Welcome to Rendering, a new Deadline column reporting at the intersection of AI and showbiz. Rendering will examine how artificial intelligence is disrupting the entertainment industry, taking you inside key battlegrounds and spotlighting change makers wielding the technology for good and ill.
Got a story about AI? Want to tell us about the next big innovation or why AI robbed you of opportunity? Rendering wants to hear from you. Get in contact: jkanter@deadline.com.
This week: Why a majority of production designers fear being replaced by artificial intelligence.
When Emerald Fennell was bringing Saltburn to life, it was the details that mattered. Suzie Davies, the production designer who weaved the Catton family’s idiosyncrasies into Saltburn’s set, helped Fennell figure out what made them real: the smell of dog hair; ring stains marking the furniture.
In an episode of Deadline’s The Process last year, Davies described this process as capturing “human essence” in the worlds she helps directors build. There is an irony, then, that production designers like Davies are fearful of being replaced by machines.
Davies belongs to the British Film Designers Guild (BFDG), which conducted research among its 650 members about the looming threat of AI. The results, shared for the first time with Deadline’s Rendering column, reveal that 66% are fearful their job will cease to exist in the coming years. Jonathan Paul Green, a seasoned production designer and chair of the BFDG, said members believe that cost-cutting — not creativity — is the reason why producers are embracing artificial intelligence.
Those most at risk in the production design discipline include concept artists and graphic designers, Green said. He pointed to the example of directors using AI to generate images that explain their vision to colleagues. Green acknowledged that this is not dissimilar from bookmarking an image on Pinterest, but the danger comes when a director decides that the AI design will suffice.
“AI can manipulate an image to suit exactly the framing, composition, color, and tone of what you’re trying to portray,” he explained. “The sheer speed of progress is really scaring people, because things seem to be improving in quality exponentially and very, very quickly. And so that creates a lot of uncertainty.”
Jonathan Paul Green
Right now, Green said productions are still navigating how to use AI. He is aware of some studios banning the technology on-set for fear that it could create copyright issues because there is no way of knowing what IP it might be regurgitating. Other studios are using internal AI models to squeeze value out of the work that goes into a project.
“I was talking to a concept artist recently, and he told me that one of his contracts with a studio stipulated that his work would be available to them to train their AI system,” Green said. “On the one hand, it is good because they’re being transparent. On the other hand, it’s very annoying to think that, if you were to design a concept for a sci-fi series, they could just replicate and use your ideas.”
He continued: “Much like if they scan an actor and have the rights to their likeness, why would they need to employ you again if they own you? Why would they need to employ a great concept artist again when they’ve owned that person’s original designs?”
The BFDG is in regular conversation with the Art Directors Guild in America over these concerns, but unlike its counterpart, it does not have the power to insert protections into contracts. But it’s not all bad news: some 35% of BFDG members think AI could be a valuable tool for their work, and the guild advocates for re-skilling. Other roles are likely to be protected. “AI is never going to be able to turn an image into a usable physical set,” Green said.
As Davies recalled during her experience on Saltburn, diligent work went into prep, but it was only on-set that a spirit of “playfulness” helped bring to life a world in which “cigarette butts, Wotsits and iPod nanos” sat alongside Fennell’s Caravaggio references. All the AI in the world cannot recreate these human imperfections in storytelling.
Now that it’s October, I’m accepting that it’s officially fall. I’m leaning into pumpkin-flavored baked goods, I put out my decor, and I’m rewatching old Disney favorites like Twitches.
But also, this means I have to stress over what costume I’m gonna wear. I actually despise Halloween for the sheer fact that I have to wear a costume. I’m great at dressing up (in designer) not (in costume).
It’s a weeks’ long debate that inevitably ends with me struggling to find a last-minute Halloween costume. I do not wear what everyone else wears, probably because I’m a Leo, so I want my costume to be a little niche.
In the spirit of being less of a procrastinator and more proactive, I’ve committed to choosing what I want to be for Halloween now. Yes, early October, so I can take my time and find what I really want to wear.
However, this isn’t easy. If you go to TikTok, there’s a 50% chance that someone else at the party will be wearing the same thing as you. So, you kind of have to relinquish that dream and embrace it.
If you’re like me and trying to find a good costume a bit early this year…let’s get through this battle together. Whether you need a group costume, something for you and your significant other, or just a solo moment, it’s easy to pick a celeb and copy their style as a costume.
Let’s take a look at some of the best celebrity-inspired Halloween costumes for 2024!
Travis Kelce
For boys, Travis is an easy option for those with a girlfriend who wants them to dress up. I get how it may feel like you have a gun to your head if you aren’t a Chiefs fan, but this is the easier option compared to others.
To be Trav yourself, you just need a pair of jeans, a jersey or Kelce-related shirt. Literally, that’s it. You know what they say: happy wife, happy life! Bonus points if you grow a mustache in time.
Here are my picks for a Travis Kelce Halloween costume:
Taylor Swift
And for each Travis, there should be a Taylor. For Swift you can go with many different styles — or should I say eras? — depending on your mood. Which is good news for those who hate wearing the same thing as others and bad news for the people who are bad at making decisions.
If you want to go with something matching your Travis, wear a Taylor Swift gameday outfit. But if you want to go with a Classic Taylor, choose one of her tour looks or something fabulous from her music videos.
This is my favorite Taylor Swift Halloween costume:
Sabrina Carpenter
I’m warning you now: this will be a popular costume this year. Sabrina’s one of the breakout popstars of the year, and as she’s currently still on her Short n’ Sweet Tour, her star is only growing.
To achieve the best Sabrina Carpenter look, all you need are short skirts and corsets…and no costume would be complete without sky-high platform heels.
Capture that me espresso with this Sabrina Carpenter:
Barry Keoghan
And you can’t have a Sabrina without her Barry! Saltburnstar Keoghan — alongside heartthrob Jacob Elordi — stole hearts in Emerald Fennel’s film…but his relationship with Sabrina has been all we can talk about lately!
The Irishman is known for wearing his signature tracksuits, while also being a bit of a fashion icon himself. If you don’t want to go too crazy this Halloween, I’d stick to a track jacket.
Another easy look is Barry in the Please, Please, Please video. You can achieve this look with these items:
Rihanna
Rihanna is iconic. She’s had many memorable fashion moments, including that famous flaming red hair. If you’re in the mood to wear a wig, Rihanna is a terrific option. Plus, it’s a solid way to manifest her next album (I hope).
If you’re pregnant, her Super Bowl halftime performance outfit is a great pick! Even better, if it’s how you’re announcing it! But, if you want to be the Fenty founder for Halloween, here are some easy picks:
A$AP Rocky
You had to have known this was coming. A$AP is Rihanna’s longtime boo and again, another male fashion icon. The duo serve major looks, which shouldn’t surprise you. But that means your A$AP Rocky costume consists of dressing really nice.
Or, controversially, you could be A$AP Rocky in Lana Del Rey’s “National Anthem” music video. If you think that’s the more fun option, here is how you can steal the look:
Charli XCX
BRAT Summer to BRAT Fall. While Charli baby rages on tour with Troye Sivan, you can channel your inner BRAT queen this Halloween. Charli’s look is a little similar to Sabrina’s, but also a little less girly, and a little more grunge.
So grab a pleated miniskirt and crop a white tee. The Charli XCX look is actually an extremely comfortable Halloween costume that can be recycled on a later date…because I hate buying a costume and never touching it again.
Here are some BRAT outfits for your BRAT Halloween:
Hailey Bieber
Would it be a celeb-inspired Halloween costume list without queen Hailey herself? New mom Hailey is such a fashion icon and our ultimate influencer. Without Hailey, we probably wouldn’t give a hoot about Kosas Concealer and we definitely wouldn’t have rhode skin.
She has a bunch of stylish outfits you can replicate — and for far less money than Hailey paid. But this is a super simple Hailey Bieber costume:
Justin Bieber
And to round out the list, we have The Biebs himself. You knew it was coming. And we’ve seen many phases of Justin Bieber, so picking a costume should be a breeze.
Male or female, Justin Bieber is a popular Halloween costume. I’ve seen girls dress up as “Baby” era Bieber and boys dress up as current Justin. Either way, he’s a terrific celebrity to dress up as— especially if you have a Hailey joining you this All Hallows Eve.
Zoë Kravitz, the ultimate Hollywood cool girl, just made her directorial debut with Blink Twice — the buzzy thriller starring her finance, Channing Tatum. Luckily for us, this isn’t a Don’t Worry Darling situation — a director and actor finding love while their production burns. And it definitely wasn’t an It Ends With Us situation — a director and actor publically waging war against each other.
But beyond the drama, the main difference between the Blink Twice rollout (complete with a very cutesy press tour featuring Channing and Zoe) is that people are actually responding well to the it-girls directorial debut. A nepo baby with actual talent? More likely than you’d think.
Zoe has been stretching herself as an actor in recent years, with an especially high-profile role as Catwoman in Robert Pattinson’s emo turn as The Batman. She even got props for her acting chops for her role in Big Little Lies — Season 3 when? — and Hulu’s take on High Fidelity. But Kravitz is new on the directing scene and trying to prove her mettle.
Just from the trailer (which features the song “Iko Iko” by the Dixie Cups), you can tell Blink Twice is shot beautifully. From its vibrant color saturation to the interesting perspective choices, Zoe is as invested in the beauty of her film as her enviable beauty routine.
To the point that some freeze frames in the film feel like Sofia Coppolla-esque tapestries that would be at home on Tumblr — except her subject isn’t girlhood, it’s fame and excess.
And since that’s the world that Kravitz grew up in, she knows it well. Yes, some of the aesthetics start to make the movie feel like a collection sumptuous shots vying to mean something, to say something important.
It’s clear from the beginning that Kravitz understands the evils of fame. But does her attempt to convey them to us translate or fall flat thanks to its own self-importance?
While Blink Twice thinks it’s Get Out meets Saltburn, it’s more horrifying than most people will be able to stomach and less effective than Kravitz thinks.
Watch the Blink Twice trailer here:
Is Blink Twice a horror movie?
Blink Twice is billed as a thriller, blending psychological elements with violence and gore. The reviews are coming in and they’re falling in the upper middle percentage range with a 78% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not bad for an ambitious debut. Kravitz, who is surprisingly tight with Taylor Swift, even got the stamp of approval from the megastar via Instagram.
“This film is incredible. Thrilling, twisted, wickedly funny, and visually stunning. The performances are phenomenal. @zoeisabellakravitz conceptualized this, wrote it, obsessed over every detail, and directed it with such a clear and bold vision. I’m so blown away by what she’s accomplished here and I can’t wait to watch everyone discover this film and this brilliant filmmaker,” said Swift on her Stories.
Sure enough, she’s faring better than Swift’s other bestie, Blake Lively, whose It Ends With Us press tour has made her Hollywood’s recent favorite villain. Other stars like Ayo Edebiri have been singing the director’s praises but we have to wonder … are they just being good friends? I’ve been known to support my besties even when they make questionable decisions. Or in this case, movies.
But here at Popdust, we’re not going to applaud any movie just for deigning to have a female director and a moralistic stance on rape culture. Just look at Promising Young Woman by Emerald Fennell, who also directed Saltburn. The buzzy revenge fantasy starring Carey Mulligan got rave reviews from other critics, but we found it wanting any real message. In the same way, Blink Twice falls into the trap of style over substance. Or rather, so much style in the beginning that the director has to rush to hit us over the head with substance by the end.
In a lot of ways, Blink Twice, which was originally called Pussy Island, feels familiar. We’ve seen the “rich dude bad, women fight back” narrative so many times that it feels a bit 2017. Though this time, the story has echoes of Jeffery Epstein (a sentence I shudder to type) and more contemporary references, some are wondering if Kravitz is just cashing in on a narrative that’s already been done to death.
What’s the premise of Blink Twice?
The movie starts with Naomi Ackie as Frida doomscrolling on her phone — relatable. Scrolling past TikTok after TikTok, she stops at a video of a man we later know is Slater King (Channing Tatum), a tech billionaire who is apologizing for something we don’t know about. Frida watches the video with rapt attention before looking him up as we watch, getting the full download of King and his fame. I’ll admit: it’s a compelling opening scene — even if it starts with its protagonist on the toilet. James Joyce did it in Ulysses, after all, and Kravitz is a fan of learning from the greats.
