Fennell’s SALTBURN is Psychotic. But it works.

With all the reviews that have come out about this film saying how it is a “waste of time” and “too far,” some of you have not seen some of the crazy shit being released recently. Both Elordi and Keoghan play convincing retrospective characters. We usually see these high elites in 17th-century or earlier settings, so this was something not many have touched on before. The story, while incredibly privileged, is something that, if anything, gives the actors a platform to act at an extremely high level. The dark humor aspects of this film are somewhat similar to Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2015 film The Lobster. While The Lobster focuses on the dark humor of oddities in lower levels of a futuristic society, Saltburn takes the other side of the class hierarchy and flips it upside down.

Some of the shots of Saltburn are just pure masterful work. The surrounding candle-lit dinner scene (shown above) or the red curtain filter during the intense memorial breakfast are two that instantly come to mind as perfectly crafted sets that feel surreal and add texture to the film. This film gets an extra boost with a bit more ambiguity towards the end, although it still serves the audience a tasteful ending. Fennell gives us a look into the horrid mind of a character so isolated and pathological while also comparing its themes to the rich and elite of our society. Mental health has been a common theme among modern cinema with the rising number of corrupt illnesses that eventually reach a breaking point. Many nowadays either get weird for the wrong reasons or do not know how to at all. Fennell deserves praise for the ability to branch out and get weird sometimes. When it was time for dinner, we were in our lavish tuxes and black ties.