Saltburn’s Ollie, an unsatisfying journey from Borderline to Psychopath
Saltburn undermines itself for absolutely no reason. It is set up as a revenge film. A young, awkward man, Ollie, is mistreated and undervalued by his cohort at Oxford and then at the ancestral estate of Saltburn where he has been invited by the one kind, non-superficial member of the British aristocracy, Felix.
Ollie is established as being infatuated with Felix. Yet he kills Felix when the latter has accidentally discovered that Ollie is not really the underclass scholarship boy he made himself out to be. No, it turns out that he has lied from the beginning and is himself rather affluent.
Ollie is now a new sort of character—a psychopath. This makes little sense since we were led to believe that Ollie was an awkward, academically honest, and hardworking young man whose efforts were undervalued and whose class background would always stand in the way of social success. On this basis we are invested in Ollie, and are prepared for the somewhat justifiable revenge that we sense looming on the horizon.
Now, however, out of nowhere, we are asked to accept that Ollie is not sympathetic whatsoever, but a psychopath, which means we are not watching the kind of film we thought we were. We must now wonder whether Ollie was only faking his awkwardness from the start. We need this to be so, actually; otherwise the filmmaker appears incompetent which undermines our confidence in the film. That we can’t be sure of course is itself a sign of incompetence. We just can't be too sure of anything that has happened up to this point. If anything we are left feeling the aristocracy was in some way in the right for ostracizing Ollie, that is, in light of how evil he apparently always was.
That Ollie is so infatuated with his host as to drink his bathwater, in the much talked-about scene, but does not at any point try to have sex with Felix while he is still alive is very regrettable; it is a sorely missed opportunity. Had Ollie been turned down by Felix, the former would have gained some sort of plausible impetus for killing him. It could have taken the place of Felix's finding out that Ollie had lied about his past which makes him ask Ollie to leave Saltburn—the real motive for Ollie’s murdering him as soon as he did.
Disappointingly, once Felix is dead, we see Ollie having sex with Felix’s grave. Wouldn't someone who feels this strongly have tried? By this point Ollie has ceased to be a legible, or in any way relatable, character whose ultimate murder of all members of Saltburn’s aristocratic family feels in any way just or comprehensible.
We are only able to conclude that it was never about revenge, but an elaborate plot concocted before Ollie began at Oxford. Ultimately because Ollie is merely a psychopath, we wonder why the filmmaker wanted us to feel that Ollie was earnest and awkward, only to sever our sympathetic investments in him.
Yet it all could have been otherwise if the filmmaker had simply shown Ollie rejected by Felix and done away with the psychopathy twist, in favor of leaving Ollie a typical borderline seeking revenge.
Ollie is established as being infatuated with Felix. Yet he kills Felix when the latter has accidentally discovered that Ollie is not really the underclass scholarship boy he made himself out to be. No, it turns out that he has lied from the beginning and is himself rather affluent.
Ollie is now a new sort of character—a psychopath. This makes little sense since we were led to believe that Ollie was an awkward, academically honest, and hardworking young man whose efforts were undervalued and whose class background would always stand in the way of social success. On this basis we are invested in Ollie, and are prepared for the somewhat justifiable revenge that we sense looming on the horizon.
Now, however, out of nowhere, we are asked to accept that Ollie is not sympathetic whatsoever, but a psychopath, which means we are not watching the kind of film we thought we were. We must now wonder whether Ollie was only faking his awkwardness from the start. We need this to be so, actually; otherwise the filmmaker appears incompetent which undermines our confidence in the film. That we can’t be sure of course is itself a sign of incompetence. We just can't be too sure of anything that has happened up to this point. If anything we are left feeling the aristocracy was in some way in the right for ostracizing Ollie, that is, in light of how evil he apparently always was.
That Ollie is so infatuated with his host as to drink his bathwater, in the much talked-about scene, but does not at any point try to have sex with Felix while he is still alive is very regrettable; it is a sorely missed opportunity. Had Ollie been turned down by Felix, the former would have gained some sort of plausible impetus for killing him. It could have taken the place of Felix's finding out that Ollie had lied about his past which makes him ask Ollie to leave Saltburn—the real motive for Ollie’s murdering him as soon as he did.
Disappointingly, once Felix is dead, we see Ollie having sex with Felix’s grave. Wouldn't someone who feels this strongly have tried? By this point Ollie has ceased to be a legible, or in any way relatable, character whose ultimate murder of all members of Saltburn’s aristocratic family feels in any way just or comprehensible.
We are only able to conclude that it was never about revenge, but an elaborate plot concocted before Ollie began at Oxford. Ultimately because Ollie is merely a psychopath, we wonder why the filmmaker wanted us to feel that Ollie was earnest and awkward, only to sever our sympathetic investments in him.
Yet it all could have been otherwise if the filmmaker had simply shown Ollie rejected by Felix and done away with the psychopathy twist, in favor of leaving Ollie a typical borderline seeking revenge.
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