So now that we’ve seen Frida’s life, an admittedly rushed rendering of a Struggling Person, we’re supposed to rationalize the pressing need for escape that leads her to abandon everything to follow a billionaire to a private island. That, as well as the fact that she has a crush on him before they even meet. As a cocktail waitress (and aspiring nail artist), she’s working King’s event while staring at him and sighing like a lovesick teenager. The two have a meet-cute that might make you think this is a romantic drama: she trips, and he offers his hand to help her hip. Cue the first of many sexually charged close-ups of Channing Tatum’s face. Zoë Girl, if I was making a movie that was 50% intimate shots of Channing Tatum, I’d have gotten engaged to him too.
After just one night, Frida gets swept up into King’s world and agrees to go on a lavish island getaway that turns into a nightmare. It starts off idyllic, if not a little strange. Kravitz’s directorial eye really shines in sun-drenched snaps of this idyllic retreat where Frida spends a series of seemingly perfect days alongside a cast of characters that include a former reality TV star (Adria Arjona), a wine snob (Simon Rex), and Slater’s therapist/consultant (Christian Slater). As we learned from Jonah Hill, it’s always a red flag when a person’s therapist becomes their friend.
Yet, all of King’s behaviors are explained away with a shrug — “this must be what rich people do,” Frida rationalizes with her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat). Until Jess goes missing, the dream vacation turns into a nightmare.
Is Blink Twice a good movie?
On paper, it sounds like it could be a sharp, timely thriller set poolside with sleek Spanish architecture. This is a familiar premise, popular in shows like The White Lotus and films like Knives Out. The costume design is on point too, with the women decked out in flowing white dresses that grow more and more sinister as the movie progresses. But style can only take you so far, and Blink Twice often feels like it’s trying too hard to be provocative and edgy.
The pacing is a major issue. The film’s first half drags, with endless, repetitive scenes of partying and flirting. It’s like Kravitz is so enamored with the glamorous setup that she forgets to move the plot forward. Zoë, if you wanted to make a party movie, you should’ve done that instead of spending over an hour on an ad for a luxury resort before shoving a moralistic ending down our throats. And it’s not just the messaging that’s heavy-handed; it’s the sudden shift to visceral, stomach-turning images of sexual violence.
When things finally do kick into high gear, the action feels chaotic and the plot unearned. Out of nowhere, we’re inundated with gratuitously graphic scenes that make me wonder: do we really need more female-gaze movies about sexual assault when they say nothing new, offer no fresh perspectives and trigger potential trauma?
I felt like I was having a panic attack during the whole second half of the movie. It was an overwrought but ultimately unoriginal lecture set to horrifying scenes of violence against women. And wasting such incredible actors’ work on this tired narrative feels like a missed opportunity. Where there was potential for deftness and nuance, we got a sanctimonious sledgehammer that added nothing new to the conversation about rape culture.
Blink Twice is clearly trying to say something about power dynamics, consent, and the way powerful men can manipulate and abuse women. The problem isn’t that these themes aren’t worth exploring — they absolutely are. But the movie’s approach often feels heavy-handed and simplistic. It’s giving: “I just discovered feminism and now I’m going to make a movie about it.”
There are moments where the movie hits its stride — the sequence where Frida starts piecing together what’s really happening on the island is achingly tense and well-executed. Ackie’s back and forth with Arjona in this sequence is one of the most satisfying parts of the film — but also where it starts to go south.
Blink Twice cast
Yet, despite the circumstances, the actors managed to put on career-defining performances. Naomi Ackie’s turn as Frida is almost good enough to make us forget that the character’s actions — namely, going on a trip with a famously problematic billionaire she met that night — are contrived and unjustified. She shines in the romantic moments and the comedic breaks and is hauntingly convincing in the more violent portions of the film.
Ackie especially shines alongside Adria Arjona, who is having a great summer starring in both this and Hit Man. The two make me wish this movie was more like Bodies Bodies Bodies, comedic and gory without the forced attempt at wokeness. Her character starts as a typical jealous mean girl who embodies the “cool girl” trope as a former contestant of a Survivor-type show starring girls in bikinis and evolves into one of the film’s standout roles.
Channing Tatum is a pleasant (or unpleasant) surprise. Known for his comedic roles, his raunchy dance moves, and, let’s be honest, his abs, Tatum shows he can do more than just flash that million-dollar smile. His Slater King is charming on the surface but has an underlying current of menace that grows more pronounced as the movie progresses. Those close-ups of his eyes go from seductive to sinister. But as the movie reaches its climax, Tatum hits the end of his range and, like the movie, falls flat. I just kept thinking I’d like to see him use this intensity for an actual romance — something like The Vow but with more substance.
Ultimately, the cast is the main reason to watch this film. And the curiosity about what goes on in Zoë Kravtiz’s mind. If it looks like Blink Twice up there, it seems it’s a beautiful but dark place. Despite the nepo baby allegations, there’s definitely potential here. She clearly has a good eye and knows how to create an atmosphere. With less of a need to prove something and a tighter script, she could definitely make something truly impressive in the future. The trouble with being a nepo baby is that you always have to prove you’re not just talented but “deep.” That there’s something within you that justifies your fame. Kravitz was trying to prove that here and ended up doing too much that it basically amounts to nothing.
Blink Twice controversy
What’s surprising is how little the film’s darkness — so overdone in the film — was revealed in the press tour. Clearly, Zoë has trouble with balance and tends to err toward extremes. While Blake Lively is getting flack for not emphasizing the themes of It Ends With Us enough during the press tour, the same criticism can be leveled at Kravitz. Her press rollout seems more like an ad for her relationship with Tatum than a movie about violence against women.
Kravitz has also come under fire for wading into the cancel culture debate — especially when her film is about the hollowness of celebrity apologies. She admitted to loving Roman Polanski in an Esquire interview, where she said she knew it was “controversial.” “It’s okay that somebody bad was involved in something good … What are we supposed to do, get rid of America?” But as someone making a movie about men who abuse their power over women, it’s disappointing to hear such a flippant response on such a nuanced topic.
Kravitz is not the only one whose hypocrisy is a blot on the film’s pietistic aspirations. Alia Shawkat is famously friends with Brad Pitt, who is the ultimate symbol of the status quo — despite his own allegations of violence against women and his seemingly duplicitous public persona. Yes, he’s far less sinister than Slater King, but where do we draw the line? Is badness about degrees? Or have we lost all nuance as viewers that we only recognize bad character when they murder and rape. Is that the unintentional message of Zoë Kravitz’s dark delusion?
In the end, Blink Twice is a bag of cotton candy. Rich, but hollow. It’s stylish but shallow, provocative but predictable. It’s the kind of film that will spark some interesting conversations, even if those conversations are more about what the movie was trying to do rather than what it actually achieved.
There are only a few guarantees in life: death, taxes, and women fighting over the same man. In terms of celebrity drama, the public has always loved pitting women against one another, especially in relationships. Take Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter over Joshua Bassett, Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez over Justin, and most recently, Carpenter and Camila Cabello over Shawn Mendes.
When Sabrina Carpenter’s highly anticipated latest album, Short n’ Sweet, debuted on August 23, fans tuned in. It was everything we expected: witty beyond imagination, an upgrade to her Pop Princess status, packed with songs of the summer and catchy throughout. But what we never expected were the songs taking obvious digs at Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello.
To be honest, I didn’t even know Carpenter dated Mendes…and that’s on me for being a casual fan. But the proof is in the pudding, Carpenter and Mendes were spotted countless times last year on celebrity gossip page, Deuxmoi. The pair were flirting outrageously on Instagram. And then he was back with Camila.
And that was it for a lot of us. We didn’t think twice as Mendes and Cabello cozily sidled up to one another, we just let them return to being the weird couple they always were. Then Sabrina started dating Saltburnstar Barry Keoghan and we focused on the short stack duo.
But now, we had to go back in the archives thanks to Short n’ Sweet. Songs like Dumb & Poetic take obvious shots at Mendes, Sharpest Tool jabs at Cabello and so does Coincidence. The picture Carpenter has painted isn’t good, and Cabello has even taken a few swings in her own music.
So if you’re just as lost on the Carpenter-Cabello-Mendes love triangle…you won’t be for long. Here’s the story of how Camila Cabello potentially stole Shawn Mendes back from Sabrina.
Shawn Mendes and Sabrina Carpenter Relationship Timeline
We all know how Cabello was with Shawn Mendes first. After two years together, the pair broke up in 2021. Then, after they were seen kissing at Coachella 2023, rumors were rampant about a reunion. Two months later, they called it quits again.
But in the midst of it all comes Sabrina Carpenter. In what seemed like a quick whirlwind, Shawn and Sabrina quietly launched their flirtation on Instagram in December 2022. Mendes posted an Instagram where Carpenter commented, “was it cold tho.”
By January 2023, more dating rumors swirled as Mendes was spotted in Paris and for absolutely no reason. While that may seem like nothing, Carpenter posts from the same 5-Star, Luxury Costes Hotel in Paris a week later. Now that’s suspicious.
In February 2023, Deuxmoi has a sighting of Shawn Mendes and Sabrina Carpenter “on clearly a date.” The anonymous tip came with the description of Carpenter wearing a brown mini skirt and Mendes with a freshly shaved head.
Screenshot of Deuxmoi post r/Fauxmoi on reddit
Close to a week later, they are finally photographed in Los Angeles where People reports Carpenter is clearly wearing Shawn’s hoodie.
Enter Camila Cabello.
Fans began to notice how Camila Cabello was interacting more with Sabrina Carpenter posts on Instagram…even liking her BBC Radio 1 performance of Carpenter’s “Late Night Talking” cover. Screenshots have surfaced of Cabello liking countless Carpenter-related posts from around the time Mendes and Carpenter went public.
By March 13, 2023, ET reported that Sabrina Carpenter and Shawn Mendes were dating but “trying to keep things low-key.” Somehow, this news got broken by The Cancelled Podcast.
This doesn’t last long, however, because Carpenter and Mendes split up sometime between March and April of 2023…and then he’s seen in April with Cabello.
While there are two sides (or, I guess three in this case?) to every story, all signs point to Cabello swooping in on Mendes immediately after (if not during) his relationship with Carpenter.
And now, fans have noticed that one of Camila’s songs from her new album, C,XOXO, “June Gloom” is also about the situation. With lyrics like “If she’s so amazing why are you on this side of town?” and “We’re a house fire for sure/Hope it’ll burn out but it just gets bigger,” are potential nods to her rekindling things with Mendes.
In a recent TikTok, Cabello even posts herself singing along to “June Gloom” which social media users are taking as her official admission to the beef.
Not only that, but Cabello and Carpenter don’t follow one another on Instagram. Which could mean nothing, considering they have shown a lot of support for one another in the past publicly. Either way, the situation is intriguing.
Wait…So Who Is Shawn Mendes Dating Now?
While Cabello and Mendes split two months after the Coachella sightings, it appears that they may be back together again. It seems like old habits die hard with these two (remember those slow walks they did during COVID?)
Cabello and Mendes were seen at the Copa America final on July 14 this year, where Argentina played Colombia. Not only that, but Mendes has also been liking Cabello’s Instagram posts. But, you never know.
Songs on Short n’ Sweet about Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello
Now that you’re all caught up on the drama and fully-invested…you’ll probably want to go back and listen to Short n’ Sweet! And since about half the album revolves around this love triangle, let’s break down which song is about who!
“Taste”
“Heard you’re back together, and if that’s true/ you’ll just have to taste me while he’s kissing you” sings the chorus of this song. If you need me to spell it out for you, this is clearly about Camila Cabello.
“Coincidence”
Ohhh boy, does this tell the entire story. Lyrics include “Your car drove itself from L.A. to her thighs/Palm Springs looks nice, but who’s by your side?” and “Trying to turn past into the present tense”, it’s clear who this is about. And Carpenter adds she’s not shocked they broke up again.
“Dumb & Poetic”
This is for you, Shawn Mendes. Notable lines include “Just because you talk like one, doesn’t make you a man,” “save all your breath for your floor meditation,” “you’d make a great wife/And I promise you those mushrooms aren’t changing your life,” Carpenter rips into Mendes…and this one is obvious.
Potential Songs About Mendes
While Mendes certainly isn’t the only sinner in Carpenter’s stories, there are a few questionable songs where it could be about her other exes. Songs like “Sharpest Tool” refer to finding God at his exes house, which could be a reference to either Mendes or Joshua Bassett.
There’s also a general warning to men, “Lie To Girls,” where she promises you don’t have to lie to a woman to get you to like them…they’ll lie to themselves and make excuses for you if they like you.
