A Psychedelic Bathwater Fever Dream for Your Messiest Date
Saltburn, 2023
dir. Emerald Fennell
This movie takes your hand, waltzes you through opulent halls dripping in marble and silk and then shoves your face into a bathtub full of bad decisions: a gothic romp through obsession, privilege, and a brand of desire so grotesque it makes you feel like you’re spying on someone’s darkest, dirtiest fantasies. Perfect for a date where you’re testing boundaries—if they can make it through this, they can probably survive your questionable Spotify playlist.
The story follows Oliver Quick, played by Barry Keoghan with his trademark mix of wide-eyed innocence and unsettling intensity, as he claws his way into the life of Jacob Elordi’s Felix Catton, a paragon of golden-boy privilege. Felix is everything Oliver isn’t: rich, beautiful, effortlessly magnetic, and utterly unaware of the world outside his rarefied bubble. When Felix invites Oliver to spend the summer at his family’s estate, Saltburn, it’s less an invitation and more a dare. And Oliver, naturally, accepts.
Saltburn itself is the real star here—a manor so extravagantly indulgent it makes Buckingham Palace look like a Motel 6. Every shot drips with aesthetic perfection: velvet curtains, chandeliers, and rooms so cavernous you’d need GPS just to find the bathroom. And oh, the bathroom. That’s where Oliver, in the film’s most infamous scene, drinks Felix’s used bathwater like it’s fine champagne. It's a moment so utterly deranged that you’ll either burst into horrified laughter or sit in stunned silence, glancing at your date to see if they’re as unhinged as you are for enjoying this. Either way, the message is clear: Oliver doesn’t just want to be close to Felix; he wants to consume him, body and soul.
Keoghan’s Oliver is haunting, a chaos goblin in a cardigan. He moves from pitiful to predatory with surgical precision, seducing not just Felix but his entire family and their legacy. By the time he’s humping dirt on Felix’s grave in a masturbatory frenzy (yep, that happens too), you’re not sure whether to laugh, gag, or applaud the sheer audacity of it all.
The Catton family, meanwhile, are caricatures of aristocratic excess. Rosamund Pike’s Elspeth is all icy hauteur, tossing off lines like “It’s almost lunch” while her dead son is being wheeled out of the house. Richard E. Grant’s James is her perfectly oblivious counterpart, blissfully presiding over a household so detached from reality it might as well be floating in space. Even Felix’s younger sister Venetia, a bundle of eating disorders and thwarted dreams, refers to Oliver as one of Felix’s “toys” with a mixture of jealousy and disdain. And then there’s Felix himself, who struts through the film like a rich, oblivious sun god, completely unaware of the storm brewing in Oliver’s unblinking gaze.
"Saltburn" is best consumed with a strong psychoactive tea—the OG mind-bending substance of humanity. Brew black tea so strong it could dissolve silverware, and let its tannins open up your senses just enough to keep up with Fennell’s fever dream. After a few mugs of the good stuff, you might just start to see the velvet walls of Saltburn ripple like Felix’s ridiculous silk robes. Feeling adventurous? Try a properly prepared Amanita Muscaria tea. This iconic mushroom of myth and folklore can evoke a surreal, dreamy state, perfectly suited to watching Barry Keoghan guzzle bathwater and unravel his psyche.
This is cinema as the ultimate date litmus test: bold, grotesque, unapologetically gorgeous, and the kind of ride that leaves you breathless, questioning everything, and desperate to dissect it all afterward.
