People keep asking whether movies like 'Saltburn' and 'The Menu' are too mean or not mean enough to rich people. 'Saltburn' is bizarro 'Succession,' and this is missing the point entirely.
"My sense is that a lot of the discrepancy in criticism is actually more of a referendum on how individual viewers reacted to Barry Keoghan sucking spent jizz out of a bathroom drain or having sex with a freshly dug grave than it is on wealth satire"
We saw this with the debate on Twitter as to whether Saltburn was provocative/not provocative. As Louis Peitzman noted, you may think it's dumb, but you're probably too online if you think period sex, grave fucking, and cum water drinking in a movie released by a major studio aren't that provocative. Aside from Barbie, I think I had more conversations with my normie friends/family members about Saltburn than any other movie last year.
Anyway, the reaction to Saltburn reminded me of the reaction to Promising Young Woman, where they're playing with issues of the moment, but are given undue THIS IS AN IMPORTANT FILM MAKING CONCRETE STATEMENTS consideration, by virtue of their proximity to award season. PYW was an exploitation movie - if it had come out in April 2020 like it was originally supposed to, we probably would not have spent a month debating whether it's pro-cop.
I watched Saltburn on your recommendation and was not disappointed. The actors in it were compelling enough that I actually checked on other movies they did. That's when I stumbled across the lead actor on the cover of GQ with a tag line about him manifesting his Hollywood destiny. End of search.
I thought, based on the movie title, that it was going to be a espionage thriller with Angelina Jolie and Jason Statham. Once I realized that wasn't the case I erased this completely but good article nonetheless.
I’m dying at “hey, this thing’s got good punctuation and everything! I should send to GQ!” Haha. Good piece. I definitely think you’re one of the only ones talking sense on this movie. It’s one of those flicks that everyone has drawn very forced performative battle lines on.
Vince calling me out here a lil bit since in Saltburn i originally thought it would have been more compelling to leave Oliver’s origin more ambiguous after he and Felix arrived at his house and we’d just seen Oliver upset at the surprise. Fennell really just wanted to hammer home how much of a social climbing evil perv he was. I also typically dont like isolated dance scenes but if its dongs out to celebrate your empty new home with no one else there who amongst us hasnt done that truly?
Oh, I actually agree with you there. I didn't like how she explained the way he orchestrated the entire thing either. I think she already accomplished communicating that he was a covetous social climbing freak with the house scene. The flashback was kind of unnecessary. We could've basically inferred all of that. I like the dong scene in a vacuum, but his speech on her deathbed went on way too long before that, where she sort of over-explained again a bunch of stuff she had already showed us.
"My sense is that a lot of the discrepancy in criticism is actually more of a referendum on how individual viewers reacted to Barry Keoghan sucking spent jizz out of a bathroom drain or having sex with a freshly dug grave than it is on wealth satire"
We saw this with the debate on Twitter as to whether Saltburn was provocative/not provocative. As Louis Peitzman noted, you may think it's dumb, but you're probably too online if you think period sex, grave fucking, and cum water drinking in a movie released by a major studio aren't that provocative. Aside from Barbie, I think I had more conversations with my normie friends/family members about Saltburn than any other movie last year.
Anyway, the reaction to Saltburn reminded me of the reaction to Promising Young Woman, where they're playing with issues of the moment, but are given undue THIS IS AN IMPORTANT FILM MAKING CONCRETE STATEMENTS consideration, by virtue of their proximity to award season. PYW was an exploitation movie - if it had come out in April 2020 like it was originally supposed to, we probably would not have spent a month debating whether it's pro-cop.
I watched Saltburn on your recommendation and was not disappointed. The actors in it were compelling enough that I actually checked on other movies they did. That's when I stumbled across the lead actor on the cover of GQ with a tag line about him manifesting his Hollywood destiny. End of search.
Solid movie though.
I thought, based on the movie title, that it was going to be a espionage thriller with Angelina Jolie and Jason Statham. Once I realized that wasn't the case I erased this completely but good article nonetheless.
I’m dying at “hey, this thing’s got good punctuation and everything! I should send to GQ!” Haha. Good piece. I definitely think you’re one of the only ones talking sense on this movie. It’s one of those flicks that everyone has drawn very forced performative battle lines on.
Vince calling me out here a lil bit since in Saltburn i originally thought it would have been more compelling to leave Oliver’s origin more ambiguous after he and Felix arrived at his house and we’d just seen Oliver upset at the surprise. Fennell really just wanted to hammer home how much of a social climbing evil perv he was. I also typically dont like isolated dance scenes but if its dongs out to celebrate your empty new home with no one else there who amongst us hasnt done that truly?
Oh, I actually agree with you there. I didn't like how she explained the way he orchestrated the entire thing either. I think she already accomplished communicating that he was a covetous social climbing freak with the house scene. The flashback was kind of unnecessary. We could've basically inferred all of that. I like the dong scene in a vacuum, but his speech on her deathbed went on way too long before that, where she sort of over-explained again a bunch of stuff she had already showed us.
I haven't read the GQ piece, but I assume it opens with "Fuck you and your dumb takes, Pardy, you fucking dork."
Vince keeps it real like that.
I'm back. The GQ piece is really good and reaffirms yet again why I've been reading Vince for 15 years.
It is a bit weird how he repeatedly calls Pardy a "prolapsed anus hoser" (is Pardy even Canadian?) but hey, that's show-business.