Saltburn

[peter]

Now here at last is a film worth posting about.

I recently watched a review of the film in which the reviewers broached (albeit briefly) the question of whether films just quite simply "aren't as good as they used to be".

The lead reviewer didn't agree - he said that he thought that good films were coming out in as plentiful a supply as they ever were, but I alas just can't agree with him.

I watch a lot of films and increasingly rarely find ones that really do it for me (where in the past it was a pretty rare month that did not see a few really good films appear). Increasingly I find myself falling back on old favourites, rather than watching newer stuff being produced. How many Aquaman films can I stand. Cannot Jason Stathern do some other kind of role - perhaps one that doesn't involve him defeating a band of assailants using his shirt as a type of kung-fu weapon? And do all assassins have to be ascetic Zen Buddhist monks when not taking out their contracts?

Maybe it's just me though? Perhaps it's just that I've changed, or that films have changed to suit a new mainstream way of thinking which I no longer (as I get older) share? But at least when I hear a reviewer talking along these lines I can be fairly sure that I'm not alone.

But there have been a couple of rare exceptions this year. Paul Giamatti is fantastic in the currently screening film The Holdovers and the film is an absolute delight to watch.

And then there's Saltburn.

In this deliberately Brideshead Revisited send-up (wrong word - irreverent homage perhaps?) versatile actor Barry Keoghan plays a northern town student who has won a place at Oxford, and once there becomes swept up in the glamorous world of the super-aristocratic 'friends' he makes - friends who we understand will only tolerable his company for only as long as it amuses them, after which point he will be cast aside without thought as the shallow butterflies move on to their next toy. Enamoured of one particular boy, a wealthy doyen of some great ancestral lineage, he accepts an invitation to the boy's home, the eponymous Saltburn, where he witnesses (and becomes involved in) the various eccentricities and oddities of each of its individual inhabitants.

Always at a slight remove from what is going on, and with a mixture of nieve adulation and world-weary understanding, Keoghan plays the role to perfection, his screen presence aided by the fact of the films being set in 4:3 ratio (ie that old sort of more square screen size,than the elongated one we are used to). As the reviewers noted, it's perfect for framing faces and houses and really works here. And the rest of the production is a delight as well. Richly coloured and almost Hammer Horror gothic in its presentation, it just works. Coming at it blind (let my review be the only one you read or watch - all of the others will accidentally reveal something that they shouldn't, that makes the 'virgin viewer' see a completely different film unfold before their eyes) is by far the best approach to this film.

Take my advice. Don't even think about reading another review. Just see the film and know that in any just world, you have just watched the film that will win the Oscar for Best Film, Best Direcor and Best Actor, beyond any shadow of doubt.