Finally there’s the breakup anthem that closes the ironically short and sweet album, “Don’t Smile,” where Carpenter begs her ex to cry that it ended…not smile because it happened. Again, could be a nod to Shawn Mendes and her wanting him to repent.
Regardless, this drama has been fun…and with Short n’ Sweet potentially gearing up for a #1 Billboard Hot 100 chart spot, Carpenter comes out on top.
Like any superhero movie pushing women as its leads, Madame Web suffered a backlash that was almost strangely proportionate to Morbius—which was actually far worse. The Marvels, too, was panned, along with She-Hulk, in a pattern that suggests when women do “badly,” male fanboys are ready to pounce in such a way so as to ensure that studios are amply aware of it. And oh, how Sony became aware of it, scrapping any future plans to build a franchise out of Madame Web once the box office receipts were in. But what’s most unforgivable about Madame Web isn’t its plotline or even its more than occasionally cheesy dialogue (often rampant with use of ADR). No, instead, it’s certain musical details in particular that will gnaw at anyone versed in both their 00s and Britney history.
First in line on the offending front is the fact that “Toxic,” a single released in January of 2004 is being played when we’re still supposed to be in 2003. And it’s not even like it’s the winter of 2003, well after Spears’ fourth album, In the Zone, was released in mid-November. This can be gleaned by the fact that Cassandra (a rather too on-the-nose name choice for someone who can see into the future) Webb, played by Dakota Johnson, attends a barbeque in some fairly late summer-y clothing (being a Jessica Jones type thanks to S. J. Clarkson’s work in that universe, she’s bound to wear a jacket during any season). In truth, the entire cast dresses in a late summer/early fall manner, so it’s safe to say this is well before “Toxic” or even In the Zone could have conceivably been released.
Another giveaway that we’re still in summer of ’03 territory is the set design of a particular scene that chooses to very deliberately spotlight a looming poster of Beyoncé’s debut album, Dangerously in Love, which only would have been that loud and proud in June of ‘03 (what with New York constantly turning over its ad space), many months before In the Zone came out, not to mention “Toxic” itself, which wouldn’t be released to radio as a single until January of ‘04. Maybe December, if someone wants to truly believe in how “ahead of the curve” New York is. But since we’re clearly somewhere in the summer of ‘03, this little detail just doesn’t quite jive (to use a word that Britney’s erstwhile record label named itself after). This seems to be happening with, dare one say, slight regularity as the 00s slip evermore into the “period piece” category. Saltburn, too, was guilty of such inattention to detail about 2007 in particular, yet it was perhaps more easily forgiven because it ended up being so beloved (in no small part thanks to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dance Floor”).
As for Madame Web being oddly specific about wanting to set its stage in 2003 (and in case one isn’t immediately sure it’s 2003 based on the quickly-flashed title card, Cassie is shown driving past a Blockbuster in her ambulance), director and co-writer S. J. Clarkson’s reasoning could be twofold: 1) she wanted to start the movie during a flashback to 1973 and then only flashforward thirty years to reveal present-day Cassandra and 2) 2003 is sort of that “sweet spot,” technology-wise. A time when things were advanced enough with phones and computers (hell, Britney was already singing love songs centered on e-mails in 1998, when “E-Mail My Heart” was recorded), but not so advanced that your every move could be tracked, and your face instantly recognized on any CCTV camera.
This, obviously, is why the extremely lame villain of the narrative, Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), is obsessed with some “cutting-edge” technology that only the NSA (on especially high alert at that time in the wake of 9/11) has access to. Enough to seduce one of its agents and steal her top-secret access to this “special tech” that would become garden-variety in most people’s phones after 2007. Alas, since we’re still in the “early days” of facial recognition, Ezekiel is sure to include (quite expositorily) in his pillow talk, “But as the years pass, there have been technological advances. New ways to find people if you know their faces [which he does because he has nightly visions of the three Spider-Women who will kill him]. The kind of technology I’ve heard the National Security Agency has been pursuing.”
Once he gets the woman’s security access after poisoning her, he passes the technology off to his “employee,” Amaria (Zosia Mamet, seeming to enjoy roles where she works for dubious people if The Flight Attendant is another indication), who hacks into “the system” to wait for a hit on one or all of these faces: Mattie (Celeste O’Connor), Anya (Isabela Merced) and Julia (Sydney Sweeney). With regard to Sweeney once again going the Euphoria route by playing a teen girl, it bears noting that, at twenty-six, she isn’t all that much younger than “thirty-year-old” Cassandra (Johnson’s actual age is thirty-four). Meanwhile, O’Connor is twenty-five and Merced is twenty-two. Yet it’s Sweeney who the costume designers seem to go out of their way to dress in some interpretation of an 00s teen girl. This tends to mean a lot of Britney looks, including overalls at one point and then, for the majority of the movie, Sweeney’s own riff on a “…Baby One More Time” schoolgirl outfit.
Relying on Cassie and her premonitions after they’re attacked on the train by Ezekiel, the man they’ll keep referring to as “ceiling guy,” the “teens” trust her enough to let her lead them into some secluded woods where no one can track them, technologically anyway. Afterward, Cassie is foolish enough to tell a trio of teen girls to “stay put” (as if), leaving them to go do some more “research” on who this “ceiling guy” is by returning to her apartment and going through her mother’s old journals from 1973. As she conveniently unearths the valuable information that will tell her who Ezekiel is, the trio grows bored and hungry enough to abandon the woods in favor of a diner off the highway. It’s during this scene that Mis-Teeq’s “Scandalous” starts playing. Which would be passable (since it did exist in 2003), one supposes, were it not for the fact that the director then makes it very clear that the song is playing diegetically. Heard by everyone at the diner as they walk in to the tune of “Scandalous” then sounding over the speakers. The same goes for Spears’ “Toxic,” with Mattie even announcing, “I love this song.”
Back in the woods, Cassie returns to find an empty clearing followed by a vision wherein a key part of it is “Toxic” providing the soundtrack as the girls are attacked by “ceiling guy” at the diner they’ve absconded to. Cassie gets an immediate sense of foreboding when time “resets” again and the song’s signature opening notes start to play from her stolen taxi as the DJ declares, “This track is going to be huge! Are you in the zone?” Oddly, though—and despite all the radio pushing when it was actually unleashed on the airwaves—Mis-teeq’s “Scandalous” fared about as well on the charts with less radio rotation. This being another track “technically” in existence in 2003 (when it was released on Mis-Teeq’s second [and last] album, Eye Candy), it didn’t start popping off on U.S. radio until April of 2004. Its “revival,” so to speak, after already being played heavily in the UK and Japan during ‘03, made it ripe, apparently, to feature as the theme song for the Catwoman trailer. Now, call one “batty,” but it seems like a bit of an ill-omened idea not only to include a song from a rival comic book studio’s movie, but also a song from a rival comic book studio’s movie that was received so poorly. Indeed, Catwoman has a lower approval rating than Madame Web (eight percent to the latter’s twelve).
For an even weirder Britney/Mis-Teeq connection within these universes, Spears’ “Outrageous” was actually slated to be the movie’s theme before the pop star injured her leg while filming the video for it (which had nothing to do with Catwoman, but heavily featured Snoop Dogg). This, for one reason or another, led to Catwoman wielding “Scandalous” instead (which is just another word for “outrageous” anyway). But the only thing “scandalous” about Madame Web is its flagrant disregard for the correct radio airplay timeline. Something that the musical supervisors on the movie perhaps assumed would be the least of the audience’s grievances. And though “Toxic” is a great fit for a story about poison-delivering spider-people, due to this petit faux pas, it’s probably more at home as a string arrangement inPromising Young Woman (you know, the movie Emerald Fennell brought us before her own 00s-era inconsistencies in Saltburn).
Jacob Elordi is being investigated by the New South Wales Police after an alleged February 3 assault on Joshua Fox, a producer for the Australian radio show The Kyle & Jackie O Show, according to NBC News. On the following day’s episode of the program, Fox detailed the incident from his perspective. Allegedly, the show had gotten a tip that Elordi was at a beer garden, Fox went there, and as Elordi was leaving, Fox approached him while filming the interaction. “Officers attached to Eastern Beaches Police Area Command are investigating after a man was allegedly assaulted outside a hotel in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs,” New South Wales Police said in a statement to news.com.au. “Police were told about 3.30pm on Saturday 3 February 2024, a 32-year-old man was allegedly assaulted by a 26-year-old man. The man did not sustain any injuries.”
As played on the show, the footage begins congenially until Fox hands Elordi a Tupperware container labeled “Jacob Elordi’s bathwater.” Don’t have to tell you it’s a reference to Saltburn, which includes a scene of Elordi masturbating in a bathtub, after which Barry Keoghan’s character licks up the water, cum and all. Fox then asks Elordi to send the Tupperware back to the show filled with his bathwater. “Are you kidding me?” Elordi asks, before rejecting the Tupperware and telling Fox to stop filming.
From there, Fox alleged that Elordi, “gets up in my face,” and backs him against the wall. Elordi demands that Fox delete the footage, which Fox says he was fine with, as “the joke didn’t land.” “It’s like a switch went off and he became quite aggressive,” Fox claimed. Elordi tells Fox to go into his recently deleted folder. Fox said he felt intimidated so he would not delete the video. “I’m thinking, If I delete this footage, there’s no evidence that this encounter happened,” Fox said. “Then Jacob kind of just flips, and he kind of pushes me against the wall and his hands are on my throat.” Fox added that someone in Elordi’s posse pulled the actor off. Fox is lucky he didn’t ask Björk that kind of question.
Every year, Awards Season is special for one reason: we all come together in outrage against a very specific group of voters, and publicly shame them until we grow bored. The Golden Globes and Emmys are great predictors of who will be ultimately nominated for an Oscar…but this year, it appears that the Academy stopped watching movies altogether.
When I woke up yesterday, I was bombarded by thousands of Tweets calling for the evisceration of the Academy after the 2024 Oscar Nominee list was revealed. It’s your modern-day mob mentality — and get your pitchforks ready, because there were quite a few notable snubs.
Okay, so I was already up in arms about the lack of nominations for Jacob Elordi and Charles Melton. But nothing was more offensive than the glaringly obvious Barbie irony: the Academy chose to honor “I’m Just Ken” by Ryan Gosling in a movie created by women, for women, about the struggles of feminism in a male-dominated society.
This is no hate to Ryan Gosling, who has owned his Ken-ergy in the best, candid way possible. He has supported his cast and uplifted its women during every single press event, red carpet, and personal statement. But the fact that they chose to nominate the one song about men taking over is laughable. Commenting on the lack of nominations himself, Gosling took to social media to say:
“ But there is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this history-making, globally-celebrated film…To say that I’m disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement,”
Sure, Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” was nominated considering it’s a beautiful, haunting ballad that perfectly fits the film. But the Oscars have proven they’re Billie stans before by honoring her James Bond ballad. What about the two women who made Barbie possible? Who revived cinema and brought millions of moviegoers to the theaters dressed in pink? Who created a whole movement surrounding celebrating women after years of being told we should bring each other down?
Barbie was a statistically bigger first-week success story than its release-day twin, Oppenheimer, and the biggest film of the year. Yet, no nomination for the director and face of the film. It’s almost like the Academy realized this movie was about them…
Here’s the worst part: you don’t have to let them win if you don’t want to. To not even recognize Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s work and impact on the 2023 cinemascape is like saying Taylor Swift didn’t dominate the music industry this year. It’s just a lie.
So I will end this the way Taylor Swift would, with lyrics from “The Man”:
Have y’all seen Saltburn yet? If you haven’t, Emerald Fennell’s black comedy which stars Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi as two Oxford University students spending a summer at the titular mansion, is pretty okay to great depending on whichever scene you’re talking about. Though it’s not as “weird” and unsettling as you might’ve heard (I saw it recently and thought all the hooplah was greatly over exaggerated), it does have one or two scenes that have fast become memes on TikTok, Twitter, and other social media sites. Scenes like the final one (some NSFW spoilers ahead) where Keoghan’s character dances naked with his penis flopping around throughout the mansion to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor”. Of course it was only a matter of time before someone remade that scene in Fortnite.
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TikTok user nxganussy posted a clip of their character dancing through the Lavish Lair mansion location on Fortnite’s map with “Murder on the Dancefloor” playing in the background. While their character is not nude like Keoghan is at the end of Saltburn (no Peely’s swinging around here), the vibes of the final scene are still perfectly captured within Epic’s battle royale. Well, until they’re discovered by another player who kills the vibe by killing them. That part didn’t happen in the movie.
