie snowballs and makes them want more and more. People who are embarrassed of their wealthy parents obviously being out of touch with the average person yet they are carbon copies of their parents and act just like them but are slightly self-aware. And those types of people tend to attract each other.
Womp womp comment😂
That would be a totally different film
@@tkim2320This would make more sense and is what I’d like to believe, Oliver wanting the audience to think that he was far more clever than he actually was. When in reality, it started off as not much more than a genuinely powerful obsession with Felix that gradually snowballed as things unfolded. For example, I don’t think Oliver expected his lies to be completely found out by Felix.
I thought the most disturbing and impactful scene for me was actually the scene where Felix's body is being wheeled away outside and the red curtains are lighting everything in red, the tension and discomfort was visceral.
that was my fav scene of the whole movie tbh
Yes I agree with this take so much! It's always odd to me when people try to argue that Saltburn isn't about class, because as you said the very set-up means that it becomes class commentary whether Emerald Fennell likes it or not. And honestly to me class anxiety absolutely *saturates* this film - Oliver is not a character who actually reflects the ambitions of the middle class, he's almost a caricature of the fears of the aristocracy, combining "this working class Scouser is actually just faking his poverty" with "the middle class will do anything to climb the social ladder and steal the upper classes' birthright".
I think what would've improved the film a lot for me (besides less shallow characterisation) is if Felix had actually been really into Oliver lying, because it feeds his ego that Oliver would reshape himself just to appeal to him, and what really makes Oliver monstrous is that he is so willingly eaten alive by the system.
this is where i thought it was gonna go and i got really excited but then it didn’t 😭
I left almost this exact comment on another video. The reason Oliver is not a deep or well motivated character is he's a representational character, standing in for the fear the rich have of the middle class.
The movie was so cartoonish in this class struggle that when they arrived at oliver's house I was afraid that that lifestyle was going to be considered middle class, and felix would be delighted in taking in the charity case now that he saw 'poverty' more up close.
I agree, it had a lot of promise but the further it went on, the more disappointing it got.
I felt it was partly more of a comment on the fact that they assumed he must be working class simply because he had a Liverpool accent and this annoyance at their arrogance.
i was very disappointed with the story of the film, i still had no idea what it was trying to say or how oliver someone who is very creepy manages to charm the entire family into trusting him. i hated the way the film wanted to seem clever by making oliver this master manipulater that plays 4d chess without actually showing us anything. i wanted to see his relationship with felix more than just a bunch of montages, i wanted to see him being conflicted of his love of felix and wanting the wealth that he has, and i also wanted to learn more about felix and his past "toys" that he brought to the house,
the ideas are there but the end result says nothing besides "look at this creepy mastermind killing and tricking the rich ppl, isn't he just crazy?"
This! It could not commit to who Oliver was or who the family was. So I just was confused by the end. Oliver was creepy and off putting the whole movie. The family were like little babies learning about the world. I kinda wish they did what you were saying so you could have felt more pity for Oliver and like hated Farleigh more. Hated Felix more. But I just was like, they were kinda tools, but Oliver was a creepy tool too so who cares? And I just felt bad for Farliegh because he was so obviously right?
I think is completely fair to feel like that, because the last scene is Oliver telling us (via Elspeth) how he was so in controll all the time. But since the film starts by Oliver trying to convince us how he is not in love with Felix whilst being obsessed with him, it kinda shows Oliver is a liar and also I think he's rewriting how everything fell into place to feel victorious and not humiliated again.
The movie was kinda messy on some aspects and too on the nose at the end about his participation in the deaths and demise of the family.
Still, the way I read it starts by recognizing Oliver was good at taking advantages of the situaton and the things people project onto him. Felix wanted to be the savior of this poor awkward guy. Elspeth, similarly (Felix gets that savior complex from her, mirrored by the scenes where they asked for details of Oliver's supposed tragic past), but in a more gossiping way. Venetia wanted to take one of her brother's "toys" to feel desired.Sir James, well, I just got the impression that he kinda didn't like confrontation lol. The only one that didn't fell for Oliver was Farleight but since his situation was of less power than the rest, didn't directly affected Oliver's modus operandi. Additionally, that family (except for Farleight) was too unaware of themselves due to status, blindend by their economic freedom and unharned by it, therefore easy to "prey on" (like Oliver stated).
Oliver didn't aimed for Saltburn from the get go, but it became his new desire and didn't let it go. I think "desire" is pretty much the main theme. It all started with Felix, and since he couldn't keep his love and attention, he kinda started planning to take his place and felt he deserved it as much as the rest of the family (maybe even more so).
It cannot be a master plan since he didn't had any merit on Sir James' death, he just (again) took advantage of that.
I didn't mind the ending dance, didn't hate it, but it can easily be read as if the reframing Oliver does with his villain monologe is objectively true and it does takes away any amount kf nuances the movie can be given.
This might still feel unsatisfactory to you, but I personally think it works hahaha. It could use some improvements, and could be better for what its is. I did like the ways they played with mirrors and reflections on the sences and also the minotaur statue in the labyrinth was a pretty good visual analogy of the story. I don't think it has to be an "eat the rich" story to be interesting in its own merit, even if that's kinda what it ended up as but in a different twisted way lmao.
@@LeapThroughTheSkyTo present a contrary opinion: I didn't feel bad for Faleigh at all. I thought he was the most obnoxious of the bunch. The Cattons were incredibly entitled, but at least they actually had the wealth that allowed them to live in the luxury they desired. Farleigh, on the other hand, did not have wealth because his mother had spent all of her inheritance plus more. He still felt though that he was owed wealth, an Oxford education, to live in a mansion/castle, etc. simply because his mother was related to wealthy people. He also felt his mother shouldn't need to ever get a job or work or learn to save - despite the fact that she had spent all of her money - simply because she was related to wealthy people. Farleigh was also the only one of the family to attempt to outright humiliate someone else just for not being rich (recall his pointing out that Ollie's suit was rented and that he didn't "belong" among the wealthy people in the mansion). So his snobbery and sense of entitlement were particularly distasteful IMO.
