cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/movies/t/664183
The mixed response to Emerald Fennell’s 00s-set thriller evinces a movie-going conundrum: how do we assess entertainment that is predominantly indexed on vibes? By now, the buzz around Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s sweaty, lascivious sophomore feature about a middle-class interloper in a vacuously rich family, has begun to settle into two camps. On one side, viewers and the plurality of critics who find the film, which had one of the most successful limited releases this year in the US before expanding nationwide last weekend, to be a flashy, self-satisfied mess of empty provocations. And on the other, those who see Fennell’s remix of Brideshead Revisited and the The Talented Mr Ripley with a dash of mid-aughts Abercrombie & Fitch as a successfully absorbing erotic thriller with titillating shocks. Depraved, but in a fun way, to summarize the predominant sentiment on TikTok.
Everyone agrees that Saltburn, for the most part, looks good – lush, attractive, expensive. (It helps that it stars the Euphoria actor and ascendant screen heartthrob Jacob Elordi.) But are its squirm-inducing visuals – a character slurping another’s cummy bathwater, a literally cocky ending – the mark of perverse genius, or cheap, hollow tricks masquerading as it?..
Given the fact that I’ve never heard of it till now, I’m gonna go with “no.” Would unironically say that Barbie was the most devisive film of the year.
Barbie was divisive? Wasn’t it universally acclaimed?
Most of the criticism of the movie is political, and most of it from people like Ben Shapiro.
No. o_o Some people were, maybe still are, very upset about Barbie.
I’m beginning to feel slightly weirded out that every single post I make to [email protected] gets reposted here.
Am I being followed by a bot?
Hello! I’m not a bot, but I am indeed reposting some of your articles here!
Yes, to be honest I tend to cross-post most of the articles I find interesting, and yours definitely are!
I just did!
You are welcome! We should probably decide which community to keep at some point, it might be more interesting than crossposting everything both sides ha ha. Would you like to help us mod [email protected] ?
Is your name a Huey Long reference? I wouldn’t normally think so, but with you being a movie buff, I have to ask.
No it’s not!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On one side, viewers and the plurality of critics who find the film, which had one of the most successful limited releases this year in the US before expanding nationwide last weekend, to be a flashy, self-satisfied mess of empty provocations.
And on the other, those who see Fennell’s remix of Brideshead Revisited and the The Talented Mr Ripley with a dash of mid-aughts Abercrombie & Fitch as a successfully absorbing erotic thriller with titillating shocks.
The Saltburn divide is, in my view, less a product of the film’s intention as satire than its artifices – its visual provocations, its luxe tableaus of aristocratic wealth and debauchery, its bold and underlined telegraphing of desire.
Numerous festival circuit films this year – Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest, Annie Baker’s Janet Planet, Steve McQueen’s Occupied City – use feelings, mood, visual language and sensory experience to communicate a sliver of the unspoken human experience; together, as the New York Times’ Beatrice Loayza wrote, they argue against the tyranny of story in how we evaluate screen-based media.
It revels in its gargantuan manor house, ludicrous plot twists and aristocratic daffiness via the reliable scene-stealers Rosamund Pike and Richard E Grant, as the Catton parents.
Some get halfway there (spoilers ahead) – Oliver’s bathwater moment, or eating out Venetia on her period, are self-satisfied provocations for an increasingly puritanical moviegoing public, but those scenes at least try to literalize Ollie’s consumption of the Cattons’ wealth as something carnal.
The original article contains 1,027 words, the summary contains 252 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I’m certainly pumped to see it.
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More divisive than Dicks: The Musical?
A musical cast entirely of Richard Nixon lookalikes?
Nothing I say can POSSIBLY prepare you for Nathan Lane singing “I’m desperate for your pussy” to Megan Mullally.
You’re statement was 100% completely accurate. I actually liked The Birdcage. I’ll reserve judgement until after I actually pirate the movie, but that looks like the summation of the donkey fucking show, delivered by Rosario Dawson, in Clerks 2.
