CONTAINS SPOILERS
Saltburn is a movie that lures you in. You’ve seen all the TikToks, Reels, and edits. The shock and excitement over certain scenes. But what is Saltburn about? What’s under the flood of viral edits and reaction videos? My friend and I decided to find out.
Directed by Emerald Fennel, Saltburn is the lovechild of Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name and Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite. Set in the mid-2000s, the movie introduces Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) who has just stepped into the sophisticated world of Oxford University. Sandstone buildings and new students surround him as he makes his way to his dorm. He stares out his window and is caught by the almost-angelic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi) who daintily takes a puff from his cigarette. Here, the viewer is given the seed of an idea that will continue to grow for the most part of the movie—Oliver is a nobody.
The only person who wants to hang out with Oliver is a fellow outcast student who wears the same circular glasses as he does. Within this friendship, Oliver is seemingly trapped in his own social isolation. This is suggested through several scenes where Oliver is on the other side of the window, looking into the glamours of Felix’s world ‑ a world he can only dream of joining, or so it seems.
So, is this another eat-the-rich movie? My friend and I don’t think so. What we saw is a commentary on the duality of human condition. The destruction caused by desire. The movie’s colour choices, lighting, and use of symbolism convey the idea of humanity’s ugliness.
Oliver breaks into Felix’s circle by appealing to his pity, claiming that his father had died and his mother is an alcoholic with addiction issues.
“Why don’t you come home with me?” Felix takes the bait.
As Oliver arrives at Felix’s residence called Saltburn, the viewer is led to believe Oliver is a sad man with a sad existence. The old architecture of Saltburn almost envelops him on his arrival. Leading up to this point, Oliver is in a submissive position in every scene, where Felix dominates the screen when they are together. The character of Oliver is portrayed with a degree of emotional restriction, whereas Felix acts with more exuberance. This party-boy recklessness is represented by his eyebrow studs and shaggy hair, which contrasts Oliver’s clean-cut face and hair style.
An interesting fact about Saltburn is that the fashion choices were meant to paint Felix as an angel, and later in the movie we see Felix don angel wings. Sophie Canale, the costume designer, dresses Felix in a loose linen shirt as he gives a house tour to Oliver. The sunlight from the window basks Felix and renders his shirt semi-transparent, blessing the viewer with a teasing outline of his body. It almost acts as a bodily halo, further reinforcing—and foreshadowing—his role. Felix often acts as a breath of fresh air amongst the impending darkness the rest of the characters bring.
My friend also points out the importance of foreshadowing in the movie. An earlier scene depicts Felix shirtless and coated in golden sunlight. The shadow of the windows are visible on the red carpet. Oliver’s shadow lurks next to Felix’s unsuspecting head. Oliver’s figure is constantly split by his reflection in mirrors or as shadows. I think the most important one is his reflection as he stares at the Catton family puppet box that he sees at the end of his house tour. Is he their puppet? Or are they going to be his puppets?
As Oliver sets into life at Saltburn, the movie becomes eerily similar to Call Me By Your Name. Oliver mirrors the character of Elio, who is the submissive partner in the 2017 movie. The scenes become scarily similar when Oliver hangs out of the balcony. This may have been a tactic used by Fennel to lead the viewer away from the truth; to paint Oliver as this man who can only get his kicks off by watching and obsessing over a man who is better than him in all ways.
But then a tonal shift happens. I assume the bathtub scene is self-explanatory so no detail shall be divulged here, but it is the most pivotal scene. This is where the movie starts to call upon the madness that is Parasite, which transforms it into a twisted take on Call Me By Your Name.
After Oliver literally consumes a part of Felix, Oliver becomes the dominator. He adopts a certain cockiness that’s not too strong to cause alarm but strong enough to hold the Cattons in a mental chokehold.
However, this is also where the Cattons’ ignorance is revealed. My friend points out the absurdity of the statues that adorn their expansive land, highlighting the excess of wealth. The blanket of comfort that reveals their distance from life. Their rigidity of routines and etiquette covers for their immaturity and hollowness.
