Saltburn

“I loved him… I loved him… I loved him, by god, I loved him.” When I started my rewatch of this film, I really couldn’t tell if it was the magic of seeing it in theatres that did it for me the first time or not, I was genuinely skeptical. I thought there was a very good chance I wouldn’t like it as much as I did the first time around. I was dead wrong, if anything, I liked it more. I can understand why this film is criticized in some regards and I know it isn’t perfect but I can’t help but question whether a lot of people criticizing are reading too much into it or not. The plot of Saltburn is very evident and that’s kind of the point. It was never labelled as a mystery, the “big reveal” at the end is not meant to be shocking, it’s meant to be confirmative. The tone in the film slowly shifts and the viewer gets to see more and more of Oliver’s character and intentions as it progresses. From my perspective at least, the ending was never supposed to be a twist, it simply adds to what we have already seen and picked up on. Beyond this, the cinematography is absolutely stunning. Like genuinely I don’t even have words for this because I just love how this film looks so much. Everything Emerald Fennell, Linus Sandgren and anyone who worked on the visuals of the film did with this is everything I could have asked for. The colours were beautiful, usually I can pick out a few colours in movies I love that stood out to me but they used every single colour to their advantage here. The use of light and shadows is also top tier. I swear, almost every shot in this looked like it could have been a painting and I absolutely love that shit. I also just have to say, Oliver and Felix are such a great and interesting pair in this. The chemistry between Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi is really top notch especially in relation to other pairs in queer cinema. I think Oliver’s love for Felix is often overlooked when people speak on this film. I see a lot of people saying it wasn’t queer enough but I just can’t get over how important Oliver’s infatuation with Felix is to the story. I’m fully convinced that the reason Oliver’s plan was set into motion was because he wanted to be with Felix. While I do think an “if I can’t have you, no one can” plot element can be cliché I think it was used really well here. It blows my mind that people even doubt the feelings Oliver had for Felix. You don’t fuck a dead guy’s grave when no one is watching if you actually hated him. I just love this movie so damn much.