Saltburn (2023, Emerald Fennell) (Patreon)

35/100

Went in hoping for a disasterpiece (based on peers' reactions ranging from "shocking only in its puerility" to "one of the most extravagantly terrible movies I've seen in some time") and was sorely disappointed. Saltburn is never remotely good, but neither is it rivetingly bad; mostly, the film just limps along a well-worn class-resentment path, devoid of any real wit, insight or provocation. Only at the end does the source of all that blandness become clear: Even though it's always painfully obvious what's going on, Fennell orchestrates a big climactic "reveal," thereby insulting the viewer's intelligence while also making us idly wonder how tiresome any Patricia Highsmith thriller would be were we not privy to the antihero's machinations. I thought Young Woman promising, if only because it dared to diverge from cathartic rape-revenge formula* (albeit ultimately in a very dumb way), but there's nothing bold or unexpected about Oliver's sociopathic scheme, and Barry Keoghan—whose indescribably bizarre performance in Killing of a Sacred Deer was my second-favorite of the previous decade**—gets constrained by the pointless effort to make his character's true nature a Usual Suspects-style twist, even as we keep getting out-of-nowhere hints in which Oliver abruptly but temporarily becomes an entirely different personality type. Poor Dear Pamela briefly looks as if she might herald an intriguing new direction for the rather labored narrative (just getting to Saltburn takes forfuckingever)...but no, Fennell apparently just wanted to gift Mulligan with some small, irrelevant role. Even Saltburn's nude-liberation finale has been done better elsewhere (though the movie was free to eschew censorship bars). I didn't hate it, but might have preferred that.

* Or, as one truly epic broadside phrased it, "the film promises a take it never gives." Man, don't you hate when that happens? If a film promises me a take, I damn well expect it to give me that take. That's why I choose which movies to see based on their take-giving guarantees. 

** Peyman Moaadi, A Separation (who won the Skandies' award for that decade's single greatest performance)