Black comedy/psychological thriller flick, Saltburn debuted in theaters November 2023.
Just last year 11.8% of Pennsylvania’s population lived below the poverty line. The national U.S. poverty rate is at 12.4% of Americans according to the U.S. Census.
Now, that may not sound like a large number when you first hear it, but when you get the official count of lives living below such average means, it is somewhere around 37.9 million folks. Now at least to me that sounds much more alarming when you get an actual figure and not a percentage. Do you agree?
On the flip side of that coin, to be considered rich in the U.S. in the year 2023 you have to have about $2.2 million dollars worth of assets or sum of money in your bank account today. My personal accounts are falling just shy of that amount. Are you feeling pretty worthless right now like I am? Maybe, maybe not. Well, the fresh new film Saltburn deals with just that; the despairingly different social classes that exist among us.
Starring last year’s Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin), this time around he is playing Oliver Quick — an aspiring Oxford University opportunist who becomes obsessed with a charming, more fortunate classmate who invites him to come spend the summer with his eccentric family in their high-end estate called Saltburn.
I can’t really categorize this film, it is part dark comedy, in part it is a drama, and even a touch of suspense thrown in there to chomp on. What I do know after watching this potboiler, is that it has been quite a while since I have been in a quiet movie theater and there were at least four different scenes throughout this film where you heard the audience gasp out loud.
It is that shocking folks, and naughty in all the right places. Jacob Elordi (Priscilla) seems to be the Hollywood “It” boy right now and it doesn’t help that he is the exact opposite of me. He it tall, dark, and handsome. My goal this winter is just to have enough color on my skin so that I don’t blend into the bed sheets!
Touching on social classes once again, the majority of the characters in this film were raised on streets that were paved in gold. Just this past weekend I took a drive to the Tannersville Premium Outlets to jumpstart my holiday shopping and for the majority of the trip, I swore my car was riding on the war-torn streets of Kosovo. Pothole after glorious pothole. I swear that is what threw my back out. My poor car isn’t the only thing needing an alignment now after that trip, Holy Hell!
Saltburn was devilish, shocking, and a film so incredibly unique, you just cannot resist it! It may not be for everyone’s taste, or for the faint of heart for that matter. But who cares, follow the direction of your own arrow, and feast on this one when you get bored of traditional movie narrative.
”Saltburn,” starring: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike
Christopher’s “Meow” Score: “9” paws out of 10.
