I AM MORTIFIED! Saltburn(2023) || Movie Review.

As an avid movie lover, I don't just watch movies for the sake of fun or leisure. I watch movies to either improve, entertain, and enlighten myself. So films that come with plot that makes no sense to me, pisses me off and aggravates me.

I noticed that these days, people advertise and positively accept films that are perverted, movies that the plot has no moral value, and films that the storyline doesn't bring valuable growth into their lives. It's not anyone's fault, just further shows how humanity is fastly moving towards its dark era.

This movie is all over the Internet for some reason I still don't understand even after watching it, which I regret doing. I have read a lot of positive reviews about this movie on the internet and from some colleagues. So, one of my colleagues recommended I watch it. Since all I saw were positive reviews, I decided to watch it. What could go wrong, huh?

^Tenor

First of all I was mortified, traumatized, and I was filled with rage directed at myself and my colleague that recommended this movie to me. Normally before I watch any movie I love to watch the trailer or read a snippet about the plot of the movie. I didn't know what made me not watch the trailer first. I blame myself for this. The deed has been done so let's get to the review.

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’Saltburn (2023)’ is a psychological thriller and dark comedy movie that was written, produced and directed by Emerald Fennell. This movie was distributed with the collaboration of Amazon and Warner Bros. It is set in England where a scholarship Oxford university student becomes obsessed with a rich fellow student who one day invites him to spend the holiday break with his family in their estate.

This movie starred Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Paul Rhys and Sadie Soverall.

Oliver Quick gets admission to Oxford university through a scholarship. As he began his university life, Oliver was finding it difficult to fit into the class of wealthy students. As time goes on, he develops an obsession for a student, Felix Catton who comes from a wealthy family. Soon, Oliver befriends Felix by winning him over with his kind gestures, his sad story about his parents and the painful demise of his father.

Felix decided to stretch an olive branch to him by inviting Oliver to his family's estate to spend the summer holiday with him and his family. Oliver accepts his offer and goes to Felix’s family estate called Saltburn. When he got there, he quickly won the hearts of Felix’s family members which led to the obsession he has for Felix to grow stronger.

So on a fateful night, Felix’s parents organized a themed birthday party for Oliver. However, before the party, Oliver's dark secret came to light when Felix took him to meet his estranged mother. Then Felix discovered that Oliver is not who he said he is. So at the party, Felix told Oliver to leave after the party was over. This caused a little bit of some argument. The next morning, Felix was found dead in the Saltburn maze garden. Who killed Felix? And why?

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My Review And Rating.

I see nothing interesting in this movie and also, the plot of this movie shouldn't have been written in the first place. Emerald Fennell was a fantastic director for ”Killing Eve” season 2 but for this movie honestly I don't know what to even call this mess.

Saltburn is set to be a dark comedy and psychological thriller but fails to portray these two genres. The psychological thriller part wasn't not captured well (it lacked tension, suspense and twists) and the dark comedy (there was no humor rather it was irritating) part was awfully written.

The storyline of the movie was not fully written well. It lacks a strong plot foundation, it has lots of potholes, no substantial content, and it relies on dramatic gestures to bring out its quality (which failed woefully still).

The plot attempted to hide a twist/mystery that was weakly written and obvious. All the twists and turns in the plot were predictable from a mile away. The directorial style was feeble, terrible writing, the scenes arrangement was messed up and also I noticed the plot struggled to salvage the production. The third act was rushed when bodies start piling up without the involvement of the law enforcement (how is that possible? That I see as a pothole in the plot). The second act that should have contained the mystery and twist was actually bland, boring, and slow to watch.

Also, the storyline of this movie had no aim, goal or message to pass across to the viewers. For example, why did Oliver go through the trouble of infiltrating a wealthy family just to murder one by one? There were no motives behind his sinister plans and activities. There was no emotion (like jealousy, envy) fueling his motives. Why the killings? Let's not also forget about some truly awful and disgusting scenes of perversion that added no value to the story and was unnecessary.

The Cast was full excellent actors but their performances were weak. Some of their scenes felt forced. Rosamund Pike (Wheel of Time star), her talent was wasted in this movie. I was disappointed that she decided to take the script for this silly movie. I didn't expect that from her.

Regardless of the cinematography and soundtrack of this movie was good, it still didn't save this movie. It still didn't make any sense to me which makes me ponder on the reason why so many people rated this movie high on the internet. Was it the disgusting perverted scenes in this movie that entertained them?

I will be honest, the ending part of this movie was vile, shocking and very disturbing. There was nothing funny about seeing a full grown man dancing and brandishing his genitals in a funky way. Some scenes of this movie, I am trying to forget them. If you are into watching disgusting sexual perversion scenes in movies, this film was made for you.

Rating this movie, I will give 1 out of 10 stars. It was absolutely boring, exhausting, not entertaining, vile, disturbing, fully packed with perversions that may leave you tainted for life and spiced with turns of nudity. I wouldn't suggest you watch this movie at all or with family. If you are like me, don't for the sake of your sanity.