Saltburn Review

I finally watched Saltburn after months of wanting to but never doing so because everyone I know would be highly disturbed by it if I were to do so in their presence. I watched it at around 4am in A&E over a week ago, half-delirious from lack of sleep, and maybe that added to the surreal, fever-dream quality of the film. But even in that haze, Oliver emerged as one of the most compelling characters I’ve seen on screen in a long time. There's something about his insidious charm, the quiet, understated calculation beneath his seemingly earnest and vulnerable surface, that lingers in your mind long after watching. His character is a masterclass in complexity that modern cinema constantly shies away from. It's a huge step away from the yawn-worthy, cardboard cut-out villains repeatedly sploshed across our screens.

And the so-called "controversial" scenes? They're what made it for me. They are precisely the moments that lift Saltburn from being just another film to being a work of cinematic art. And art, as I keep saying (and I will die on this hill), should be free to delve into the deepest recesses of the human psyche—the ugly, the raw, the unspoken—without censorship or restraint. Too often, films are afraid to go there, to risk unsettling the audience and—God forbid—affect their profits. But Saltburn leans into it, unapologetically.

Barry Keoghan—what an actor. To have the gall to improvise that grave scene, to push the performance into such unsettling intimacy, shows a fearless commitment that's becoming increasingly rare.

For all its beautiful Gothic aesthetic and sharp satire, the reason Saltburn stays with you is because it's got balls - excuse the pun! It's unafraid to explore the darker corners of the human experience, and I've felt starved of this kind of character—this kind of storytelling—in mainstream films for a long time, with the only exception being Arthur Fleck in Joker.

In essence, Saltburn has stuck with me in a way that few films do, and I can foresee many a repeat watching.

Also, it gets extra points for its Reece Shearsmith cameo.

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Joker: Are Trigger Warnings Necessary, and Will It Really Provoke Violence?