Saltburn
Saltburn
A student at Oxford University finds himself drawn into the world of a charming and aristocratic classmate, who invites him to his eccentric family's sprawling estate for a summer never to be forgotten.
rg9400 reviewedNovember 1, 2024
This movie has been getting a lot of hate recently, and a lot of people have been using it as a launching pad to retroactively criticize Emerald Fennel’s debut in A Promising Young Woman. I think this is a bit unfair. So, let me just start off by saying that I was fully engrossed throughout the movie. I am not always sure it was in a positive manner though. The one scene I knew going into the movie was one of the tamer ones, and there were a few times where I was visibly cringing when watching. And yes, these scenes are very much for shock value (more on that later). The cinematography is beautiful. It's very much told in the gothic tradition, but it's got this glitzy veneer as well. I saw a review describing it as candy pop glitter, and I really like that description. The results can be electrifying at times. I must admit, I am biased as I love a good gothic tale, but some of the frames are almost like paintings. I loved the cinematography in the movie, if you couldn't tell. From an acting perspective, I think the movie is pretty strong as well. Barry Keoghan has already proven his acting chops, and Jacob Elordi is a bona fide future star. The plot is where things get tricky. I figured out where the movie was headed kind of fast, less than halfway through it. However, the movie, especially the ending, treats this like a big twist, so I feel like it didn't realize how much it plays its hand early on. This also results in some very uneven pacing, with the first 75% being very methodical, and then a sudden rush through the last 25% as it tries to rush through the rest of the story. I think it would have worked better if the big events were more evenly interspersed throughout the movie, and either it commits more to hiding its intentions, or fully reveals its hand and jumps into the juicier stuff. A lot of the movie is about shifting character motivations, and I just think it should have been firmer in which direction it wanted to go in regard to how obvious those motivations should have been. Also, I feel like where the movie ends up does not lend itself well to those aforementioned shock scenes. They simply do not fit with the end result, and thus, I feel like Emerald only included them for the sake of shock value and not much else.