I planned to spend this next paragraph ruminating on whether or not Fortnite players could recreate other Saltburn scenes in the game, but lo and behold, nxganussy had already recreated the Bathtub scene, in which Keogan’s character drinks Jacob Elordi’s inseminated bathwater. This recreation is a little more abstract, but I admire the creativity.
The next question is when do we get Saltburn skins in Fortnite? Then we could really recreate those scenes as authentically as possible. That’s probably not going to happen, but a guy can dream. Fortnite recreations are a pretty prevalent part of the game’s community at this point, ranging from game recreations to pop culture moments that capitalize on hot new memes. And even if what those memes are based off of are decidedly NSFW, Fortnite’s cartoonish, sanitized world make the recreations somewhat age-appropriate and hilarious for those in the know.
Fortnite has been adding a lot of new modes and features as of late, from a Lego mode to a Rock Band-like one that still doesn’t support the plastic instrument controllers it should, yet. But it sounds like Fortnite players are eating as good as Keogan was out of that bathtub, am I right?
By now, you should have seen Saltburn. One of the most viral moments of 2023 came at the very end of the year when Emerald Fennell’s film hit Amazon Prime Video. Starring two of Hollywood’s favorite leading men, Jacob Elordi as Felix and Barry Keoghan as Oliver, the movie is both appalling and captivating. I describe it as like watching a car accident: the events taking place so vile that you can’t help but stare at the damage.
And forget about the infamous bathtub scene (the only thing I knew to expect from the film) or even the graveyard scene (the thing I did not expect in my wildest dreams)…I’m constantly replaying one scene: the final one where Oliver Quick has finally overtaken the estate and can dance around naked. By this point in the movie, my jaw had permanently resided on the floor…but this scene made me want to get up and dance too.
It’s thanks to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s 2001 song “Murder On The Dance Floor”, which is having a spike in popularity similar to Kate Bush’s 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) after playing in Stranger Things. On New Year’s Eve alone, “Murder On The Dance Floor” had its biggest streaming date on Spotify with 1.5 million plays and entered the Global Spotify Chart for the first time at no. 130.
In the week after Saltburn’s theater release on November 22, streaming increased over 360% for the song and 340% for Ellis-Bextor’s Read My Lips album. It was a song that perfectly juxtaposed the dark message behind the film- which was riddled with comic relief and short, witty quips to satirically add to the mood.
“Murder On The Dance Floor” should be on everyone’s playlist this week…For more Saltburn-related music, check out Amazon Prime’s “Saltburn: Official Playlist” on Spotify!
While pop culture has been eager to put a spotlight on a number of real-life millennial villains (including Mark Zuckerberg via The Social Network, Elizabeth Holmes via The Dropout and Anna Delvey via Inventing Anna) in recent years, Emerald Fennell decided to create an “evil” millennial to outdo them all (even, perhaps, fellow fictional millennials Danni Sanders from Not Okay and Dory Sief from Search Party). His name, of course, is Oliver Quick, and he’s portrayed with razor-sharp villainousness by none other than current millennial golden boy Barry Keoghan. Fashioning him in the dual role of protagonist/antagonist, Fennell’s ode to Evelyn Waugh, Saltburn, commences in fall of 2006, when Oliver is just beginning his tenure at Oxford.
An outcast from the get-go, his only “comrade” by default becomes Michael Gavey (Ewan Mitchell), who calls Oliver out as a fellow “Norman No-Mates” when he sits down across from him at that first posh-looking dinner in the dining hall. Michael’s social ineptitude and obsession with showing off his mathematical prowess, however, makes Oliver have a Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald) in The Breakfast Club epiphany when she says, “I know it’s detention, but…I don’t think I belong in here.” Nor does Oliver feel that he belongs with someone so lame and unglamorous as Michael. Thus, by Christmas, it seems he can endure no more of this bullshit, this social exile and decides to take matters into his own hands to deviate from the outsider path he’s on.
This, indeed, is what the viewer unearths by the third-act reveal. That his entire “happenstance” encounter with the ultra popular and privileged Felix Catton (Jacon Elordi) was just the first in a series of his machinations to cut Felix and his ilk down to size. After all, as he later admits to Felix’s mother, Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), on the deathbed he created for her, “I hated him.” He then adds, “I hated all of you.” This statement seeming to apply not just to the Cattons specifically, but all rich people in general. Particularly for their lack of hard work (because, needless to say, it’s not that hard to “inherit”). Whereas, as Oliver points out to a comatose Elspeth, he actually knows how to work, and did just that in order to procure the palatial Saltburn residence. Hence, all that preplanning and manufacturing of scenarios to get into Felix’s good graces so as to be invited to Saltburn in the first place. And for the entire summer no less.
A summer that would initially seem so carefree not just because Oliver found himself living as a courtesan in a modern-day Versailles scenario, with Felix acting as Louis and Marie rolled into one, but because it was the summer of 2007. An idyllic period (unless you were Britney Spears) right before the financial crisis of 2008 that would not only affect millennials freshly graduating from college for years to come on the job prospect scene, but also force rich people to “rebrand” in a way that has been the gold standard ever since: highlighting how hard they work for their money. This despite everyone, Oliver included, knowing full well that one does not actually “work” for generational wealth (no matter how many cookware lines Paris Hilton puts out to prove she does “so much,” ignoring the fact that, yeah, in order to do so much, you need some fuckin’ startup capital). It’s simply the fortunate boon that comes with having one family member many decades back who happened to be at the right place at the right time, getting in on the ground floor of some enterprise that was then new and managing to monopolize the industry by any forceful and unjust means necessary (see also: the railroad barons known as the Big Four). This is what clearly vexes Oliver to no end, and the reason why he feels no compunction for his long game con.
In fact, he even blames Elspeth and her rich kind for their “misfortune” in coming across a “predator” such as him by taunting, “You made it so easy. Spoiled dogs sleeping belly-up. No natural predators.” Then correcting, “Well, almost none.” And oh, how well Oliver played the part of “prey” himself. Or at least “innocent” and “wayward” poor boy. Allowing himself to blend in even if still standing out as a graceless member of the “low class” (and, despite the Cattons not knowing Oliver is actually an upper middle classer, they would undoubtedly still view that category as one and the same with all the rest of the rabble).
The significance of the mid-00s time period, for Fennell, isn’t just about the fact that she’s a millennial who lived through its heyday as well, but about showcasing the dawning of an era wherein the “millennial grift”—consisting primarily of building one’s identity on a house of cards—first began to form (as it did for Elizabeth Holmes circa 2004). This being founded on the bedrock of pretending to be someone you’re not. Of posing as something or someone that will appeal to a surprisingly naive mark. And in the germinal age of social media (hell, for most of 2006, Facebook was still reserved solely for college students with Harvard email accounts), “becoming” someone else, Mr. Ripley-style (and, obviously, Fennell owes a great debt to The Talented Mr. Ripley, in addition to Waugh, for this story, too), was a cinch. Or, at the bare minimum, much more facile than it is now.
So sure, the summer of 2007 was a carefree one. Not just for a little millennial grifting, but overall as well. ‘Twas the summer of Rihanna’s Good Girl Gone Bad, Justice’s Cross, Kate Nash’s Made of Bricks and M.I.A.’s Kala. And, of course, the entirety of the film is steeped in other millennial pop culture of the day—from Felix’s cousin, Farleigh Start (Archie Madekwe), wearing a “Dump Him” t-shirt à la Britney in 2002 (right after her much-discussed and speculated-upon breakup with Justin Timberlake) to the entire band of youths on the premises (Farleigh, Felix, Oliver and Venetia [Alison Oliver]) reading the final installment in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, that was released in July of that summer.
Alas, as the adage goes, “Nothing gold can stay.” Or, more to the point, nothing gold-tone can keep its shine. This means Oliver. Though it is only Felix’s sister, Venetia, who really comes to understand what her family hath wrought in choosing to allow an interloper like Oliver into their home. So it is that she points her finger at him and announces the millennial mantra, “Stranger danger” (or, in her case, “Stranger fucking danger”) while talking to Oliver drunkenly in the bathtub. This being the phrase oft repeated by parents and other authority figures during millennial childhood that it’s an ironic wonder that so many services of the present are contingent upon trusting total strangers (e.g., Airbnb, Uber). As Felix so blindly trusted Oliver and his pack of lies wielded manipulatively to gain access to the precious Saltburn castle. Almost as though he had no idea that just because someone is a member of your birth cohort doesn’t mean they won’t fuck you over as badly as the older generations have already.
As for the final, now illustrious scene of Oliver swinging his dick (not fake, by the way) around throughout Saltburn to the tune of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s apropos “Murder on the Dancefloor,” some might take issue with the flagrancy of such “nefariousness.” But the point, of course, is to emphasize that the rich themselves never felt a shred of guilt about how they amassed their own wealth, so why should someone like Oliver, who knows there’s no such thing as getting rich “honestly” (or without bloodshed-filled exploitation)? What’s more, the intensification of lusting after wealth without “working for it” was a phenomenon that crested as millennials came of age. Suddenly faced with the bleak reality that their own hard work, and the bill of goods they were sold by baby boomers about how it would ensure “prosperity” (or at least home ownership), was for nothing.
And since that proved to be the “reward” for “obeying,” why not just take what one wanted by force and through any means necessary? The same way the forebears of the currently wealthy already did (and what the currently wealthy still do to ensure the proliferation of that wealth down the generational line). This, ultimately, is why Fennell succeeds in making her “millennial villain” come across more as a byproduct of the failure of capitalism than anything else. In which case, one must ask: villain or victim?
Very few movies leave me speechless. Then again, very few movies contain as many graphic depictions of depravity and desperation as Saltburn, the latest film from Oscar-winning screenwriter, producer, and director Emerald Fennell.
By the time Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) danced a naked jig through his hard-won mansion, I was thoroughly rattled. Not-so-gentle readers, I am not a prude. I have written things that could curl hair, and I’m no stranger to reading or watching subversive material. However, there was something about Saltburn that I found equal parts revolting and fascinating.
Four scenes in particular were so uncomfortable to watch that I had to look away, hand clamped over my mouth, eyes wide with disbelief. I realized I felt nauseated, but it wasn’t just the blood, sweat, and bathtub emissions that grossed me out; it was the naked and animalistic greed, longing, and elitism that Fennell holds up to the light for the audience to examine. The disturbing scenes are a symptom, not a cause.
Early on, the movie draws us in with a compelling story reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. Oliver comes across as pathetic, but still waters run deep … and cold. Felix (Jacob Elordi), with his effortless rich boy privilege, preppy style, and strapping good looks, is as easy to love as he is to hate. The way he takes Oliver under his wing is more like a man adopting a pet than friendship, and we sense that he’ll drop Oliver the second he gets bored.
(MGM)
The relationship becomes even more unbalanced when the pair arrives at Felix’s sprawling family estate for summer break. The Catton family is a caricature of the British one percent: Mother Elspeth (Rosamund Pike) treats her friends like disposable accessories, father Sir James (Richard E. Grant) is quick to pull out the checkbook when a guest outstays their welcome, and sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) is so spoiled and filled with childish ennui that she’s positively itching to start drama with Felix’s new sidekick.
It’s a lot of fun to watch the Catton family scenes even if—or perhaps because—they are horrible people. The breezy way they decide to throw a party with hundreds of guests gives us a glimpse into the sort of wealth most of us will never come close to achieving. The story picks up momentum, and the wheels come off the bus in a slow yet spectacular way, beginning with the first of the four pivotal scenes I mentioned above.
(MGM)
The bathtub scene
The first scene that made me squeamish was the infamous bathtub scene in which Oliver sees Felix masturbating in the tub, then sneaks in and drinks the bathwater as it drains—but he doesn’t just drink it; he revels in it, smearing the liquid over his face, slurping it into his mouth, and inserting his tongue right into the drain. Um … ew.
Perhaps it was the simple act of putting your tongue inside a bathtub drain that got me, but get me it did. I cringed, groaned, averted my eyes. If the movie had been a smidgeon bad up until then, I might have turned it off. Instead, I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. Odd!
The vampire scene
Oliver ingratiates himself into the Catton household by seducing each family member in different ways. In the case of Venetia, it’s actual sexual seduction, and the scene where they meet up outside one night prompted sounds from my throat that I’ve honestly never heard before.