The symbolism of puppetry foretells this idea; the puppet represents the inanimate versus the living, material reality versus imagined reality. This is true for Parasite as well. In both movies, wealthy families are mere puppets, easily manipulated by vampires such as Oliver or the Kim family.
My friend points out that vampires need to be invited in, and once they settle in, they suck their victims dry. Oliver does this until the very end of the movie, and I mean that literally.
A more philosophical and mythological view of this movie would suggest the dangers of an imbalance. This idea is explored through puppetry and the Minotaur.
As mentioned before, the puppet is not living, it is animated through the invisible strings that feed it life. It doesn’t have its own voice, it is fed beliefs from the controller. This is very real in Oliver’s case where he slowly snakes his way into each of the family members—and even does so physically through sexual acts. Moreover, the Cattons are practically empty vessels too eager to accept Oliver’s thoughts, and this is especially true for Lady Elsbeth (Rosamund Pike) who famously stated “[she’s] never really wanted to know anything”, suggesting denial and lack of awareness. This links back to the idea of their wealth covering up the lack of substance and realness of their world, a realness only Oliver could embody which Venetia (Alison Oliver) noticed early in the movie: “You’re so real.”
The second motif placed throughout the movie is the Minotaur. The Minotaur in Greek mythology lives in a labyrinth, which is exactly how it is pictured in the movie. It symbolises the deepest and darkest desires of man, the combination of animalistic urges and human ethics, a duality similar to puppets. Throughout the movie, there are scenes that hint at Oliver embodying the Minotaur energy, especially the imagery of two horns which he adorns at his birthday party—the event where the angel Felix falls from grace as a sacrifice to the Minotaur.
My friend played with this idea of Felix falling as Icarus did. Oliver was the sun who drew the whole of Saltburn in using pity. Additionally, it was Venetia who called Oliver the moth that made little holes in the family dynamic, but it was Felix who was the real moth, blindly following Oliver’s breadcrumbs until it was too late.
The only real time when puppets are shown in the movie are at the beginning of Oliver’s stay and the ending. At the end, it is revealed that the Cattons were played by Oliver the whole time. My friend recalls the dinner after Felix passes away. He goes on to say that these scenes are draped in red because the family has plunged themselves into their own versions of hell—their darling son is gone and they need to face their horrendous emotions; recall Lady Elsbeth abhorring ugliness and adoring beauty, yet another instance of duality.
Felix was someone they lived for, someone they put on a show for as Oliver revealed just before Felix died. Maybe the whole family were vampires, stealing life from Felix as he was the angel whose death ultimately spelt the downfall for the whole family.
I read many reviews for this movie, expecting praise for its originality and boldness, but was met with the opposite. Many high-esteem media outlets published reviews which painted Fennel’s movie as a try-hard film, something like the Cattons, all reaction and decor but no substance. But my friend and I would like to disagree.
Saltburn is a movie that needs to be studied to be appreciated. There is a plethora of hidden nuances that underpin this movie. It teaches us the ugliness of ourselves and reminds us we may appear civilised on the outside, but inside we are animals. The moral is to have a healthy balance between these two aspects of being human, because being too heavily weighted on either side will cause death and destruction.
From what I read, the big-shot reviews prefer movies to spoon-feed the viewers. But where is the fun in that?
They claim the movie has no plot. However, I attest that the plot is what you make it. Saltburn is like a beautiful piece of poetry that you can apply your own meaning to. If you don’t know your own meaning, you go out and find your meaning. This movie leaves you wanting to find out, it drives you to research and through this you learn of another world of knowledge. This movie will expand your mind, and Elordi isn’t too bad to stare at for two-and-a-bit hours.
And as my friend said, it’s for the girls, gays and theys. (;
You can watch Saltburn on Amazon Prime, and I recommend you do.