Saltburn and Trauma Dumping on a Movie
See, I didn’t have the best 2023. Or, even some of 2022 was quite crappy. I made my mistakes, I’ve been wronged and eventually, depression got the best of me. Yet there was one little silver lining when the gloomy 2023 was coming to an end. One thing that I have been really proud about the past 4 weeks is, I am able to focus again.
Usually, I used to kill time rewatching my favourites (Sopranos, e.g.) or just doom-watching YouTube. Since the content didn’t require my attention, I could just keep browsing stuff on my phone, play Wordle/Connections or read X/Threads etc. Don’t know what changed but I was able to complete quite a few movie marathons on my own since mid December. One or two movies a day, to keep the devils away…
Stage was set and I was ready to watch this film that Amazon Prime Video recommended to me every single time I turned on the telly. See, I didn’t even notice Barry Keoghan in Dunkirk (even though I loved the movie); yet he definitely played a trick on me with his role in The Banshees of Inisherin (best movie I saw on a plane). Psychological triller, England, scouse accent (can’t say he pulled the accent off, to be fair) were enough for me to give it a go.
Will not go into much detail about the movie — yet, beware, spoilers ahead.
One scene, actually, not even the whole scene, but a dialogue really grabbed my attention. I had to pause the movie.
Scene: Felix forces Oliver to drive with him, they go to Oliver’s home and it turns out that Oliver actually had a beautiful family (whom he lied to about being the top scholar and being in the rowing team etc), the complete opposite of what he said to Felix…
They return back to the “estate” in Saltburn. Felix asks “why did you do that?” (why did you lie to me and why were you dishonest with me)
Oliver says…
“I don’t know why I said it. It’s just a stupid thing to say.”
I recognised that behaviour. It took me back a year, or even a bit longer than a year. A chat with someone I loved and trusted with my life, about her lies and dishonesty. Oliver’s response was identical to hers.
“I don’t know why I said it. It’s just stupid…” Made me think, for the rest of the movie; why people do this. As in, why not tuck in their tail and apologise and promise to be honest and truthful. Why the cop out with “I don’t know.” while there is something way better out there; which is actually owning up the dishonest act, apologising and promising honesty.
Unlike Felix, I am not living in a mansion. I don’t have anything someone would love to take possession of, to be fair (may be Tony). Hence I couldn’t think of a masterplan she’d follow (like a plan Oliver had). Yet I had one thing in common with Felix: we both treated the counterparts with nothing but passion, love and care. What did we get in return? Well, my grand finale was a bit better than his.
I wanted to dump my own trauma on the movie — just talk to the screen with a bottle of whiskey in my hand, like a mad man.
The biggest mood killer when I finished the movie was, I knew Oliver was a sociopath as soon as I saw the way he treated some of the residents of the Saltburn Estate (the controlling game); so it took me just an hour to get to the conclusion.
If only I could’ve said the same about my Oliver.
Or if only I could’ve walked away after the first lie exposed, like Felix did. Or, least tried to…