Essentially, Venetia tells Oliver that it’s not the right time of the month for them to be intimate, but that doesn’t stop our creepy antihero. “Lucky for you, I’m a vampire,” he tells her before performing oral sex on her. It’s difficult to watch, but the scene paints a very clear portrait of how far Oliver will go to leech off the Catton family. In an interview with Deadline, Fennell said she considers Saltburn to be “a vampire movie,” with Oliver feeding off of those whose lifestyle he covets.
(MGM)
The Farleigh encounter
When Felix’s American cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) gets in Oliver’s way, he stops at nothing to get him expelled from the estate. One night, he slips into Farleigh’s room and essentially threatens him if he doesn’t behave. The act is problematic because Farleigh doesn’t seem to consent to the sex Oliver initiates with him. There’s an implication of rape because these characters do not like one another at all, and the power dynamic is completely unbalanced. It even seems like Farleigh could be weeping, but it’s hard to tell in the dimness.
The next morning, Farleigh is kicked out after Oliver frames him for stealing, proving that he used sex as a mere ploy to distract his opponent.
Finally, the grave-humping scene
After Felix shuffles off this mortal coil with help from Oliver, the latter mourns his friend by visiting his freshly-dug grave. Sweet, right? WRONG. Suddenly, we’re watching in horror as Oliver strips off his clothes and proceeds to thrust into the dirt, a final act of desperate ownership that demonstrates how depraved the character truly is.
Speaking with Variety, Keoghan said the grave scene wasn’t scripted, but Fennell gave him a closed set to “see what the next level of obsession was.” The resulting scene is a showstopper and it achieved what the director set out to do: illustrate the bizarre things people do when they’re overcome by powerful emotions they can’t control.
(MGM)
Here’s the thing: parts of this movie are just plain nasty, and that’s the whole point. Fennell wants to make us feel something, whether it’s pleasure, horror, embarrassment, or even shame. After all, isn’t art supposed to pull deep-seated emotions to the surface of our consciousness? To help us understand ourselves and the human condition more thoroughly?
Perhaps that’s why I can’t stop turning the film over in my mind and thinking about those intense characters. Perhaps that’s why I’m already thinking about watching it again.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Saltburn. It’s easily one of the most divisive movies to be released this year. If you’ve watched it and still have questions (or you’re Googling before it’s over), the question on everyone’s lips is how did Felix die in Saltburn. Jacob Elordi takes on the role of the aloof, privileged hot boy; Barry Keoghan plays Oliver Quick, whose infatuation with Felix consumes him (and, as the film would have it, he consumes it).
Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, Oliver finds himself drawn into the world of the charming aristocrat Felix, who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family’s sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten. “It gets under your skin,” director Emerald Fennell told Variety.
“We just want to make something that makes people feel something. I want to make stuff that you go and sit in a dark room full of strangers and you don’t know what you’re going to feel and you don’t know where you’re going to be probed. And everyone has a different take on it. Some people are screaming, some people are squealing, Some people are turned on, some people are freaked out and some are furious,” . “Some people don’t really care. What you want is for people to spill out into the street and want to go and have a drink and talk about it.”
It’s a twisted, modern Gothic tale about priviledge and desire that ends in tragedy for some, and dancing nude for another. With that said, and if you’re not clear on how the film ends, here’s how Felix died in Saltburn.
How did Felix die in Saltburn?
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Saltburn. How did Felix die in Saltburn? After he confronts Oliver over his lies—that his dad isn’t dead and his mother isn’t a drug addict—he dies from a suspected drug overdose. But it’s later revealed that Oliver poisoned him.
Let’s backtrack a bit. Oliver develops an unhealthy obsession with Felix after encountering him at Oxford. Felix is cool, effortless, as is everyone in his orbit. Oliver, meanwhile, is dowdy and shy—an unpopular dork drawn to Felix’s aura.
In an effort to garner attention and sympathy, Oliver tells Felix his father is dead and his mother is a hopeless drug addict. Oliver says he’ll never go home again and Felix invites him to vacation with him at his family estate, Saltburn. A few days into his visit, Felix’s family offer to throw Oliver an elaborate birthday party, but the afternoon before the bash, Felix drives Oliver to his mother’s house to make ammends with her.
Upon discovering Oliver’s deception—that his family home is very wholesome and normal—Felix tells Oliver that he wants nothing to do with him anymore and casts him out. Drunkenly, Oliver follows Felix into the property’s hedge maze to find him having sex with someone in the center. They argue. Felix tells Oliver to stay away from him. “I just gave you what you wanted, like everyone else does,” begs Oliver. “Everyone puts on a show for Felix. So I’m sorry my performance wasn’t good enough. … I just need you to understand how much I f—ing love you.”
“You make my blood run cold,” Felix tells him and in that moment, it’s clear Oliver has decided that if he can’t have Felix, no one can. He hands him a bottle of champagne, Felix takes a huge swig, and the following morning, there’s a panic in the property because Felix can’t be found. A scream rings out and we see that Felix’s body has been discovered at the center of the maze.
His death is ruled an accidental overdose. In a particularly tense scene, the family eat lunch around the dining table as the police and coroner collect Felix’s body. “What are you still doing here?” Felix’s cousin Farleigh asks through tears. “Does no one else find it weird?” To which Oliver replies coldly: “I wouldn’t throw stones if I were you, Farleigh. … I would feel guilty, too, if I was the one racking up lines the night someone died,” leading the family to believe Farleigh was responsible for Felix’s death.
Elordi told Collider that Felix has no idea what Oliver is capable of at that point in time. “No, I think his blood has just turned to ice. I think he’s just terrified of someone like that. But I don’t think he can see what’s coming, no.”
Keoghan told Variety that despite his sinister actions, by eliminating the family one by one and taking Saltburn for himself, audiences generally continue to side with Oliver. “They do! It’s kind of like that character Dexter, isn’t it? I know Emerald really roots for him and I was rooting for him. All the choices I made as Oliver, I didn’t seem them as sociopathic or wrong. Maybe that’s so I can justify a way of doing them. It’s when you step back as an audience member and go, “Okay, he probably is fecked up in the head.” But a genius!”
Saltburn is available to stream on Prime Video.
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What a year for queer cinema! While we can all agree that Hollywood would be nothing and nowhere without the contributions of queer people, only in the past few decades have we seen queer stories in the mainstream. And as we see more complex representation on the big and small screen — narratives that aren’t set in the mid-80s if you know what I mean — it’s refreshing to be able to celebrate an abundance of queer perspectives.
It’s been a long road to get here. And after Bros flopped in 2021, I feared that mainstream studios would pull funding from queer stories. But I feel like 2023 is the gayest year in cinema I can recall. While not all of them were hits (Dicks: The Musical will not be appearing on this list), and though the strike almost pushed back more titles than we could handle, it was still a formidable year for a diverse array of perspectives and an exciting variety in genres.
Maybe the glut of streaming services has something to do with it — every streamer needs their token queer original content. But we’ve also seen some wickedly funny and beautifully heart-wrenching quiet titles grace the big screen this year. There’s something for everyone. And there are so many titles it’s a little hard to keep up.
For a refresher course on the year’s best titles, and for recommendations of titles you might have missed, here are the best LGBTQIA+ movies and TV that we watched this year:
Saltburn
My favorite movie of the year is undoubtedly this messy, mad tale of Oliver Quick and his time at Saltburn. It is the darkest, most disturbing film I’ve ever seen. I still don’t quite know how to describe it. That queer yearning? That bathtub scene? but Talk about a cruel summer.
Heartstopper, Season 2
Season 2 of this Netflix triumph was even better, albeit sadder, than the first. It’s the sweetest thing you’ll ever watch, earnest and hopeful and addictive. It’s the show queer teens deserve, and I envy everyone in high school who gets to watch this in their adolescent years. Nevertheless, it’s my comfort show — despite the fact that it makes me cry every time.
All of Us Strangers
Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell. Need I say more? Their chemistry is unmatched, and too rare in queer romance dramas. More of this please!
Passages
The film for the polyamorous, non-monogamous era. Trust the French to make this messy queer film about a gay couple whose relationship is disrupted by a passionate affair with a woman.
Eileen
In this adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel, Anne Hathaway plays a sexy psychiatrist at a prison who captivates the unassuming young secretary. The two begin a charged friendship as the plot soon goes dark. If you liked Carol, you’ll love this. This is Barbie for weird lesbians.
Rustin
The true, overlooked, story of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin is finally coming to light. The architect of 1963’s momentous March on Washington, Bayard Rustin was one of the greatest activists and organizers of his generation, working side by side with MLK and his contemporaries. But his queerness pushed him to the sidelines. Colman Domingo stuns in this biopic.
The Other Two, Season 3
I miss this show already. Say what you want about Cary and Brooke but they were so real. This satirical portrait of life in the industry sends chills down my spine. And Drew Tarver’s journey this season as a gay man looking for romance is hilarious, but also hits close to home for what it’s like dating in the city.
Fellow Travelers
It’s been Matt Bomer’s year — we’ll see him again on this list later, too. It’s an epic love story through time, following Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey from the Lavender scare of the McCarthy Era of the 1950s through the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.
Red, White, & Royal Blue
Based on the bestselling YA novel, this is the campy, queer rom-com we deserve. Enemies to lovers? Check. High-stakes romance? Check. Happy ending? Plenty of them. And the hotties at the forefront of this phenomenon are about to be household names. Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine, thank you for your service.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe
A completely different take on YA coming of age romance, this gorgeous take on Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s novel is beautiful and poignant. With sharp cinematography and emotionally rich performances by actual teenagers, this feels like a Texas version of the European indie films I used to watch as a teen.
Everything Now
This new Netflix series takes on complex issues like Eating Disorders head on, but still somehow manages to create a charming and funny teen show. This is the next Sex Education, I’m calling it now
In a world…where moviegoing isn’t what it once was and blockbusters run three hours…a great trailer gets audiences motivated to check out a film on opening weekend. But the very best previews are so much more than that: They hold up as short-form works of art in their own right.
Keep in mind, marketing pros get just two and a half minutes to grab your attention and make their pitch. A clumsy trailer can also ruin the experience, misrepresenting the movie and setting ticket buyers up for disappointment. These days, fans devour trailers online, watching ads for anticipated new franchise entries by the millions within the first 24 hours they hit the internet. Earlier this month, an impressive ad for the upcoming “Grand Theft Auto 6” game set new highs on YouTube.
The trailer for “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” led with a handful of jaw-dropping stunts, like the one where Tom Cruise races his motorcycle up to and eventually over the edge of a precipitous cliff (watch AV Squad’s trailer). And a pair of trailers for “Evil Dead Rise,” cut to a classic record player warbling “Que Sera Sera,” served up a nightmare-fuel montage of creepy sights from the spinoff (check out the all-audiences preview by MOCEAN, as well as Buddha Jones’ gorier red-band trailer).
Still, sequels, prequels and reboots have it relatively easy — their task is to convince fans that the movie will deliver on their preexisting excitement. By contrast, it’s infinitely harder to introduce audiences to an original film, which is why you won’t see AV Squad’s rad teaser for “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” on this list. The trick is distilling the selling points of an unfamiliar property (or, in the case of “Barbie,” a longstanding brand) into something concise enough to entice.
So, setting aside the finished product to consider each preview on its own merits, here are Variety’s picks for the year’s best trailers, according to chief film critic (and admitted trailer addict) Peter Debruge. Click the arrow on each photo to watch the trailer in question.
They Cloned Tyrone – “Freaky” Trailer
Image Credit: PARRISH LEWIS/NETFLIX
Who made it: GrandSon Back in the day, practically every trailer used a voice-of-God narrator to summarize the plot (“In a world where…”). Lately, the trick is to convey what a movie’s about using clips and a minimum of on-screen text. Trouble is, “They Cloned Tyrone” boasts a crazy-complicated conspiracy theory much too elaborate to distill into two minutes, so the preview takes things in a different direction, focusing on the funky, funny vibe of Netflix’s stylish blaxploitation satire. The trailer’s structured around Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me,” remixed to match the tempo of the clips. But most essential for any comedy promo: It gets laughs and promises more where those came from. How does the movie measure up? The trailer introduces a fresh filmmaking talent, and sure enough, the film reps a promising debut from “Creed II” screenwriter Juel Taylor.
