Barbienheimer is out, Saltburn is in.
One could argue that Saltburn’s success is mostly thanks to its release window when nothing else was present to compete. Case in point, the movie failed to make a lot of buzz during its theatrical run.
Everything changes when it releases on digital, or even way before then when the bathtub scene leaks.
From a single tweet, countless reactions arise, and everyone wants to see what the buzz is about.
As artists make music for Tiktok sounds, filmmakers have started to make films for Twitter (with what’s going on there one wonders how long that will last).
If you can incorporate a “mother” or “just like me truly” character, then, your movie has done half the work, and you’re guaranteed engagement.
This is not a critique of Saltburn only but the movie culture currently. The culture has changed, and that is to be expected. Are these good changes? We’ll see, won’t we?
Credit: Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios
Saltburn feels familiar because it is familiar.
Anyone who has watched some of the most popular movies of the last twenty-five years can compare different aspects of Saltburn with some cult classic or another.
In the technical aspect, Saltburn is well-shot even with that aspect ratio.
The material doesn’t have much to engage with because it feels like something we have seen before. I went into it with so much enthusiasm that turned blase and by the end, it was meh!
But the biggest shortcoming was how it felt similar to The Talented Mr. Ripley.
The feeling that I got from Ripley right after watching it was that it was holding something back concerning its Queer aspect. Everything was explored in depth, but when it came to its lead characters’ queerness, viewers had to read between the lines.
There’s no doubt that Oliver Quick is a queer character, but that doesn’t mean he’s Queer. Such is the trap of this word where anything atypical can be called Queer.
Someone can do bizarre things as a means to an end, but these actions don’t make them something. Drinking bathwater and bisecting a grave is not something one could use to describe a character of Queer sexuality.
Even riding a cousin at night to pacify them doesn’t amount to explicit queerness because there is a clear goal in mind, and desire is not one of them.
Was Oliver in love with Felix?
Credit: Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios
Oliver himself can’t tell if he was — and probably wasn’t. He wanted everything Felix had and mistook that for wanting Felix. That’s my conclusion.
Like The Talented Mr. Ripley, Saltburn refuses to go there with their characters’ desire and as such fails to sell them as characters worth analyzing through Queer lens.
Once Murder on the Dancefloor leaves the charts and Euphoria comes back on air, people will view Saltburn as that one film we watched once that lacked focus.
It might never make it into lists that seek to compare and contrast queer movies of the 2020s. Mind games have been done, bizarre characters have been done, and I’m sure dancing naked will be done again soon.
What then becomes of Saltburn?