@@dorothy6361 fair. I didn't exactly feel sympathetic to Farleigh, I just actively disliked Oliver so I felt able to connect to Farleigh who saw through his shit. None of the characters were particularly likable, not even because I thought they were bad people per say, but they just felt very flat and one note. Oliver and Farleigh were possibly the most complex, and not really.
It didn't help that I actually thought Oliver was lying the whole time, I mean I'm poor and half my immediate family are junkies. And while it could have just been poorly written, I just kept thinking no one actually from that background would be trying to milk that for sympathy points because it just sucks as an experience altogether and it's embarrassing. I just also found Oliver so off putting and we got very little insight into him outside of im wanting to be in the in crowd and with Felix. So ultimately I was rooting against Oliver the whole time. And while Farleigh in a different movie, even Talented Mr. Ripley, I would have more easily detested, I just hated Oliver so much that anyone else who hated him became better in comparison.
Some how I didn't know about this film until last week and this is exactly how I feel.
Word of warning: Don't watch this film with your older or younger family members, particularly your parents. I made the mistake of watching it with my folks, not really knowing what to expect, and let's just say that things got incredibly awkward between us during the bathtub, grave and vampire scenes.
Following this accelerating trajectory down, what do you think your kids will be watching that will make the family Incredibly awkward.
I was worried about this because I saw it with my dad and he is a lot more squeamish than I am but surprisingly he really enjoyed it. His only complaint was that he wished Oliver and Felix had hooked up together ( my dad thought they were cute together before the twists).😄
ur dad sounds like a sweetheart hahah@@AllofTimeandSpace
@@catgirl6631 thanks 😊
my mom loved it lol
I think this movie could have been super fun if they went in a Showgirls angle, very campy and vey fun. Like Oliver could be narrating to the audience about how he simultaneously killed and slept with everyone in this family. If it didn’t take itself so seriously I think it would have been so much better
im neutral about the movie, theres things i love and things i dislike - and i completely agree with this, i think campiness is exactly what the film was missing and would have probably made me love it!
also a good way to give it a more distinct identity than "the talented mr ripley knockoff"
What if they had turned up the camp all the way up and just turned it into a musical? It does end in a big dance scene anyways!
@@AllofTimeandSpacethat would be the cherry on top
@@greenthinggg It could even have had some songs modeled on early 2000s pop music to go with the time period it was set in!
I personally think this movie is about obsession. Oliver is obsessed with Felix, initially out of unrequited physical attraction but once it’s revealed that Felix is obscenely wealthy- the obsession grows from Oliver wanting to be with Felix to wanting to become him. The dynamic shifts dramatically to the latter when Felix discovers Ollie’s lies. Oliver becomes so obsessed with Felix that his rejection becomes intolerable. He cannot fathom a world where Felix hates him - so if he can’t have him - no one can. It’s like Yolanda Saldivar shooting Selena after getting caught stealing.
I would have liked this angle better, but the whole obsession angle is blown up when he the proceeds to murder/cause the death of the rest of the family. The whole thing would have been better without the whole psycho killer "plot twist"
This is how I feel as well. Almost all of the people I’ve talked to that disliked this film thought it was a class critique and so they feel like it’s hollow and the ending sucks. But if it’s viewed as a character study in which obsession and desire wins, it makes more sense.
just commented basically the same thing (but not as well articulated as you have) in a response to another comment. maybe (and thats just my personal opinion) queer people (myself included) are quicker to clock this idea of an obsessive love/lust cause we’ve seen a lot before
It’s about obsession but that’s literally about it, absolutely shitly done and didn’t go far enough with the theme. If that’s the only theme you’re gonna portray in a film, at least do it all the way
I wrote my comment before reading yours and I think you echoed my thinking but in a much more eloquent way 😂
Aesthetically the movie was great, but it lacked a lot of actual substance. I thought the writing was a little clunky, also. I watched The Talented Mr. Ripley recently and that actually messed with my head, everyone was way hotter in it too 😅 Saltburn genuinely felt like a beautifully filmed rip off of The Talented Mr. Ripley.
I also wanted to add that Saltburn's music was amazing and I listen to it non-stop.
I LOVE the talented Mr Ripley. Such a well written movie
That's a good comparison, Ripley stared off at the end, because it wasn't simple "I'm the psychopath villain and I find it easy to kill, mwahahahha"
totally agree, I only read the book and I liked it a lot! It had so much substance and emotion. His motivations were explored and had real meaning in comparison to Saltburn
I like the name Félix a lot, and that was about all I liked about it
we have the talented mr ripley at home
Saltburn was all style, no substance.
just like the rich lol
i think there are a lot of small things that lead you through the film, i feel like its more of a voyeuristic film. the family exist and your kind of just watching them exist and oliver exist in their environment. its a lot of unspoken things tbh, its a film u should watch at least twice in my opinion
@@honeysana672 and i disagree.
I feel like that’s the point. Remember the style over substance conversation when oliver and farleigh are being tutored? The movie is about Oliver’s losing his substance in the pursuit of style
Yeppp
*the* most disturbing scene to me was these cousins (including a brother and sister) laying together naked in a field.
Yeah, why was Venetia sitting on Felix’s lap like that when everyone was singing karaoke??
I actually thought it would have a subplot or at least more clear indications of incestuous relationships
I genuinely thought they were having sex in the maze at the end but then no one talking about this movie mentioned it, so I guess I'm just blonde face blind lol
Felix dropped something like „f my cousin here on accident“ while showing Oliver the house 👀 the undertones of this family loving themselves way to much (literally) was definitely there lol
Underwhelmed by the whole film
Saltburn act 3 totally fell apart, was rushed and didn't seem to know how to close the movie. Loved all the aesthetic and cinematography, but the power of the acting couldn't mask the limp climax and falling action
Retweet! The first act had me so invested and interested, the second act had me on the edge of my seat waiting for the ✨big twist✨ but the third act felt really rushed and kinda boring ? Like the “twist” just wasn’t jarring or developed enough for it to be meaningful or interesting
i agreeeeee with this so much 😭 the ending felt so outside of the movie, like to me this feels similar to call me by your name, where it had to do more with character interaction rather than a complete plot (at least this is what i got from the movie lol). and so to be spoon fed the ending so directly felt jarring and unnecessary
That was main issue same with promising young woman! She doesn’t know up to wrap up a film. I need her to get a cowriter or direct someone else’s script because she’s so close to making a great film! I don’t need every director to do it all!! That’s why so many projects are falling flat.
girl i’m not into theatre so what is act 3 😭😭
@@indiefairy09Yes yes yes. SO much potential dropped at the end in both cases.
