At face value, Saltburn is a simple but extremely colorful story about sex and power dynamics across gender and class lines with a Parasite-esque narrative that twists and coils and becomes something else, and there’s even more to it than that.
It’s a big “vibe” movie, much more about mood than any literal interpretation, which is rough because the literal interpretations are thick and have a lot of variation. It’s way too easy to get lost in the weeds talking about mythological overlap and Barry Keoghan’s penis and miss what actually makes this such a wonderful film – stunning photography and a whole lot of attitude.
Oxford University, fall semester 2006- scholarship student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) struggles to make friends, or even stay in the same bars, with his new upper-class peers. He manages to latch onto Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), a senior who seems to have dominion over the women on campus, and gets invited back to his home for the summer – Saltburn Castle. Overwhelmed by his new surroundings, Quick proceeds to seduce every person on the grounds.
Saltburn is impossibly beautiful, the kind of beauty that makes me sad I don’t have time to see it more than once in theaters. The combination of 35mm Kodak and the compositions from writer/director/producer Emerald Fennell and cinematographer Linus Sandgren make even dried vomit look gorgeous, haunting and vaguely sad. This is the most colorful film of 2023, with rich, eye-popping saturation on almost every frame, intense reds, blues and greens like hard candy tempting you to reach for it.
Fennell chose to shoot the film in a strange 1.37:1 aspect ratio to enhance the sense of a window into a world viewers had never seen before, a tremendous choice that does exactly what she intended. The whole film carries an uncomfortable sense of voyeurism, as if you, the viewer, are peeping in, first for the vicarious thrill, but then with increasing horror as the film turns sour, as if someone you were eavesdropping on slowly turning to lock eyes with you and refusing to let you escape.
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