How did Saltburn become the most talkedabout film of awards season?
Whether it’s down to brilliant marketing, an abundance of viral moments, or sheer film-making talent, there’s no getting away from the fact that nearly two months after its initial release, Saltburn has become – almost as an afterthought – the must-see film of the moment. It was Prime Video’s No 1 film over Christmas, featured song Murder on the Dancefloor is back in the charts, and TikTok appears to have gone beserk.
Saltburn’s route to this is relatively unorthodox. A glamorous, Bridesheadstyle period film, with an Oscar-winning writer-director in the chair and a name-droppable cast including Barry Keoghan, Rosamund Pike and Jacob Elordi, Saltburn’s entry into the world was relatively inauspicious. Far from an effects-laden blockbuster with proven audience-attractors, a film like this would aim to be hosed down with admiring reviews, and find itself positioned for a significant awards run; neither of these appeared to happen.
In the event, reviews were far from unanimous, especially in the UK: the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it “watchable but sometimes weirdly overheated and grandiose” and the Observer’s Wendy Ide said there is “no rhythm to the film, no sense of buildup and payoff”, while on the other hand the Daily Telegraph’s Robbie Collin applauded its “sheer, nude-bungee-jumping-level fearlessness”. Saltburn was swiftly labelled the “most divisive film of the year”.
Despite a high-profile festival run, including a world premiere at the Telluride festival (which has previously acted as a launchpad for 12 Years a Slave, Moonlight and Belfast), Saltburn’s cinema release was relatively inauspicious, never reaching higher than No 8 in the North American box office chart, and currently standing at a modest $20.6m in worldwide takings.
In the digital age, however, word of mouth is no longer an invisible weapon. Saltburn’s powerful online game – crossing TikTok, Spotify, Letterboxd and all points in between – appears to be a juggernaut, with Deadline reporting that Saltburn-related videos have recorded 4bn views on TikTok alone. Writer-director Emerald Fennell’s eye for viral moments – the bath, the grave, the dance – would appear to mesh fully with this non-traditional method of getting eyeballs on her film.
On the other hand, Saltburn isn’t yet achieving the same awards-related critical mass as Fennell’s debut, Promising Young Woman. Though it’s still early in the awards process, momentum appears not to be with Saltburn: it missed out entirely at the prestigious Screen Actors Guild awards and scored only two nominations at the Golden Globes (where, given its glossy, comedic tone, it would have expected to do much better).
Saltburn may be the latest example of the critic-proof movie, though far from the one that depends on an action-star or comic-book fanbase to rack up the revenue. Saltburn has come from the opposite direction: a putative awards movie that has compensated for the brickbats with a flattering ability to pique a digital-oriented audience. A Brideshead for the TikTok generation? There could be worse epitaphs.