Saltburn – The Screenplay by Emerald Fennell, who also directed the motion picture – the film was nominated for five BAFTAs, including for Outstanding British Film of the Year, Best Leading Actor – hundreds of films and books are reviewed on my blog, if you want to take a look, maybe the best you can find is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

Saltburn – The Screenplay by Emerald Fennell, who also directed the motion picture – the film was nominated for five BAFTAs, including for Outstanding British Film of the Year, Best Leading Actor – hundreds of films and books are reviewed on my blog, if you want to take a look, maybe the best you can find is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

8 out of 10

 

Saltburn is bound to give one mixed feelings, unless of course we apply the rule from the psychology classic The Paradox of Choice https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-paradox-of-choice-by-barry-schwartz_30.html by Barry Schwartz, who explains that there are two categories of people, Satisfizers and Maximizers

 

We want to be in the first group, of those who are happy (the others are not, in short) with very good, perhaps the best available options, for the rest, life can be miserable, as they complain about this or that better option, whenever they buy something, they see a cheaper price, a version in a better color, and they moan all the time

Ergo, Saltburn and others could be severely criticized, it is after all not outstanding, or we could start by stating that it has merits – Harvard Professor Tal Ben Shahar https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-pursuit-of-perfect-by-tal-ben-shahar.html had the most popular lectures there

 

You can in fact see them on YouTube, and maybe it is worth taking a look, then you could watch the whole set – he insists on the need for us to be merit finders, not fault finders, and in the case of Saltburn, we have lavish settings, wonderful acting from the ensemble, each with a remarkable performance

Barry Keoghan was nominated for Best Leading Actor, for his role as Oliver Quick, this is a thespian that does not promise anymore, he is a conformed, formidable actor, wonderful in The Banshees of Inisherin https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-banshees-of-inisherin.html and The Killing of a Sacred Deer

 

The antihero is a student at Oxford where he meets Felix Catton aka Jacob Elordi – nominated for Best Supporting Actor – the former is rather poor, or at least claims to be, while the latter lives in Saltburn, the epitome of the chateau https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-chateau-by-william-maxwell-11-out.html

Felix has a flat tire – spoiler alert, it was in fact an intentional puncture – and Oliver (to be called Olie later) is passing and offers to help, giving his own bike away, because he is not in a hurry, and the other man would miss the course he is already late for, then they go out for drinks, with other people and get closer

 

While at the bar, the antihero is supposed to offer his own round of drinks, only he cannot afford it (or just plays this card of the destitute) and then he will tell a story about his father, who was a drug dealer, dying in his telling, and the mother who is an addict, unconscious all the time, or just under the influence of pills

In fact, we will see a different version – thus a second alert, if needed, is here – Felix traces the real family, and they are just common, nay, if not on the level of the Catton estate, Richard E. Grant is splendid as Sir James Catton, they seem to be doing quite well, anyway, they do not deal or do drugs as claimed by the son

 

There are at least three awkward scenes in this movie, pushing the boundaries in my view, one (remember, there are two alerts above) is the moment when Oliver has coitus with…a grave, another is the time when he comes to India, and after just a few sentences, he talks of ‘eating her’, only to be told it is not a good ‘period’

Nevertheless, he takes blood from her private parts, puts it in her mouth and his and it is something I have not seen in a film before, or in any other setting, and then let us leave for now the third outré act of the motion picture

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’