Also it took me two weeks to epiphany this, but the bathtub scene felt like a desperate attempt to recreate a call me by your name peach scene scandal 🙊
Retweet!
I haven’t seen Saltburn, but that was immediately what I thought of when I heard about that scene
Ooooooohhhhh
ahhh, yeah. definitely onto something there
yeah it felt like it was there for shock value. same w the other 'distubring' scenes
As soon as we met Oliver, it’s clear he’s a wrongun and I don’t think the film thinks we understood that. As soon as he said his dad was dead, me and my mate were like ‘he’s bloody not’.
When he said the first time he felt his mom’s throat, it struck me as intentionally salacious like the fake drug addict autobiography. It was interesting how he caught on to what would keep Felixes attention.
Same. Everyone knew Oliver was lying from the get-go.
I watched it with two friends and none of us predicted it. I also imagined the Saltburn family would be the ones to hurt Oliver at the start of the film, not the other way around
@@avaborch-solem2300Same. His name brings to mind Oliver Twist, so we are already set up from the start to - consciously or unconsciously - associate him with a poor orphan.
i went to rate the film on letterboxd, and underneath it had films that were supposedly similar to saltburn. i saw parasite… im so annoyed w how low the bar is for hollywood that these two films are put on the same level
To be fair Parasite is such a rare gem you cant recommend too many movies in its league and they have to recommend something
I LOVE rosamund pike. I think the actors are great and the vibe of the film is immaculate. The plot is easily predictable and didn’t make much sense towards the end(many glaring plot holes like where is the coroner report?!?) but I will watch it again for the vibes tbh
I’d like a cut version of the movie which only included scenes with Rosamund Pike 😄
I was like, wouldn't tons of family come out of the woodwork to contest Oliver's inheritance? What about Farleigh? Would it not go to the next heir? The butler definitely fucking knew and didn't like Oliver and would have gladly been on other families sides.
Also I was super confused when they kicked Farleigh out because no one confirmed he ODed. And his parents can't be that naive that they wouldn't think several of those ultra-rich party kids wouldn't have brought drugs in?
Righhhhhttt movie is still so solid overall but deffo some lost potential
the coroner’s report would say Felix died of an OD - which he did, and which Oliver successfully framed Farleigh for. How is that a plot hole?
saltburn is the "great gowns. beautiful gowns" among knives out, the menu and such
This is the best comment
HAHA
saltburn was MUCH better than the menu be serious
😩😩😩😩😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣 omggg
@@kunpunkodo u have no taste
Yup, all of this. From a class reading, this feels more than anything like a cautionary tale: "Beware those predatory, monstrous lower classes". I'd even go so far as to say it's a film about the rich's anxiety about the lower classes.
And a queer reading is basically the same: "beware the predatory queer friend". It feels at best like we've done this before, long ago, and with more bite (Talented Mr Ripley).
Act 3 never worked in terms of logic or tone. The film tries to pull off "he's a mastermind who planned this from the start" and "this is his moment of triumph", neither of which work logically or tonally with the rest of the film.
Beware of the lower classes is so completely how it feels - naff version of the talented Mr ripley
I felt this way too, and even the "shock value" scenes (bathtub, vampire, gravesite) fell a bit flat for me. They seemed oddly placed throughout the movie, without fleshing out the emotion of the scene beyond simply a visceral aesthetic one. The pacing also felt off, and certain moments seemed to drag on a bit too long, or not long enough.
Okay so my opinion about the film: i didn’t like the ending, specifically that he intented the whole thing to play out that way. it just didn’t feel natural and kinda like a forced „fight club“ -esque twist. it would’ve been so much better if they played more into the moth analogy, him stumbling into all of this and the story unfolding from there, without his planning of everything.
BUT the vibes were immaculate, soundtrack, cinematography and overall art in the movie was great and positively influencing my watching experience
Or if he started off wanting to get what he could from the family, but it escalated
!!! I thought of Fight Club in relation to this movie too!
He clearly didn't plan the whole thing out from the start, he did it step by step it wasn't as if he thought immediately he'd manage to kill them all off.
As the director said, Oliver's ideal scenario would have been marriage to Felix and living happily with the family. It just doesn't work out that way so he panicks and finds another way.
He's not a mastermind behind the whole thing, he just reacted to what he was given.
@@a.carneirozhu8104true, i didn't even think of this but why the fuck are we trusting his narration!! such a good point omg now I have more to think about lol
this video gave voice to all the reasons I couldn't fully describe why saltburn didn't resonate with me beyond the cinematography and acting, so well done, thank you!!
To me it definitely feels like class commentary, but from the upper class against lower classes. Oliver exaggerates his misfortune, is obsessed with and fetishizes the upper class, and while he makes it his mission to unalive the rich, it’s only because he wants to be in their place- simultaneously enamored with them and hating them. Meanwhile the upper class, while they may have problems and flaws, are ultimately undeserving victims. It just feels sad that the acting and filmmaking, even the characters, were wasted on that story.
You are so right goddammn
So I generally enjoyed the film, but my guess for the plot of Felix and his savior complex (especially after it was mentioned several times to Oliver, that he’s not the first person that came to Saltburn for summer) would be that he is some kind of maniac killer of lower class and his family is so rich and powerful that they could cover everything. I’d love to watch that so much!
My boyfriend was convinced that was the twist nearly the whole movie. 😆
yeah that's what I thought it would be too, ig it's too similar to Get Out though
That would be great, olier the ruthless manipulator and felix the romantic in that case serial killer with the family being aspects of at least accomplices, you can have esbeth be like she pretends she tries to help him but toys with him and ooh.
And oliver too showing his colours. and freaking out stuff he did.
Would make a really good movie.