Air – “Flight” Trailer
Image Credit: Courtesy of Prime
Who made it: Zealot The job of a good trailer is to inspire people to see the movie. But sometimes, it’s also about informing those who will never get around to buying a ticket as to the film’s message (consider the classic trailer for Michael Mann’s “The Insider”). The “Air” preview achieves both those goals, getting audiences to reconsider the game-changing endorsement deal between Nike and then-rookie Michael Jordan, while also conveying how much fun Ben Affleck and friends had flashing back to that era (cue ’80s power ballad “Sister Christian”). A dumpy looking Matt Damon makes a long-shot bet, the outcome of which we all know. But the trailer convinces it’ll be an entertaining ride. “The shoe is just a shoe,” he says, “…until my son steps into it,” finishes Viola Davis. How does the movie measure up? There’s so much more to the story than the trailer suggests, making for one of the year’s best crowd-pleasers
The Creator – Teaser Trailer
Image Credit: Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
Who made it: Wild Card Creative Group These days, it seems like you can do practically anything with visual effects (soon enough, we’ll be saying the same of artificial intelligence). But truly visionary sci-fi movies are still few and far between. The thrill of witnessing something fresh — albeit a dystopian future with strong “Terminator” and “Blade Runner” vibes — drives the trailer for Gareth Edwards’ original robot war movie. So does a smart use of Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” which escalates in intensity as the spectacular battle footage builds in sync with the song’s crescendo. The teaser does a nice job of balancing large-scale blockbuster moments (including a percussive nuclear blast) with quieter, more “human” moments (including the big reveal, where we see the face of a young girl grafted onto a cyborg rig). How does the movie measure up? Edwards is better at worldbuilding than he is at storytelling, and the trailer accurately emphasized the former.
Oppenheimer – “Secrets” Trailer
Image Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Who made it: Trailer Park Group Every year, each distributor is allowed one trailer that exceeds the standard 150-second runtime. It stands to reason that Universal would dedicate that honor to “Oppenheimer,” the Christopher Nolan tentpole it deemed so important, the studio erected a billboard featuring a countdown timer on S. La Cienega Blvd. more than a year before it opened. “This is a national emergency,” begins Trailer Park’s three-minute supercut, which brings breathless, race-against-time energy to the Manhattan Project portion of the film, alternating between awesome nuclear-fission imagery and punchy, apocalyptically self-important zingers, like Matt Damon spouting, “How about because this is the most important thing to happen in the history of the world?” Other trailers, like Inside Job’s two-minute “Lightmaker” spot, do a more accurate job of representing the whole film, but “Secrets” positioned “Oppenheimer” as the must-see, “most important” event movie of the summer. How does the movie measure up? The trailer got millions to buy tickets to Nolan’s masterpiece, but may have skewed their expectations in the process, overrepresenting Emily Blunt’s role (as Oppie’s wife), while reducing the Robert Downey Jr. dimension to just two shots.
Boogeyman – Trailer
Image Credit: 20th Century Studios
Who made it: Trailer Park Group Focusing on a child actor who sees more than the adults slyly echoed the campaigns for “Poltergeist” and “The Sixth Sense.” So, while Rob Savage made a PG-13 horror movie as generic as its title, the team at Trailer Park took what he’d shot and delivered a master class in cinematic tension. Relying on deep, black shadows and ominous sources of light — including a glowing ball that rolls under a little girl’s bed — the trailer plays on audiences’ deep-seated fear of the dark. If you caught this one in a movie theater (as opposed to on a computer screen), it was perversely easy to imagine some monster reaching out for you every time the screen goes black. How does the movie measure up? The first minute — featuring a blinking red light and a “Hereditary”-style ceiling crawler — is scarier and more effective than the entire feature.
Cocaine Bear – “Higher” Red-Band Trailer
Image Credit: Universal
Who made it: Inside Job Curiosity and skepticism were both sky-high when “Cocaine Bear” posters started popping up in movie theaters. While the title was been enough to sell most audiences on the movie’s twisted (very loosely “inspired by true events”) concept, the hella-wrong red-band trailer assured the film could deliver on its outrageous B-movie premise. An ambulance whoop kicks off the mayhem, as a pair o’ medics arrive at a blood-spattered park cabin, only to be mauled by the CG black bear inside. Leaning in to the R-rated mix of drugs and gore, the irreverent amuse bouche — cut to Duran Duran’s “White Lines” — serves up severed limbs and swearing kids, grizzled-looking ex-goodfella Ray Liotta and an off-the-wall shot of the bear leaping into the back of a speeding van. How does the movie measure up? Alas, the joke plays best in trailer form.
Saltburn – Teaser
Image Credit: Courtesy of Amazon Studios & MGM
Who made it: Grandson Creative The less you know going in, the better — which is why these mysterious two minutes offer the perfect creative solution: Cut more like a music video, the dreamy montage gives you a feel for Emerald Fennell’s upper-crust arthouse satire, in which a wide-eyed boarding school lad (Barry Keoghan) is invited to a seductive classmate’s upper-class castle. While “The Pioneers” track isn’t actually in the film, M83’s remix of Bloc Party’s mid-2000s single proves an inspired choice to underscore an enigmatic selection of sexy, decadent images. The editing follows the beat, building to a homoerotic shot of Jacob Elordi, backlit and smoking, with his legs spread. Presenting the credits in colorful Gothic text is a nice touch, as the title reveals itself one letter at a time. How does the movie measure up? It’s even wilder than advertised.
Barbie – “Dawn” Teaser
Image Credit: Warner Bros.
Who made it: Giaronomo In theaters, it took audiences a few seconds to figure out the twist as Greta Gerwig orchestrated a clever riff on “2001: A Space Odyssey,” in which a monster-sized Barbie takes the place of the Monolith. Young girls are seen playing with baby dolls, while narrator Helen Mirren explains how Mattel’s innovation made history. Cue the horn blasts of “Also sprach Zarathustra,” as those same girls smash their old dolls to bits. The giveaway: when the director’s name flashes in the familiar, neon-pink Barbie font. The teaser got a big laugh in theaters, positioning the film as both a comedy and a bona fide event movie. Fans flipped over just five seconds of hot-pink BarbieLand footage at the end. How does the movie measure up? What seemed like a stand-alone marketing gag actually opens the movie.
Beau Is Afraid – “Beyond” Trailer
Image Credit: A24
Who made it: AV Squad Anyone watching this bewildering mix of clips — skillfully cut to Supertramp’s “Goodbye Stranger” — would be hard-pressed to summarize the plot of “Hereditary” director Ari Aster’s three-hour opus. By all appearances, the film seems to span the life of a stressed-out shut-in, played by a scabby faced Joaquin Phoenix, blurring dream-like scares (smashing through a glass door, motorboating by moonlight) with footage lifted from a surreal animated passage. How can it all fit in one film? The A24 logo is enough to get some folks’ hearts racing, immediately followed here by an unfamiliar “MW” symbol — hardly subliminal, but a subtle clue to one of the movie’s mysteries. (In its viral marketing efforts, the studio went so far as to create a LinkedIn page for the fictional company.) How does the movie measure up? At three hours, it’s bloated, but every bit as creepy-surreal.
Killers of the Flower Moon – “Money” Trailer
Image Credit: Courtesy of Apple
Who made it: AV Squad An overhead shot of an Osage powwow sets the tempo for a brutal, brilliant montage: striking oil, gun blasts and assorted white-man malfeasance timed to tribal drumbeats and chanting. Briefly sampling nearly every violent moment from the film, the trailer condenses an incredibly complex true crime story, which took Martin Scorsese no less than 3½ hours to tell, down to an efficient, pulse-racing 2½ minutes. Even those who don’t elect to watch the movie itself get the drift of this deep historical injustice, distilled down to a few well-chosen exchanges: the pathetic pickup scene, where a sleazy-looking Leonardo DiCaprio hits on Lily Gladstone; Robert De Niro enlisting the patsy in his plan; and Jessie Plemons showing up to investigate the murders. How the movie measures up: Scorsese goes long. Like, really long. That’s one thing the tight, punchy trailer left out.
After the trailer was (finally, finally) released for the new Emerald Fennell feature film, Saltburn, I asked the question: what the hell is SaltburnSaltburn? Now, a week after watching it and turning it in my head for days, I still don’t know the answer. This sick, salacious, yet ultimately satisfying film is a reinvigoration of its genre. But what genre is it aspiring to? And is it succeeding?
There are a few things I’m sure of. Saltburn is a study of dichotomies. Rich and poor. Filth and fabulousness. It’s the haves and the have-nots. Some have power, beauty, privilege, and love. The others have not.
Saltburn is also a masterclass in acting from Barry Keoghan as Oliver Quick. Jacob Elordi holds his own as Felix, shedding his Netflix-star skin and playing a more substantive golden boy. Alison Oliver as Venetia is a breakout star in her role, teeming with both vulnerability and venom.
But most dazzling are the scenes with Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) and Keoghan together, both masters of their craft at their very best, (honorable mention to Carey Mulligan’s scenes too.) But Keoghan has shown in this role that he doesn’t just play a part, he embodies an entity. Every cell of his body, every muscle in his face, is so carefully trained to play Oliver. His choices are always satisfying and surprising — and in a role as complex and cunning as this, he plays the audience like a fiddle.
The internet has, of course, been enamored and appalled by this film. Its blend of dark academia and homoerotic subtext of course makes it fodder for niche internet subcultures and instant cult status. And casting Jacob Elordi in anything also guarantees its interest from the mainstream audience — I mean, I firmly believe that if Call Me By Your Name had been made today, Jacob Elordi would have replaced Armie Hammer.
The “eat the rich” genre has increased in popularity over the last few years. And Saltburn is an immersive deep dive into the world of the wealthy. From the halls and balls of Oxford to the sweeping grounds of Saltburn manor. Through its characters, we know what it’s like to be loved and lonely in these beautiful places, embraced and shunned by these beautiful people. And in every moment, the scepter of class disparity hangs over the settings and the relationships ensconced within them.
I can wax poetic about the promises and pitfalls of the genre’s unapologetic navel-gazing, with shows like Succession and White Lotusleading the pack. While we love to watch terrible rich people do terrible things to each other in beautiful locations, the genre is hardly subversive. It’s also not new.
Saltburn reminds us of the long lineage of class commentaries — especially those with homoerotic themes. Think The Talented Mr Ripley, starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow as young and beautiful Americans in Italy, unable to escape the trappings of their class and the cradles of their privilege. Sound familiar? But no one would ever accuse Ripley of being a satire. So why are we so desperate to cast Saltburn as one?
Perhaps because Saltburn is, at its core, hilarious. The characters are almost cartoonish in their wealth and rituals- especially Pike as Elspeth, who insists on a black-tie dress code for family dinners and throws extravagant parties on a whim. Yet, even in its laughable strangeness, even these moments are not hyperbolic. For the characters, they’re real. And we only see their absurdity through the eyes of Oliver, Keoghan’s character. Which may be critical of the wealthy characters, but still covets their life.
What is the point of Saltburn?
But Saltburn is more than just a portrait of a rich family. The underlying darkness is what has compelled reviewers to call it a homoerotic thriller and to ascribe morality to its characters and its ending. But Saltburn cannot be a satisfying takedown of the wealthy if that’s not its goal. Here rests the tension between those who love Saltburn and those who loathe it. Does the film seek to understand and empathize with the wealthy? Or does it villainize them? In short, what is the point?
I think Saltburn is a character study in which class is a character itself. The antagonist, even. More attention is paid to the trappings of wealth, its various dimensions than is given to even Felix. Though we are told everyone loves Felix and he is bestowed with good looks and a first-class education, he is a shallow character. And this feels intentional. Felix is not beloved because he is Felix, he is beloved because he is Felix Catton, a symbol of all things upper-class and wealthy. Wealth here isn’t about money. We can assume many of the other students surrounding him have a lot of it. Instead, it’s about power. Which is the central theme of the film, and a fixture in the legacy of British class hierarchies.
American viewers might misunderstand the complexity of the British class system. It really is as shameless as it seems in the film — especially in 2006, before the 2009 financial crisis. This was the era of indie-sleaze (made clear by Jacob Elordi’s eyebrow piercing and carpe diem tattoo) and extravagant parties. Even old money stewards like Saltburn’s fictional Catton’s were not too invested in stealth wealth. And, a key component of this wealth is that it’s inherited for generations that predate the very existence of America.
Even Elordi, an Australian trying to understand the role, marveled at the revelation that English upper-class kids really can be so self-absorbed and pretentious. “I lived in Chelsea, and I would just go down to the coffee shops and listen to people talk and order their flat whites,” he told Vanity Fair. “That was kind of the final puzzle piece to realize you couldn’t really go too far with it.”
