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.
The nude scene is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends
See also: Revisiting Brideshead Revisited
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