Theres so many saltburn themed parties and club nights in Oxford city/ uni atm
Oh noooooo
Tone deaf...
well that tells you everything you need to know about the "class commentary"
That's what happens when a member of the elite tries to make a class commentary lolll
What is wrong with people 😭
I just watched the movie and actually liked it, however my biggest gripe is how unrealistic it is for Olliver to get away with everything. You're telling me theres no fingerprints/DNA on Venetia's razors, Elspeth's medical equipment (also, how tf would that have been an accident?? Did noone see her body??), on Felix's alcohol bottle? This uber wealthy family wouldnt have autopsies and toxicology done? No criminal investigations? What about the girl Felix was hooking up with who saw Olliver? Youre telling me she wouldnt speak up about how he was the last person seen with Felix and it was an emotionally charged situation? Farleigh wouldn't tell police about the threats Olliver made and how he should be looked into??
Maybe I watch too much true crime, but that really took me out. Too many plot holes with the murders.
I agree. I didn't have any preconcieved notions before watching, I'd only seen the trailer. But after finishing it I was like..."Okay, I guess?" 🤷♀ That was my literal response lol. Seemed very gratuitous - plenty of shock but not much of the value!
true.
I don’t agree with the take that Felix is “kind hearted” bc every time we see him he’s doing something distasteful. For example, he plays eeny meeny miny moe with women to sleep with, he treats Oliver like a toy to the point that he doesn’t want anyone else to play with him (Venetia), and when he was walking with that girl through oxford he never defends Oliver when she was degrading him instead he chuckles. I think there’s more as well but those are the main ones I can think of.
Well I too would be weirded out if I invited my friend to my house and they tried to frick one of my family members.
He also says ' I told you he wasn't a minger' to his mom. He's definitely not supposed to be kind as the director herself said.
People are telling on themselves with complaints that the rich people were portrayed as being super nice.
They quite obviously weren't, and a lot of people here were clearly also distracted by the pretty people enough to not notice how awful they were. That's the point, and this video/comment section are ironically proving it.
@@alexjames7144almost every character sucked, but that doesn’t make the movie any better.
i get more of the vibe that yes he is shitty, but he’s also somewhat agreeable. like i imagine a few candid conversations with him would set him straight into understanding. y’know? like he’s got the spirit but he’s also doing objectively shitty things. but also no one calls him out on it and that’s why he continues to do it. although the only caveat is how he responded to farleigh ab race. that was rough ngl
I think ppl who watch this hoping it to be a deep look into class or wealth will not enjoy this. But if u watch it as just a story of an unhinged man becoming obsessed over a man and his life (like the talented mr Ripley), it’s fun.
Honestly the reason I enjoyed this was because it wasn’t another cliche “evil rich people, sad poor boy” story.
I thought it was unique to make Felix a rather kind person despite being so wealthy.
This!!!!
Yes!! I thought that was very much THE POINT of Saltburn. To lure you in with the narrative of "evil rich people in big house" vs "poor sad boy from merseyside" only to catch you off guard! Emerald Fennell likes to play into people's prejudices and did this a lot in her film Promising Young Woman.
I agree. I was actually kind of baffled that people were expecting this movie to be a deep commentary on class. I thought it was more about Oliver as a character and his infatuation/obsession with Felix, and that obsession is what drives him to initially play the 'poor, troubled' shtick. His obsession is so severe that when Felix resoundingly rejects him, he decides to *become* him and effectively takes his life. In that sense, he becomes the vampire that he references earlier. Oliver doesn't do the things he does as a way to 'get back' at the system and he's a protagonist but he's absolutely not someone you root for.
I agree with you about high expectations, but when the movie is very heavily inspired by its precedents such as the talented mr ripley, it unfortunately falls flat on substance, which is what I think most people’s criticism lies
i agree although i still think the story fell a bit flat, but felix is NOT sweet in the movie, first watch i thought he was because he’s so charasmatic but he’s fr not (and not supposed to be)
Oh Emerals didnt miss the point at all: this IS a film about class commentary, just not the expected one. Saltburn is so loved by the upper class (see how they were gushing over it at the Baftas) because it let them say: see those despicable working class people? They're not even as poor as they claim (yoir point on the media pandering to the porn benefit made me hope you had noticed this) and they just want to take it all from us!". This film is a class commentary and judgement: against the lower classes.
Wait, Emerald Fennell’s dad is a jeweler and he named her after a gemstone? That’s like a banker naming his kid Dollar lmao 😂😂
Lol, I'm glad I'm not the only person who clocked that! 😂
It felt like the twist was for the sake of a twist and making sure the audience couldn’t predict the ending. The characters were so two dimensional and motivations felt so flat.
Thank you for this take it’s so refreshing!
I recommend the talented Mr Ripley if you haven't watched it already - it's a similar vibe but doesn't hide the twist but steers into it
I enjoyed it a lot from a quality perspective! Beautiful shots, incredible acting, great soundtrack, just overall a stunning film. But the plot wasn't anything groundbreaking to me, and I also don't think it really had enough commentary about class. I think they could've done a little more to really sell it. Felt like a bit of a missed opportunity IMO.
I think emerald fennel should just direct music videos
i think she should have to work at tesco and let more talented people have her opportunities
it’s so annoying when she has beautiful shots and sets up an interesting story in act one and two, but then completely ruins it in the third act.
she needs somebody else to just write the ending at this point.
She could at least try with people she learns from how to do stuff better.
Or nothing at all
she needs to get someone to write for her tbh. because honestly her directing is fine, good even, its just shes such a sloppy writer
The natural light looks so gooood!
I'm glad im not the only one, saltburn basically felt like season 4 of YOU, it was kinda predictable and without the drastic bathtub scene this film wouldn't be a hit or talked about its very average, I watched in the cinema and the soundtrack was beautiful but it was so average to me
In that the media was all abuzz telling us how shocking the sex and nudity was, I feel like the shock was somewhat fabricated. I thought they were very good moments for Barry to act, but not that scandalous.
@@Gee-xb7rtyou're right, I feel like that's all I heard about it. When I was going to watch it, I was still unsure what the film was supposed to be about. A recent film that I feel uses a lot of shock value nudity, is probably Poor Things.
For all the talk about the shocking scenes I'm surprised nobody talked about how Oliver basically SA's Farleigh...