So while Saltburn ends with a line in which Oliver professes how hard he’s “worked” (this is all I can say without delving into spoilers), hard work is not valued in this system. Unlike the US and its fixation on self-made fortunes as the American Dream, fictional though they may be, those at the top of the British class system are proud that they have worked for nothing, and gained everything through birth. And this idea, that one inherits pedigree that cannot be replicated and is always out of reach, is what Saltburn is interested in.
Yet, it doesn’t approach this with satire. Director Emerald Fennell is not counting on our laughter, our morality, or even our praise. She wants us to be interested — in the characters but also in their place in the world. And with that, she succeeds.
Is Saltburn good?
Saltburn is beautiful (and also has some of the grossest shots I’ve seen in cinema, be warned). Saltburn is charming and deeply compelling. It’s also disgusting and feral and dark. I gasped aloud in the theater at first watch and instantly wanted to see it again. It’s an instant cult classic, cementing Barry Keoghan as a leading man and Jacob Elordi as a heartthrob. It’s one of the best films of the year. But it’s one that you have to see to believe.
A friend said, “Saltburn did for bathtubs what Call Me By Your Name did for peaches.” To understand how achingly accurate that is, I implore you to run to the theater and experience this shocking tale for yourself.
In Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan stars as Oliver Quick, a middle-class student at Oxford University who becomes infatuated with his handsome and wealthy classmate Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). As the school year ends, Felix invites him to spend the summer with him and his idiosyncratic family at their massive country estate — the eponymous Saltburn.
Fennell’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning debut, Promising Young Woman, Saltburn is a psychological black comedy inspired by Gothic literature, tracing Oliver’s struggle to fit in with the strange and rich family that hosts him at their home. But twists and turns abound in Fennell’s satire of the British class system, which she describes as “Barry Lyndon meets indie sleaze.”
Emerald Fennell
Mike Marsland/WireImage
Calling out other films set in similar environs (including Oscar-winning features The Remains of the Day and Atonement), Fennell deliberately plays with preconceived notions of British identity. “What happens when we take the most restrained genre about the most restrained people — to restrain it to the extent that it’s just pure, visceral madness?” Fennell asks.
The result is a wild and seductive tale of debauchery, eroticism and power, slowly unraveling to reveal that few of its characters are who they appear to be. Creating the world those figures inhabit proved great fun for Fennell, who turned to some of her favorite films, books and art to construct a mood board for Saltburn’s aesthetic.
Here, she shares with THR the inspirations for the film’s visual style as well as its expertly plotted screenplay, built on the bones of a particularly British kind of storytelling.
Thunderstruck/Alamy Stock Photo
Caravaggio’s paintings of the biblical figure were numerous — and, as Fennell says, “very sexy.” The contrast of the white skin against red fabric has always caught the director’s eye, and that aesthetic went into the interiors of the Saltburn estate. “We’re framing a huge, sumptuous, almost biblical kind of place — everyone is in velvets and silks, lying on chaises in a formal setting,” she says. She also found inspiration in how Caravaggio depicted the male body: “There’s a lot of tension under the skin.”
Courtesy Image
Fennell calls L.P. Hartley’s 1953 novel, which tells the story of a young man who feels like an outsider within his Victorian-era boarding school, “a British staple.” She adds: “It’s exactly what makes this genre so thrilling. This is the skeleton of the story, a man going through all of his old stuff and realizing his life hasn’t gone the way he wanted it to, and he sets out to resolve things.” The novel also was adapted for film by Losey and Pinter in 1971.
Courtesy Everett Collection
This 1963 drama directed by Joseph Losey and written by Harold Pinter stars Dirk Bogarde as the servant to a wealthy Londoner. “Losey and Pinter’s collaborations are so electric, because they have an undeniable erotic power,” says Fennell. “That power relies entirely on the threat of violence — not just literal violence, but a complete chaotic upending of the status quo.”
Courtesy Image
At a late night karaoke party, Oliver is convinced to sing this Pet Shop Boys track — only to realize it’s intended to make fun of him. “It’s one of the most romantic songs ever written,” says Fennell of the tune, told from the perspective of a kept man. “The chorus is, ‘I love you, you pay my rent.’ There’s some simplicity to that transaction. You could argue it’s cold and cynical. But the underlying truth is something we’re all looking for.”
Courtesy of ACC Art Books
Dafydd Jones’ photos are both sordid and idyllic, capturing student life at Oxford in the 1980s — a direct reference for Fennell’s 2007-set social satire. “What’s so great about Oxford, Cambridge and the aristocracy is, like … pick your century, right?” she says. “Dafydd catches those moments of genuine exhilaration, wealth and youth.”
This story first appeared in a November standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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You don’t have t wait until summer vacation to escape to Saltburn. Emerald Fennell’s buzzy sophomore film, which premiered in theaters in November, will arrive on Prime Video on Dec. 22.
In order to stream the film, you’ll have to sign up for a Prime Video account. Amazon is currently offering a 30-day free trial here.
The film stars Barry Keoghan as a college student named Oliver who finds himself drawn into the world of a charming and aristocratic classmate (Jacob Elordi) after he is invited to his eccentric family’s sprawling estate for a summer. The film has polarized viewers and critics alike, with some panning it as a cheap “Talented Mr. Ripley” knockoff, and others embracing it for its cinematography, score and entertaining twists. Many critics also criticized its messaging about class politics, failing to adequately skewer the upper classes while depicting scholarship kid Oliver as a vampiric con artist.
Either way, the film made a splash for its whirlwind twists and multiple shocking scenes between Koeghan and Elordi. In one scene, Keoghan watches Elordi masturbate in a bathtub and afterward is seen licking up Elordi’s semen around the tub’s drain. “I was like, ‘Thank God, it’s mine,’” Elordi told Variety at the film’s premiere last month. “I was very proud. I was very proud to have Barry Keoghan guzzling it like that.”
“Confronted with a sea of blandly indistinguishable content, Fennell wants to make an impression, embracing the ‘bizart-house’ strategy (pioneered by boundary-pushing A24 movies) of baiting audiences with something they’ve never seen before, and which they’ll be obliged to discuss with others,” Variety film critic Peter DeBruge wrote in his review. “It’s all part of the meme-ification of movies, and Fennell seems fairly savvy about loading the film with salty one-liners and visual zingers.”
Stream “Saltburn” on Prime Video beginning Dec. 22:
Saltburn has shaped up as one of 2023’s most divisive love-it-or-hate-it movies. Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her 2020 writer-director debut, Promising Young Woman, is radically different from that movie in look and tone, but her talent for pushing boundaries and demanding a response is still front and center, and Saltburn is the kind of button-pusher that generally either thrills people or makes them angry. Critics have responded both ways: “Superficially smart and deeply stupid,” Mick LaSalle grumps in the San Francisco Chronicle, while Entertainment Weekly’s Maureen Lee Lenker calls it “a triumph of the cinema of excess, in all its orgiastic, unapologetic glory.”
And one of the most divisive elements is the ending, which can be read equally as sly art or rank titillation, depending on how you feel about full-frontal male nudity. Polygon dug into it in an interview with Fennell shortly before the movie’s release.
[Ed. note: End spoilers for Saltburn follow.]
Image: Prime
In the movie, hungry social climber Oliver (Barry Keoghan) gradually becomes close to his rich, popular Oxford classmate Felix Catton (Priscillaco-star Jacob Elordi), who brings Oliver to his immense family estate, Saltburn, and introduces him to his family. Felix’s elitist, removed parents, Sir James Catton (Richard E. Grant) and Elspeth Catton (Rosamund Pike), make a hollow show of welcoming Oliver. But Felix’s jaded sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver), clearly sees him as a new toy, and Felix’s vicious, jealous cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) sees him as a rival and an unwelcome upstart.
As it happens, Farleigh is right — Oliver is lying about virtually everything that brought him together with Felix. He invented a family tragedy to make himself a tragic and dramatic figure. A series of flashbacks shows how Oliver engineered their early relationship by pretending to be penniless when he had plenty of money, and by sabotaging Felix’s bike in order to “help” when it broke down.
The later parts of their relationship are even darker: Felix appears to die in an unclear accident, and Venetia appears to kill herself out of grief. But further flashbacks show that Oliver murdered both of them, out of fear of being ejected from Saltburn, and resentment for the way they’ve both rejected him. It’s also clear that he sets Farleigh up to be disinherited, then poisons Elspeth after James dies, all in order to inherit Saltburn himself.
And in the final scene, Keoghan dances through the estate, stark naked and triumphant, waggling his ass to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor,” and presiding over a sad little row of memorial stones with the family members’ names on them, dredged up from the estate’s waterways to form a kind of ritual audience for his dance.
“The movie always ended with Oliver walking naked through the house,” Fennell tells Polygon. “It’s an act of desecration. It’s also an act of territory, taking on ownership, but it’s solitary.”
Photo: Chiabella James/Prime Video
As viewers watch the scene, Fennell wants them to notice Oliver’s path through the house, which is a reversal of his entry to the house earlier in the film. When Felix introduces Oliver to Saltburn with a small tour, it’s an invitation to a place that doesn’t belong to him. And when he does his dance, he’s following that same path in reverse, this time boldly claiming the space instead of shyly tiptoeing into it.
“The nudity is an act of ownership,” she says. “It wouldn’t be the same if he’s just walking through the house in his pajamas. It’s that he’s walking through his house. It’s his fucking house, and he can do whatever he wants to with it. And that’s what makes it thrilling and beautiful.”
The original script had Oliver symbolically claiming the house by walking through it, but Fennell says something about the scene as she’d planned it didn’t sit well with her. “It just became apparent as we were filming it that the naked walk was not really going to have the feeling of triumph and joy, elation and post-coital success [I wanted]. It felt lonely and sort of empty. It speaks to Barry that when I said to him, ‘I don’t think it can be a walk, I think it needs to be a dance,’ — that’s the thing about Barry as a performer. He profoundly understood and completely agreed, and knew it had to be that way. There really wasn’t another way we could do it, given the film we’d just seen. To me, it feels like the ultimate sympathy for the devil.”
Fennell has already talked about how Saltburn simultaneously has sympathy for everyone in the film, and for no one — there are no outright villains in the story, in her opinion, just people with understandably flawed ways of looking at the world. That perspective helped her sympathize with Oliver at the end, which she hopes the audience will do as well, even though he’s an unrepentant murderer.
“We have to be on his side at the end,” she says. “It’s crucial that the more violent he is, the more cruel, the more he plays them at their own game, the more we love him, even though we loved them, too. We have to feel at the end, like, ‘Yeah, yeah, get it.’ The way Oliver gets it is the way the Cattons would have got it in the first place. How do people build these houses? How do they make these houses? They’re built by violent means and got by violent means. So that’s where it ends as well.”
As the environmental, political, and above all, economic tension between the ultra-rich and the rest of the world continues to grow, it’s a topic that keeps driving dark, memorable movies — from Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winner Parasite to 2022’s The Menu, Pig, and Triangle of Sadness to a sub-track at the 2023 Fantastic Fest film festival, including this year’s Nick Stahl movie What You Wish For and the blistering Brazilian movie Property. Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, which played as a secret screening at Fantastic Fest, seems to fit the bill perfectly as well: It follows an Oxford freshman, Oliver (Barry Keoghan, sure to turn up in awards-season conversation again) as he awkwardly infiltrates the social circle of his ultra-rich classmate Felix Catton (Priscillaco-star Jacob Elordi). What follows is part horror movie, part classic Gothic novel, as Oliver hungers to be like Felix — or just to be Felix.
But in an interview after Fantastic Fest, Fennell told Polygon she doesn’t entirely see Saltburn as yet another eat-the-rich exercise.
“I think I consider it more ‘Lick the rich, suck the rich, and then bite the rich, and then swallow them,’” she said.
Image: Prime
Saltburn is an intoxicating experience: a visually rich, caustic crime thriller in the vein of The Talented Mister Ripley. Oliver, whose background takes a while to fully unfold within the film, is obsessed with the luxury, comforts, and casual arrogance of Felix and his wealthy family. But as they spend more time with Oliver, embracing his attractiveness and cleverness and welcoming him into Saltburn, the family estate, they also drop hints that he’s probably just the plaything of the season, likely to be discarded out of boredom.
Fennell’s movie — her follow-up to the challenging, much-discussed revenge story Promising Young Woman — isn’t entirely sympathetic toward Oliver, who’s clearly grasping and needy as well as ruthless. At the same time, it isn’t fully on board with Felix and his superficial, selfish family members, either.
