Emerald Fennell's Saltburn shows the emptiness of the 'eat the rich' trend

Saltburn Film Still Warner Bos — Rosamund Pike in Emerald Fennell’s second feature ‘Saltburn’: (Photo: Warner Bros)

Emerald Fennell’s sophomore film Saltburn is another grotesque, glamorous parable about “eating the rich”.

Set in the early Noughties, the lavish “neo-Gothic” film combines the unspoken class politics (and country estate) of Brideshead Revisited with the obsessive killer of The Talented Mr Ripley. Oliver (Barry Keoughan) is a first-year loner at Oxford. He soon becomes fascinated by the charming, popular and very wealthy Felix (Jacob Elordi).

Felix takes him under his wing and brings Oliver home for the summer to his family’s estate, Saltburn. There, Oliver slowly weasels his way into the lives of Felix’s vapid ex-model mother, Elsbeth (Rosamund Pike), his unhappy, bored sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver), his suspicious cousin, Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) and his goofy father (Richard E Grant). After a couple of twists and turns, we learn that Oliver may not have been the helpless boy he initially seemed – in fact, he might just be there to orchestrate the family’s downfall.

A wave of films and TV shows have been preoccupied with “eating the rich” over the past few years. Projects like The White Lotus, Succession, You‘s third season, Triangle of Sadness, The Menu, Parasite and Knives Out: Glass Onion all hopped aboard the trend, presenting us with larger-than-life caricatures of the wealthy, each one more ludicrous than the next with their blinkered, moneyed worldview.

Then, we are invited to sit back and enjoy their (usually larger than life) downfall at the hands of the poor (or, sometimes, the middle class). These films and shows are characterised by a satirical, knowing tone – yes, this is over the top and absurd, they seem to say, but isn’t it also so fun to watch the elite meet their makers?

Fennell is not a visually subtle filmmaker – just take her debut, 2020’s neon-drenched, highly provocative thriller Promising Young Woman in which Carey Mulligan’s Cassie goes on a vengeful, bloody killing spree. In Saltburn, she amps up the shock value by another notch. We watch as Oliver smears Venetia’s menstrual blood over her face, slurps up Felix’s dirty bathwater from the drain, unbuttons his trousers and masturbates into a hole in the ground where Felix has been buried. The film ends with a long shot of Oliver dancing, Hugh-Grant-in-Love-Actually-style, through the estate, completely naked.

Like the eat-the-rich projects that came before it, Saltburn‘s aim, it seems, is to give its viewers a fun, shocking romp – when I saw it at the London Film Festival, the cinema was buzzing with loud gasps, astonished giggles and whispers of disbelief – while simultaneously offering a semi-serious critique of the upper class. There’s no denying that it succeeds in the first part, but as for the second part, the film is less successful. Aside from creating a big reaction, what is Fennell’s actual intention with all of this lurid visual excess? Is she actually making a statement that goes deeper than these surface wounds?

Because Oliver, it turns out, is not a lower-class boy fed up with the excesses of the wealthy students around him at Oxford. Instead, he comes from a comfortable, if dull, middle-class home. His reasons for taking down the family become blurred. While he does seem to bristle at their many insensitive comments and their lack of self-awareness, that doesn’t seem to be what drives him. In fact, he proves himself to be just as callous and heartless. It’s certainly fun and intriguing to watch, but as a class critique, it is vague and ineffective.

By the end of Saltburn, we feel more perturbed than exhilarated by the many shocking images that greet us en route to Oliver’s takedown of the rich – what are his motives, again? And why were these people so awful, again? The only answer is: he hates this family because he can never be them.

So, major spoilers ahead, he kills them and takes their place. This takes the eat-the-rich trope to a new phase – after eating the rich and indulging in the meal, it seems that Oliver wants nothing more than to transform into the very people he has gobbled up. It’s a hazy political message at best, hidden behind a barrage of imagery – the dirty bathwater drinking, the sexual perversion, the in-your-face nudity – that feels like shock merely for shock’s sake.

Looking back at the other eat-the-rich films and shows that came before Saltburn, there are many similar issues. It turns out “eating the rich” is a problematic trope that doesn’t always stand up under scrutiny. Like Saltburn, few of these projects leave us contemplating their social commentary. Instead, images of gore and glitz fill our minds and we’re left relishing in the pure fun of it all. Parasite is perhaps the one exception.

Eat-the-rich stories encourage us to relish in the aesthetic glamour of the wealthy as much as we relish in their downfall. After all, what would The White Lotus be without its lavish hotels? What would Glass Onion be without Kate Hudson and Janelle Monáe’s stunning jumpsuits? What would Saltburn be without the palatial estate? We love getting an inside peek at exclusivity. Hypocrisy is woven into the fabric of these projects. Like Oliver, as much as we may want to demolish the wealthy, we also, secretly, yearn to enter their world.

Perhaps in Saltburn, this convoluted social commentary has something to do with Fennell’s own very upper-class upbringing – something she is all too conscious of. In a recent interview with British Vogue, she referred to her own “grotesque privilege” and said it was something she was “hyper-aware of.” With Saltburn, she seems eager to prove that she knows just how privileged she has been. In fact, she knows it so well, she has transformed the upper class into satirised caricatures that she laughs at before revelling in their demise – but she can’t quite let go of the allure of it all: their houses are really nice and who wouldn’t want to go to a party there?

It’s hard not to feel that Saltburn takes a similarly flippant, empty approach to this country’s massive class divisions – though Fennell may, with the best of intentions, be aware of her privilege, her most recent film doesn’t actually seem to have much to say about it other than “isn’t it a shame?” and “isn’t it also quite fun to mock?”.

The recent crop of eat-the-rich films relies a little too heavily on caricature and satirical exaggeration to have any real, lasting impact. Knives Out: Glass Onion is filled with ludicrous “types” rather than individuals. The Menu presents the wealthy as a laughable group of brainless clout-chasers. Extreme wealth can be extremely sinister – and yet these films that purport to hold the wealthy to account rarely delve into any real depth about the very real influence the uber rich have on the world around them – everything from their insidious political power to their often detrimental impact on the climate to their impact on the economy is painted with broad strokes or ignored entirely.

Instead, they are merely portrayed as slightly silly, laughable buffoons who deserve an exaggerated cinematic reckoning before we all head home and forget about them.

While Saltburn is certainly an assault on the senses, at its heart, its convoluted class commentary fails to stick the landing. Perhaps, with Saltburn, it’s time to finally put away our cutlery. It’s time to stop “eating the rich’” and start holding them to account.

‘Saltburn’ is in cinemas from Friday