Like maybe its just me but that didn't seem entirely consensual and i found it way more dusturbing than any of the "shocking" scenes
I agree!!
True!!!!
It’s honestly quite shocking for me that people on social media found it to be a “hot” and “sexy” moment of the film
I wouldn't say he SA'd Farleigh. It's more ambiguous and up to interpretation
(ex: his reaction of going along with it (kissing, moaning, not resisting, sleeping with him seemingly peacefully after) could've been the freeze/shock of someone who's been S-exploited before (his male teachers used to have non-penetrative intercorse with him when he was a minor) or him just enjoying it)
but apparently according to the script, he was reacting positively to it.
THIS!! That whole scene was giving big SA vibes and that was one of the uncomfortable ones for me.
I agree. I didn’t love it or hate it, but the biggest thing for me was that it didn’t really have anything to say and that the genres it tried to portray weren’t really explored to their fullest extent. I think Parasite was a much better film flushing out these themes and genres!
I recommend the talented Mr Ripley - it's not perfect but i think it was great to explore what salt burn was trying to
The original ending, where Oliver would have come downstairs to eat breakfast, and Duncan would have intentionally made them runny, would have been the perfect ending. That’s a fantastically restrained, unlike the mad dash of craziness we got in the last 7 minutes of it.
I wish they'd kept that ending, it would've been a much better ending that actually would've made it feel like the film was saying something about class, or just anything in general
@@christianwise637 and also that you can get everything you want in life and still be unhappy. Which is to say, “money can’t buy happiness.” You can be happy without money, and be more happy with money, but you can’t be unhappy and improve your life exclusively with money. That’s what the Sigma Grindset guys don’t understand.
why did they change it from that? that sounds so good
@@grace-ef9mj ikr?!? That’s a really subdued ending. Must be the studio wanted something flashy. Promising Young Woman kind of ends with a twist, so maybe she’s into that.
@@imdoneplus yess thats actually exactly what i thought too! the 'promising young woman' ending wasn't actually the original one either tho. apparently she wanted for it to end originally with those two guys burning the mc's body in the woods, which is kinda dark but would rlly have hammered home the themes of the movie yknow. apparently the 'production financiers' didn't want a negative ending, which is why they created the plot twist with the police crashing the wedding. its funny bc i wouldve enjoyed the movie more if they went w the original ending too lol, i hated the wedding crshing one.
tbh that means there's a chance that the flashy ending in saltburn wasn't the directors choice, and she mightve wanted to keep it more ambigious (ugh i wish). if that's true, i feel kinda bad for her, bc ive seen a lot of ppl trashing on the ending for being too on the nose etc, and it mightve not even been her choice
I don’t understand where Oliver’s parents are during all this? They’re a middle class family and they were happy to see him when Felix took him home and he has siblings, it’s weird that they have no involvement especially when he’s takes over salt burn? I think it would have been better if he did come from a poor family
i think it made sense that oliver's parents weren't present when he took over saltburn. he just left them behind, he doesn't care about them now that he's ascended classes. hell, he never care about them when they were in the same class. oliver is written out to be a very selfish character that thinks of himself and this makes sense for him
So I had an experience a little like this. I was a scholarship kid at a haughty private school and my good friend invited me to the Hamptons with her over break. I got to her mansion and met her mother and she HATED me. Lol.. I was wayyy too uncouth for her. So this whole movie rang totally untrue for me personally. It was predictable as Oliver never came off as working class. Even his walk was posh. So he really blended in effortlessly. So I think they missed the mark there.
I also think it plays into this ridiculous idea the wealthy have that the people below them are so desperate for their position they’ll do anything to get it. And that’s just not true. My good friend was miserable. Her mother put way too much pressure on her. There was nothing about that situation I envied at all. I had freedom. Because I was “poor” and did not grow up around false pretenses.
In my experience, it’s usually the wealthy who will do anything to stay wealthy. For me, I don’t think anyone involved in this movie was truly “working class”. And it shows and spoils the whole premise imho. Great commentary though 🤓💚
This could’ve and probably should’ve been a series. Like if there was a 7 episode mini series of it and the characters could be well rounded. But also it’s important to remember that oliver only knew the family for 6 months. Maybe we didn’t see the other sides of them because we (being oliver) don’t really know them? But it could also very much be that the director is a nepo baby and unconsciously wrote the higher class family as not that bad compared to oliver, however lower class than Felix.
I think you could be right. The reason I hated the movie was both the piling plot holes and how all the characters felt like caricatures, not fully fledged characters. It added even more insult to injury when she made all the rich people tepid villains, innocent, gullible and honestly, very dumb. All the while the upper middle class guy was a villain master mind. It felt like she wanted to cater to rich with a cautionary tale since she's a heir herself, but even that falls flat. And to me, it falls flat because she could not add nuance to her caricatures and plot.
I dont hate the movie, I hate 90% of the discourse surrounding it. This movie rlly exposed who has media literacy and who doesn’t lol. I’ve seen people say their takeaway from this movie was that “Oliver was in love with Vanetia”???? Like huh???
Edit: I spelled discourse wrong 😢
Like, ofc this movie doesn’t have anything to contribute to class commentary. It wasn’t, and never claimed to be, a class commentary/ “eat the rich” movie. There are just rich people in it.
I think that the recent rise in “f the rich” movies (Glass onion, the menu, ect.) made people automatically label this movie as a class commentary just because the characters are wealthy.
Edit: I can’t spell for shi 😭
Still, I’d give it a solid 6.5/10. Kinda predictable and the “plot twist” at the end was tacky. I think people definitely overreacted to the “crazy” scenes, they weren’t that bad.
Im loving your edits hahhahaha but also I agree, I've had discussions with so many people on my course (im a film bro, apologies) and it's been so interesting hearing everyone's takes.
Other than on TikTok or twitter, I haven’t heard this take from anyone.
