Whenever possible, I check out plot synopses, reviews, and trailers before watching a movie. Since Amazon Prime has been pushing Saltburn , I checked the reviews: "a spectacularly crafted masterpiece"; "brilliant"; "sick, savage, and satisfying"; "vibes forward" (I don't know what that means); "a febrile thriller." Sounds like a mishmash of Brideshead Revisted and The Talented Mr. Ripley, a poor (well, middle class) boy longing for the unstated homoerotic tensions and sybaritic excesses of the Polo Club crowd. Except set in 2016, not the Georgian Era.
Some of the reviews contained plot synopses, which allowed me to make my decision: don't watch, don't even look at a trailer. Here's why.
1. The focus character, sort of, is decadent Oxford richster Felix, seen here eating a popsicle and reading a Harry Potter book like a modern day Sebastian Flyte. He's played by Jacob Elordi, a bad boy in Euphoria.
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2, Felix feels sorry for the sob stories of poor-but-honest classmate Oliver (Barry Keoghan, who has received awards and appeared on a list of the greatest living Irish actors), So "Come out to Brideshead...um, Saltburn with me."
Oliver doesn't want to date Felix, he wants to be him. So he does something too disgusting to mention here. Really, really disgusting. I'm not kink shaming: probably 3/4ths of the population will get physically sick just by reading about it, but if it's your thing, fine. Why not just give him a blow job?
3, Felix conquered, it's time to coerce Cousin Farleigh(Archie Madkwe) into sex. Then Felix's sister, with another really, really disgusting kink.
4. Felix gets tired of the lies, deceptions, and disgusting kink, and orders Oliver to leave Saltburn. But Cousin Farleigh ends up dead. Then Felix! Now, of course, Oliver has to stay to find more family members to do disgusting kink with. Then Venetia kills herself!
5. Oliver is running out of family members. He tries to seduce Mom, but she refuses. Wait, dude, you forgot Dad and the Butler Then Dad, tired of the lies, deception, and dead family members, bribes Oliver to leave. He does.
6, But when Dad dies, Oliver returns, forces Mom to sign Saltburn over to him, and kills her. Now he is the master of Saltburn, so he dances around naked.
Actually, this looks sort of interesting, an a post-gay, everybody-does-everybody way. Maybe I'll watch, but skip over the disgusting kink scenes. Or I'll just fast forward to the last scene with Barry Keoghan dancing naked like a sybaritic sycophant.
Dicks after the break
This is all from the same scquence. A dick shot.
A side-dick shot.
And a butt shot.
I did not like it as much as you did yes the best part is the nude dance at the end
ReplyDeleteI think the problem is that there is too much gay teasing between Felix and Oliver - this might have made more sense if the film had been set in 1950s not now
ReplyDeleteThat's what I thought. Who does all that unspoken/unconscious attractions stuff in 2016? Everybody knows what gay is, so if you meet a guy you find attractive, you notice it right away, and ask him out on a date.
DeleteFelix seems to be very modern and aware the effect he has on men and women
DeleteI haven't seen Saltburn, yet, but I've read the comparisons to Brideshead and Ripley, and now I'm wondering if anyone's seen Michael York and Angela Lansbury in "Something for Everyone," directed by Hal Prince and filmed in Germany. That was a masterpiece. Or Teorema? Or La Merveilleuse Visite?
ReplyDeleteI saw "Teorema," years ago when I was studying Italian. Never heard of the other two
DeleteThe script borrows from "Teorama" and " The Talented Mr Ripley" specially the tub scene
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