The Uncomfortable Experience of Watching Saltburn and Why We Need Weird Comedy Movies

By Madeline Reilly

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I had the unfortunate privilege of watching Saltburn with my father over the holidays. Without spoiling too much, the film is a dramatically bizarre comedy that follows an extremely mysterious Oxford student, Oliver Quick played by Barry Keoghan as he is invited into his friend's subliminal and legacy home for the summer, Saltburn. 

Keogen’s pensive and sinister Oliver next to the sweet innocence of Jacob Elorie’s Felix is a testament to Fennell’s cheekiness in the way she tends to cast her projects.  This is Fennell’s sophomore film after 2020’s Promising Young Woman, it gives me hope that films that look good and feel uncomfortable to watch are ushering in a new era of filmmaking. 

What I mean by that is that this film and a lot of others as of late have made me feel like watching movies no longer feel overly pretentious or like a chore. I’m excited to go to the movies again. Or sit down and care about a movie not because if I don’t see it, I will be out of the loop of a greater cultural moment. Having lived through the bombardment of the Fandom era of event movies; the Marvel binge-watching, Harry Potter/Hunger Games reboots, and the hellscape that is streaming ten different shows and movies for the past couple of years; I have been trying not to look at films and TV differently. Not for the cookie-cutter collective experience of going on online forums, like Tumblr.com circa 2012-2014 (rest in peace), or what letterbox is serving as now. But I was looking to feel something that was detached from that. Something I could enjoy.  

This is not to discredit the Barbenheimer mania in the summer of 2023. But I was looking to share in my disgust and bewilderment in the same way we did when that era of superheroes and YA dystopia felt fresh. When it wasn’t billions of dollars in marketing and a plastic toy with your happy meal.     

         What I am trying to say is that it was the act of watching it that is what made the experience worthwhile. Without going too much into it, the infamous bathtub scene (that now has launched a Felix-scented candle) started the rollercoaster that the people I watched it with were steadily holding onto. It was the cringiest and the downright weirdness that made me instantly go: ‘Oh umm… Ok,… gross… line …drawing a line in the sand … right there…oh gosh! Oh no. no. ok.’ 

 It was a surprise. It was shock value done right and almost artistically. It had a purpose. And it pushed a boundary.  And it made me feel like…  'I think we need more movies like this….'No exactly like this. 

I know the meme-edification and virality of the film are not lost on anyone. But that’s not my point. The point is we need to take more risks in filmmaking. The reason I will not count Barbie or Oppenheimer as not being on the same plane of risk as Saltburn is that they still fall under established directors and properties and concepts that Hollywood and other filmmakers will never abandon. 

Saltburn and movies like Rain Johnson’s Knives Out series are bringing back the morbidity of humor that I think a lot of people sort of feel in this post-pandemic. And the artfulness that comes with making a comedy like that takes guts (sometimes literal guts) . They are playing with old fossilized memories of old mid-budget independent films from the early 2000s that are self-aware but also sincere with their audience.  

And I think as someone who has spent the past couple of years feeling more and more apathetic towards movies and talking about them as something both beautiful art and entertainment, I want to focus my time on finding something like this that is beautiful and fulfilling to watch without feeling like a number of the cinematic to-do list. And the thing about the culture of movie watching now feels like accolades for sitting through films that might not be what some people might want to spend their time on anyway.

Right now, I think I want to spend my time doing and seeing things that look good and make me feel a certain sense comradery but also joy. And watching this film made me feel that way.