@@helloworld1493 if the director herself said that it's a class satire, then you can't be mad at people criticizing it for failing at class commentary
its literally "yeah rich peopIe can be kinda mean sometimes, but reaIIy it the poor peopIe who are wrong"
but they were afraid that oIiver being working cIass would upset too many peopIe so they "upgraded" him middIe cIass, thinking it would fix the issue
The movie is good for one thing, it really is a good insight into just how out of touch and twister rich peopIe's world views are. And yes Im talking about the director
That last paragraph, had us in the first half not gonna lie.gif
I don't think that's the message she was going for. I mean, don't get me wrong it was utterly unimpressive film class-wise, but it was more to do with the real obsession the middle class have with becoming wealthier; aristocratic. This is a real thing that exists and it's a funny fear the upper-classes have held since the beginning of the time (see the sumptuary laws of the 13th century which banned luxury clothings for the "new rich" even tho they can afford it!) The twist is significant because rich people do see some poor people as little side projects they can dote on until their next distraction. So I think it's unfair to say Ferrel was targeting the working class but under some facade decided she didn't want backlash. Her biggest crime was just not adding anything to the catalogue other than being scenic.
omg your opinions on this movie were like identical to me! I didn't hate it either, justfelt like it was boring, zero class commentary, and the only thing that saved it was Rosamund Pike
I read an article where the director said the audience should be on oli's side if theyve "done their job correctly" as filmmakers and ive been confused about what saltburn is trying to say since then bc what
in general, it seems like the pov of Farleigh would have been much more interesting to explore considering his connections to the Cattons and him being the 'upper-class in debt' character.
This is what I'm saying !!! It seemed more like Emerald Fennell's fears of 'letting a poor in' than anything
Not so much the poor, but the aspirational middle class who want to be in the aristocracy (like Kate Middleton, ironically enough. The press constantly accused her and her family of being Fortune hunting).
why make this a personal attack on the director 🙄 not everything you don’t like has to be the result of some moral failing on the part of the creator. That’s so unsophisticated.
@MariaCaterina2012 hmmm maybe because she wrote, directed and co-produced the movie ?
@grandempressvicky6387 I suppose it is two-pronged. What I initially meant was that Felix THOUGHT that Oliver was poor and leant him his sympathy, which led to the events that happened. What you say is also true though :)
@@rynb4868 you not liking a piece of work doesn't mean the person who created it is a bad person, baby boo. the fact that fact that you feel empowered to make out-of-pocket statements about a creator's personal beliefs because they made a piece of work that didn't contain a moral message indicates to me that you should probably stick with after-school specials.
I loved this video! I definitely agree with a lot of your points. I think Parasite is a popular example of a movie that successfully explores class differences in a comedic dark thriller framing, and the pacing/energy of that film always keeps you on your toes!
Middle class originated in France with the Bourgeoisie. Thatcher weaponized it but it was around before she was.
Her endings always feels so rushed. The same with Promising young woman. She begins with such great concepts and then it fizzles out
My boyfriend called it contrived and I think it was a great descriptor. We felt disconnected from the characters and that everything was forced including the character to character relationships.
I will say, as someone who's unfamiliar with Brideshead Revisited but has seen the movie adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, I couldn't help but draw parallels between it and Saltburn. Enigmatic young man meets rich guy his age who seems like he has a perfect life (good looks, universal popularity, a lot of money and an affluent family that loves him) and the two of them strike up a friendship despite the enigmatic young man being an outsider and unpopular with a snarky guy who's close the rich guy and immediately distrusts the enigmatic young man, and all goes well. At least until the enigmatic young man shows he's obsessed both with rich guy and the idea of being the rich guy, crossing boundaries, and making the rich guy realize that he really doesn't know the enigmatic young man as well as he thought and decides to end the friendship, leading to his unwitting death and the enigmatic young man cannibalizing the rich guy's lifestyle for himself. While Saltburn has its stronger points in the form of solid acting and excellent cinematography, it's too similar to other works that are better cohesively and some of the original ideas (the middle class infiltrating the aristocracy being a reasonable thing to be terrified of, in fact) are off-putting.
Thiiiiiiiis
I couldn’t help but think about the talented lister Ripley… which in my opinion was better
I believe it’s Barry Key-oh-gan! That’s how he pronounces it in interviews :)
TWO Jordan Theresa videos nearly back to back??? I’m obsessed, what an amazing surprise ❤️ I don’t care what you put out I am watching it, go off girl
For me and my friends, I think it sparked so much interest because it made us think and talk about something we haven’t really given much thought to before. Being a 16 year old in a poor small town and me and my friends being either working class immigrant families or working class British parents who were able to move up to middle class, none of us know anyone who’s upper class, me talking about going to uni is a really cool thing but it’s not a reality for a lot of us. During the Oxford party sences my friends joked about omg when you get into Cambridge invite us to your parties and I think we sort of feel like the kids at school who are out of the loop when imagining this rich life where they can act without a lot of consequences. We didn’t love it because the film was amazing, we loved it because we stayed up all night speculating about different aspects of the film and how we felt about it. It was less about the film itself and more about the subject matter. We’ve never really spoken about class other than jokes about me and the other middle class family girl being the “rich ones”.
Finally someone who agrees!!! I honestly hated that movie so much, I found it visceral and honestly? The worst thing is that the movie tries to act like it’s so clever when really it’s not
She didn't hate it
@@luiscalzoncit2820 They never said she did.
@@princessnicki63 They said: "Finally someone who agrees!!! I honestly hated that movie so much..."
instantly subscribed. i’ve been struggling with this one because i didn’t like it much at all. glad to hear someone verbalize some of the problems i also had with it. great video, very incisive commentary
I just watched a video saying the talented Mr Ripley is like a better look at class - I just watched it - deffo enjoyed the talented Mr Ripley more :)
i loved this commentary. i had the same reaction to the movie as you described and i couldnt put my finger on why, now i get it. it feels exactly like what the movie really is, vague. not absurd enough neither critial. pure shock value that, because it lacks depth, is not even shocking at all.
jordan the aesthetics of this video are off the charts ❤ love ur content and appreciate u sm
i’m sorry but barry keoghan does NOT look anywhere CLOSE to 18 😭😭
neither does jacob elordi..
I love how happy and enthusiastic you are in your speech, somehow it engages me more into listening
You’re positively glowing in this light !