“It’s really about having sympathy with everyone, always,” Fennell says. “Certainly for me as a writer and director — and for the actors, too — it always has to be an exercise in empathy. None of these people thinks of themselves as a bad person. It was the same with Promising Young Woman. It’s not interesting for me to make things that make moral judgments about people — all I’m interested in doing is understanding. So for me, the first thing about the Catton family was that we understood why Oliver would be, against his better judgment, completely and utterly beguiled.”
As Fennell has explained in other interviews, Saltburn is a movie about fame, fandom, the internet, and parasocial relationships, about the kind of connections people make from a distance and build into elaborate, often unhealthy fantasies. Part of drawing that line was making Felix the kind of superstar who would earn a fandom: He’s handsome, charming, and skilled at everything he tries, but he’s also surprisingly kind.
“It’s the thing about Felix — we think we’re going to hate him, we assume we’re going to hate him,” Fennell said. “And then the moment we meet him for the first time, it’s impossible to resist. They’re all impossible to resist. The world is impossible to resist. It was important that we understood from the get-go why, against our better judgment, we would all want to be at Saltburn, and would do anything to get in and anything to stay.”
Image: Prime
Both Saltburn and Promising Young Woman are about toxic hunger, about a protagonist so monomaniacal about getting something that they’re willing to cut any moral corners to get there. In terms of other connections, though, Fennell says her own obsessions may be showing in the new film.
“You’re always trying to do something new and make something different, but you can never get too far away from yourself,” she says. “I think certainly I have a preoccupation with genre, and the way we use it as filmmakers and experience it as cinema goers. Promising Young Woman was looking at the specific genre of the female-lead revenge movie. Saltburn is looking at the Gothic country-house tradition. Promising Young Woman was looking to subvert the genre, and that’s exactly what I’m hoping to do here.”
The reason Saltburn feels like so many classic British stories about class, Gothic manors, and dark secrets is because Fennell wanted the movie to be a recognizable world, a genre exercise where viewers think they know what the rules are, and what’s coming next.
“It’s only with that familiarity that you can really apply pressure, and dig into the genre,” Fennell said. “So stylistically, I’m always going to be preoccupied with where a movie exists in the world of movies. You can’t pretend a movie exists outside of the world.”
As far as other comparisons to her work go, Fennell notes that both Promising Young Woman and Saltburn are thwarted love stories. “They’re stories about what we do with love that can’t be, for whatever reason, that can’t carry on in the form it starts in. With Promising Young Woman, it was the love story between Cassie and Nina, and it was a love story with Ryan, Bo Burnham’s character — both of them loves that kind of can’t work out. And Saltburn is a movie about loving someone, and loving his world — a world that’s never going to love you back. What do you make yourself into? What do you do to yourself when that becomes apparent? How do you get that love?”
It may seem a little counterintuitive to compare internet fame with Gothic novels like BridesheadRevisited, Wuthering Heights, and Northanger Abbey. But Fennell thinks of these books and online obsessions as closely connected.
Image: Prime
“There is always a tension, always, between ourselves and other people,” she said. “If the Gothic tradition is about an outsider being introduced to a world which is both desirable and frightening — that’s absolutely what we’re doing with the internet, and our relationship with the world of fame and beauty.
“Online, fame isn’t just about people anymore. It’s about their wardrobes, the way they organize their wardrobes, the labels they put on their drawers, every detail of people’s lives. It’s their food, their clothes, it’s everything. I think we are absolutely, now more than ever — and particularly post-COVID — in this kind of voyeuristic, sadomasochistic relationship with these things. I certainly, myself, feel a new desire post-COVID to touch.”
Referencing one of the more visceral and much-described scenes in Saltburn, where Oliver licks Felix’s bathwater out of the drain, Fennell said, “I think it makes sense that this film is preoccupied in many ways with the stuff of human secretion, in whatever form that is. There’s a transgression now, post-COVID, to touching and feeling, and getting intimate, in ways that may be surprising. And I think that’s absolutely what the Gothic tradition was always about. It was about introducing people, but particularly women, to this idea of the transgressive desire, and the things that maybe weren’t within reason. They’re outside of reason, they become completely all-consuming.”
Saltburn has the slick intrigue of a Gothic thriller and the icy wit of a comedy of manners. The eponymous estate at which bookish University of Oxford loner Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) works to ingratiate himself is a museum of decadence, its splendor concealing a depravity that only the wealthy can disregard. But the movie’s target isn’t straightforward. Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), the bewitching classmate who invites Oliver home with him for a rambling summer, starts out as a token of desire but becomes a heedless lodestar. Felix inherited his savior complex from his mother, Lady Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), a wannabe do-gooder with a vampy cruel streak. She’s married to a daffy lord (played by Richard E. Grant) whose lack of self-awareness rivals her own. As for Oliver, he spends his days at Saltburn currying favor among the Cattons, only to enact extravagant subterfuge.
Emerald Fennell, the writer and director of Saltburn, calls it a “vampire movie.” Oliver is the ultimate bloodsucker in question, yet his drive remains a sympathetic one. He wants what everyone wants: to belong. When Felix embraces Oliver, who talks of drug-addicted parents and a life without spoils, Oliver quickly leeches on to the most popular guy at school. Can you blame him? Grandeur is an aphrodisiac.
“It’s the same as constructing any love story. I mean, it is a love story,” Fennell tells The Ringer. “Can you completely believe why these two people would come together?”
Part of the seduction scheme that eventually leads Oliver to acquire Saltburn involves sex—the sex he witnesses, the sex he wants, the sex he initiates. If he has something to gain beyond corporeal pleasure, nothing is off-limits. That includes semen-streaked bathwater, menstrual blood, and grave fucking. With the movie hitting theaters, Fennell and Keoghan walked The Ringer through Saltburn’s three outré sex scenes, the ones meant to shock and titillate in near-equal measure.
The Bathwater
For the movie’s first kink to land, Fennell had to plant a few crucial seeds. Casting the right Felix was the first. Keoghan is well-known for playing shifty oddballs like Oliver (see: The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Green Knight, The Banshees of Inisherin), but Feilx is all about surface-level élan. Fennell needed an actor with a magnetism that leaps off the screen, someone so striking his mere presence can melt hearts—not unlike Bo Burnham in Promising Young Woman, her 2020 directorial debut. Felix, whom Fennell compares to Brideshead Revisited aristocrat Sebastian Flyte, doesn’t have a whole lot to offer beyond beauty, charm, and money.
Fennell was pleased to discover that Elordi, the Euphoria and Priscilla heartthrob, shared her take on the character. “Felix does something shitty in every scene,” Fennell says. “He’s casually misogynistic, he’s fickle, he’s snobbish. I was always saying to Jacob, ‘He’s not a good kisser. He’s not good in bed. He’s never had to be.’ When Jacob came in to audition, he [played Felix as] kind of a dope. The thing that’s important is that so much of what makes him interesting is Oliver looking at him.”
Oliver certainly can’t stop looking, first through a dormitory window where he watches Felix holding court amid a tribe of admirers. Felix’s poise screams privilege, which immediately beguiles Oliver. When he watches through another window at night while Felix has sex with a young woman, it’s blissfully unclear whether Oliver would rather swap places with Felix or the girl. (For whatever it’s worth, Fennell says Oliver is “absolutely bisexual.”) By the time he enters Saltburn’s imperial gates, he’s completely enthralled, only seldom betraying his underlying desperation. After growing acquainted with the family and their ostentatious house, which Fennell and cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land) sought to shoot “like a fetish object,” he spies Felix masturbating during a bath.
The camera, mirroring Oliver’s eyes, lingers on Felix’s long torso and aroused face. But it’s what follows this voyeurism that’s most erotic. When Felix leaves the bathroom, Oliver slinks into the tub and guzzles the last of the ejaculate water as it drains, as if he’s harvesting Felix’s fluids and social status at once.
“The moment where he rubs his face along the plughole and wants to be in it, it’s sort of like, ‘I want to feel it, I want it to be part of me, I want it to change me,’” Keoghan says. “It’s a total obsession. He’s confused and lost. I don’t think he knows what he’s actually chasing.”
Keoghan says he channeled some combination of fox and snake while descending into the tub, and the sound team blended his slurp with the effects of raw octopus sliding against oil. Oliver’s animalistic excess was one of the first images Fennell thought of while brainstorming Saltburn. “It’s the impulse,” she says. “The moment he does that, it imbues him with this kind of wicked power. It also just felt, to me, so profoundly true of vulnerability, desire, and class envy: All of us can only ever really hope to lick the bottom of a bathtub. So there’s something pathetic, funny, incredibly sexy, and incredibly real.”
The Garden
As the summer continues and his stature among the Cattons swells, Oliver starts to see everyone as a potential dupe. If he can embed himself in the fabric of Saltburn, maybe he’ll never have to leave. He gives Felix’s catty American cousin (Archie Madekwe) a hand job as a sort of vengeful come-on after the cousin embarrasses Oliver at a dinner party. He even flirts with Elspeth, attempting to appeal to her affinity for waifs. She sees him as a sapling to protect, so Oliver then directs his persuasions to Felix’s troubled sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver), seizing on her fragility. As a self-conscious idler with an eating disorder, she’s anxious to find esteem within a family where Felix is the star.
Aware that she’s uncomfortable in her own body, Oliver uses lusting after Venetia as his ace card. Late one night, when he spots her stalking the garden, Oliver pounces. He treats her like a delicious talisman, fingering her on the fog-soaked lawn and smearing her menstrual blood across both of their faces. This act of demented flattery confirms Oliver’s mounting sense of power. Look at how far I’ll go for you.
“So much of the dom-sub thing is about taking care of the person,” Fennell says. “We see him giving people what they want, and that’s just being a good acolyte. What turns him on … is having control of the situation.”
Keoghan takes that sentiment a step further. “He’s abusing her, and he’s a master manipulator,” he says. “He wants to see how far he can take it: ‘I own you. You’re going to do what I say.’ He knows he wouldn’t get away with that with Felix.”
The Grave
Oliver’s quest to become an honorary Catton falls apart when Felix arranges to take him home to visit his parents on his birthday. Discovering that Oliver is nowhere near as Dickensian as he’s led on, Felix sours on his summer guest, sending Oliver into a spiral. If he can’t worm his way into Saltburn by feigning victimhood, he’ll go for the second-best option: killing the Cattons one by one and taking the whole thing for himself. Anything to avoid feeling once again like an outcast.
After poisoning Felix’s champagne during a blowout party, Oliver enacts a final act of longing: He leaves the funeral to return to the cemetery, pulls down his pants, and fucks the dude’s gravesite. For Fennell, the gesture is more about grief than sex—a visceral version of Heathcliff digging up Catherine’s body at the end of Wuthering Heights. It’s his last chance to touch Felix. Oliver can never have him back, and although he tells himself he wasn’t in love, the intensity of his sobs suggests otherwise.
Initially, Fennell imagined Keoghan rubbing his face in the grave and fondling the dirt, blending the bathtub scene and the garden scene into one showstopping desecration. But upon discussing it with the actor, they decided to be less coy. “I wanted to see what the next step was,” Keoghan says of Oliver’s farewell to Felix. “It wasn’t to get a wow factor. It was quite sad, because he’s lost at that moment.” Keoghan requested a closed set, meaning only essential people like Fennell and Sandgren were present. Shot from behind, he did the deed in one take, hoping to avoid the “sheer embarrassment” of needing to repeat it.
With the Catton clan eventually gone, Oliver is alone at Saltburn, having convinced Elspeth to will the property to him. He can dance naked through the house’s halls all he wants, but Oliver’s victory is hollow. After the movie fades to black, he’ll be left without companionship or a clear purpose. What was it all for? “I’ve always believed that what he wanted was very simple, which was just to be there with [the Cattons],” Fennell says. “The framing narrative makes it seem like he was always in pursuit of this specific end goal, but what he’s most interested in, even if he doesn’t know it himself, is the game of power. That’s why he’s interested in Felix from the beginning. It’s not just that he’s beautiful. It’s that he’s in the middle … That’s what Oliver’s preoccupation is: with being special. And aren’t we all preoccupied with being special?”
Matthew Jacobs is an Austin-based entertainment journalist who covers film and television. His work can be found at Vulture, Vanity Fair, The Hollywood Reporter, HuffPost, and beyond. Follow him on X @majacobs.
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