I feel like they only scratched the surface of how unhinged everyone should have been by the end. Like the ending should have been more horror/thriller and just letting us see these characters down to their bare bones. Like desperate terrible people who have surrounded themselves in this paper thin delusion. Like give me the big emotional catharsis. Give me brutal and meaningful deaths. Give me a good antagonist to work against Oliver so we are left wondering if he will be okay. Like everything just feels…vague in a bad way.
This movie it's not parasite, it's not eat the rich. This movie is about obsession with generational wealth, social climbing (Because no matter what Oliver did, even coming from an upper class family, he could never have a castle), why rich people have a close inner circle and normal people can't enter because they feel that those can take advantage from them, so this movie it's screaming protect your assets, and the toxic hustle culture from the 2000s (take everyone down to take their place, and opportunity it's the key), Oliver feels that he worked his ass for this money so he deserved it, that's why he dances at the end. This movie, it's a cautionary tale for rich people.
here for the Ready or Not love! that's one of my favorite films ever, everything about it makes sense: the dialogue, the casting, the performances are great, the horror and suspense really works, the class aspect is very well explored, and the comedy is actually funny! I feel like it's hard to make an actually good horror comedy that has something to say, because you need writers AND actors who can do two very opposite things: intense drama and horror, and being funny with good comedic timing. plus you need a story that actually makes sense. and it can't be too long - if a horror movie is longer than 100 minutes, it's taking itself too seriously.
I really agree with the obesrvation of Saltburn being, essentially, a remake of The Talented Mr Ripley (which is a masterpiece), but something I think is really interesting in terms of the whole class debate is watching this film as someone who has closely studied revolution, especially the French Revolution. In the film, the simultaneous critique of the middle class/bourgeoisie as "the only real winners" and also the aristocracy alongside them (while the lower class goes underrepresented in the world of the film) is INCREDIBLY interesting to me. However, I am aware that I could be giving Emerald Fennell a lot of credit for this interpretation.
The fact that Oliver masquerades as lower class to further his motives of gaining aristocratic levels of power and wealth (a.k.a taking over Saltburn from the Cattons) speaks to the way that upper-middle class bourgeoisie and lower nobility rode the coattails of the hardships of the lower class in the French Revolution with the aim of achieving a higher level of status and power than was available to them under French society's existing limitations during that period. I see a lot of parallels between the anatomy of a revolution and Saltburn, which is the class angle that I'm choosing to focus on post-viewing due to my interest in the topic. This is why I found the film very thoughtful, as well as being highly enjoyable on an aesthetic level.
I was thinking a similar, but comparatively less developed/historicized version of this. Generally, under capitalism there are people who aspire to be wealthy/wealthier, but this desire is parasitic and requires immense manipulation and exploitation to achieve since it’s about playing into preexisting structures of economic inequity, rather than dismantling them. Oliver seems like an extreme example (perhaps a rather ham fisted one too) of this and displays the kind of violent acts, whether discursive or literal, required to accumulate wealth and move up classes. He has no interest in wealth redistribution, but will appropriate the aesthetics of any class to get what he wants . A class trader, whose bought into the hyper-individualistic ideology of capitalism and has come to believe he is somehow more deserving of wealth than the Cattons. He’s obsessed with their bodies and fluids too, especially Felix’s, because they are materializations of the kind of wealth he wishes to embody. He wants to devour them and their wealth. And I think we should walk away not liking Oliver because he’s been nothing but selfish and an unreliable narrator. I don’t mourn the demise of the Cattons. They are caricatures of the ways intergenerational wealth rots your brain. But getting rid of them without some larger movement or social upheaval doesn’t change a thing. This is how I at least like to interpret the movie to get something interesting from it 😂
I appreciate how you break down every aspect of the film - the cast, the soundtrack, the camerawork, the background of the filmmaker, etc. This was a really well thought out and well presented review.
Would love more movie reviews! 🤩 I love everything you geek out over bc it’s like I’m talking to a buddy. I don’t even watch reality shows but I’m always here for your take 😆🫶🏼
i’m glad i’m not the only one feeling this way! it’s been so interesting hearing all the different takes though whether i feel the same or not. there’s a lot to discuss!
after seeing the bathtub scene and the dancing scene i guessed the entire plot, read the wikipedia page and was like "yeah thats what i expected" and i am fascinated that people are so fascinated and gagged like ?? this is the most predictable shit ever lmao
something about the lighting in this one is so delicious!! looks so crisp, like cold water at 3 am
if it makes you feel better about a badly timed eyebrow piercing; i got mine pierced right before michael clifford got his in 2014, like the same month or the month right before. but i still have mine lol! 💙
QUEEN NEVER APOLOGISE FOR NOT LIKING DISAPPOINTING SHITTY MOVIES!
Omg I LOVE the daylight lighting don’t worry it looks so good and it IS fresh!
20:35 I don’t think it’s implied that sir James died by suicide. He was an older man, and the time skip made me think his death was potentially sped up by the loss of his children. You can’t read the obituary, so maybe it’s left up to interpretation.
I agree. I assumed stress/old age
i appreciate you making this video so much!! so glad i'm not the only person who did not really love this movie😭
after i finished saltburn, i thought it was quite underwhelming and not as effective with what it was trying to comment on as everyone else was making it sound
i did enjoy the movie and i thought it was beautifully shot, i just wouldn't agree that it commented well on the upper class society. the way that it dealt with oliver's character was just so... i don't know icky to me
i just feel like it could've been so much better if the themes were stronger and more aware of how social actually class works and effects people in the real world
additionally, i thought it was just so corny that it turned out that oliver planned it all from the beginning, i think that was my least favourite part, and it took so much away from the already half-baked messages
i love social class commentary and i find it so interesting, especially with studying sociology at a level, and this movie.... just did not do it for me
2nd comment, just wanted to say, I adore your added info about the uk and the history of classism in the uk.
I love the natural light in this vid 🫶🏼
Personally, saltburn for me was an exploration of morality rather than just class divides. There’s a juxtaposition of expectations for the “poor”and rich: the rich are predatory consumers that are out of touch and the poor suffer from this. Although parts of this are true, overall, saltburn challenges our views on morality, as the roles are now switched. Oliver as the predator and the whole family as the prey. The book Pedagogy by the Oppressed by Paulo Freire explores this concept further with oppression being a continuum rather than something binary. I don’t think it’s a film about social mobility, rather, it is the expression of twisted morality and the cycle of human oppression.
I just want to tell you that I absolutely love you in the most non-threatening, cishet, Australian, working class, Gen X woman solidarity way possible. Most of the time I just feel so politically tired and you are exactly the kind of younger person who fans the tiny embers of hope in my cynical heart. ✊🏻
I called it the politician redemption arc for I’m a celeb I absolutely hate it they’ll always bring out the most hated one at the time as well and try to guilt trip us into seeing them as “equals” like “look they’re one of us” 😒😒
i didn't like saltburn that much either and i couldn't quite place my finger on what the issue was. watching your video really helped me clarify what was missing in the movie. i kept watching and nodding my head like "oh yeahhh!" really great video, i love it.
people keep saying how beautiful the film is- Linus Sandgren was the DOP/ cinematographer; worked on loads of incredible projects, also Victoria Boydell on the editing. congrats to them
I honestly cannot look at those actors and believe they are freshmen in college no matter how good they might be at acting. That's a grown man. That's a man with a mortgage. 3 months away from his midlife crisis
Thank you so much for speaking out, I was so worried I was alone. 😂❤
22:23 maybe (maybe!!) the middle class “twist” was supposed to poke fun at the bourgeoisie, in the original definition (I think!) where people in the middle class aspire to be upper class and align themselves with the upper class concerns In this aspirational way even though they have more in common with the working class and should have class solidarity with working people. Maybe? maybe. //*edit*: making all the middle class characters the “joke” is still punching down tho and not funny imo
yeah that's the vibe I got, which is certainly a choice but not a movie for me. And, I think sometimes we just have to realise that. I was never going to enjoy a film that satirises the middle class for the aspiration (albeit violently tragic) they have to be wealthy. because at the end of the day, it's more pitiful to me than funny. Ferrel probably sees humour in it because she is surrounded by those folks, ultimately hence she satirises both the upper class and middle but falls flat in this because she has obvious biases. In that way Jordan is completely right, its a pretty bad class film but I was pretty neutral on it and the stylistic choices were fun imo
There is no such thing as middle-class if we use the original, Marxist definition of bourgeois. Petit-bourgeois would be the closest thing, but it does not carry the same connotations that "middle-class" does. The actual, material class distinction is between those who labor and those who own the means of production.
Fennell being a nepo baby makes everything make so much more sense omg I didn't even thing to look into that.
The creators of this film were definitely like “we’re gonna shoot this film in 4:3 aspect ratio, it’s gonna be so deep and metaphorical” without actually knowing what metaphors they were trying to convey. It feels so surface level
Based in your critics, Saltburn should have been a miniseries and I actually agree. The character explorations and build up would have been amazing.
I was waiting for you to make a video about this it seemed right up your alley
It's about how the middle class is obsessed/wants to consume/become the upper class. You just like really flippantly brush this theory away, but it's supported by the many food and sexual consumption themes throughout the story.
Just because they are "miles down the food chain," as you say, doesn't mean we (I'm middle class) can't be satirized for the benefit of becoming a better society. I think we can agree that the less we obsessed over/wanted to become the rich, the better we'd be off bc we'd have more class solidarity against the rich.
That's why the twist that Oliver is middle class and not poor is actually pretty brilliant. The audience is expecting a movie that will harpoon the rich for taking advantage of the poor, or even celebrate the poor for taking revenge on the rich, but what they get instead is a movie that makes them look at themselves.
Also, one of the more obvious recent examples of the upperclass having their own set of rules to see who belongs that must be learned. I thought the surreal scene after the first death was a great cap to this point.
So, not the most concrete or nuanced class commentary, but you can hardly say there's "nothing to do about class."
completely unrelated to the topic, but you seem like such a lovely person and I really enjoy watching your video essays, keep going 🥰✨
Literally I think this movie had more in common (theme wise, definitely not vibe wise) with Do Revenge than it did with class satire thrillers like knives out or parasite. It was about one dude's homoerotic fixation on his unattainable friend and his family, who honestly wasn't portrayed to be that unattainable? He was just like, a rich playboy? Like what are we trying to say here? At least Do Revenge knew what it was & gave clear motivations & personality traits to the characters.
your hair looks so nice!!!! im excited to watch, you have the most articulate and funny takes :)
Regarding the disturbing scenes, I also felt like they were there for shock factor and to hint at Oliver being sinister and sick, but the relationship of Oliver w Felix wasn't coherent with his overall motivation that is revealed in the end, not to mention it kinda spoils the end because it becomes so predictable and underwhelming after knowing what he's already capable of. Also the fact he intentionally poisoned Felix and then went on to ... His grave is so off brand. Like if he was that obsessed with him I would at least expect his murder to be more violent and spontaneous, so the "regret" or grief would make sense, but the fact that he did it deliberately and planned it, idk just paints Oliver as being "quirky" and sick and "unpredictable" while not making sense at all character wise. The obsession with Felix wasn't actually explored, Oliver kinda changed hats after the bathtub scene and after the "big reveal" in the end the whole obsession didn't make sense in the first place. I feel like this entire film was trying to momentarily entertain and be shocking while as a coherent piece there's so many plot holes and missed opportunities.
I heard a pretty good take on why it is revealed midway of the film, and I also have my own thougts on it.
The take was that kt plays on the rich southeners vs. Poor northeners perception. The Cattons are very rich southeners who don’t even question when a northener comes in and says his family is just drug addicts. They want to adopt a summer charity case, a story to tell their rich friends in the future. A middle class normie is not an intriguing story or charity case.
By that point of the film, there are several little hints dropped that Ollie isn’t who he performa as. Morphing himself to every person he interacts with - lying to each and everyone of them. It’s the point where the audience ”officially” start to second guess Ollie as a reliable narrator, as he’s autistically coded and the underdog (which personally I believe was a part of Ollie’s act.) It made me want to rewatch the film and discover those kernels of snake venom you realize as the first shoe drops. The rest of the movie is womdering what his actual goal was, as in the beginning he does talk about loving Felix.
Thank you!! I’ve been waiting for the critiques! I felt gaslit too!!