Rich Boy Bath Water: Obsession and Consumption in Saltburn
Spoiler Alert: I spoil everything in this essay, read at your own risk.
Content Warnings: Brief discussion of violation, mentions of sexual themes.
Saltburn is a 2023 film that made waves because of its controversial scenes and fascinating overarching themes. The film includes multiple characters who are arguably more interesting, but the plot revolves around Oliver Quick. Despite Oliver being the protagonist, there’s not a lot we actually learn about him during the film. The film instead revolves around Oliver’s obsession with Felix. To understand what draws Oliver to Felix, we must first understand these two characters, the dynamic of the households in which they were raised, and the ways in which each boy interacts with others. Does Oliver love Felix, does he hate him, or does he simply want to consume him in any way possible?
First of all, who is Oliver? Because he’s a liar and an unreliable narrator, the best way to answer that question is to observe his interactions with others. Oliver is usually alone because he’s incapable of forming genuine connections with other people. In the beginning of the film, Michael Gavey pursues Oliver and wants to be his friend, but Oliver shuns him. Michael is Oliver’s mirror: he’s average-looking, creepy, and unwanted. Oliver sees too much of himself in Michael and it repulses him. In contrast, Oliver is instantly drawn to popular, wealthy, attractive Felix.
When Oliver and Felix are getting to know each other, Oliver tells Felix that his parents are poor and have substance abuse issues. He also tells Felix later on that his father died as a result of his substance use. However, on Oliver’s birthday, Felix surprises Oliver by driving him back to his family home, at which point we discover several profound aspects of Oliver’s identity. The most shocking revelation is that he lied to Felix about his family in an attempt to both seem interesting and garner sympathy. In reality, Oliver has regular parents, lives in a regular home, and has a very much still alive father. Oliver even has sisters that he neglected to mention, so it’s clear that he lied to Felix about many things and held other things back. It’s also revealed that Oliver lied to his parents about his academic success, saying that he was a top scholar, which illustrates just how deep his lies go. Oliver’s mother reveals that her son always wanted to be an only child, spent a great deal of time alone, and had a hard time making friends. We already knew that Oliver was a socially-awkward loner, but, despite his best efforts, we also learn that he’s an utterly unremarkable person who was raised in unremarkable circumstances.
To understand Felix, one must examine the environment he was raised in. Felix belongs to the exorbitantly wealthy Catton family, the son of Sir James and Lady Elspeth, brother of Venetia. Another member of the family is Farleigh, Felix’s American cousin. The family spends their summers together at a massive house called Saltburn, where the bulk of the film takes place. Both Felix and Venetia grew up in this extremely wealthy family with every opportunity in the world, but what they did with their circumstances is different. Venetia becomes bulimic because she feels the pressure of upholding the standard of beauty set by her mother, Elspeth, and her main motivation in life is to gain male validation. She’s generous with her own body and is constantly seeking approval, both from her family and from the guests that stay in the house. In contrast, Felix grew up to be edgy, generous, and effortlessly beautiful. He gives off a carefree aura, while still caring about Oliver enough to help him cope with his father’s “death” and to invite him to spend the summer at Saltburn. It’s said over and over again that everyone loves Felix, everyone wants him, and everyone wants to be around him. He’s the antithesis of Oliver and that’s what initially draws him in.
Felix’s cousin Farleigh plays the role of the “loud American” in this film, and not just because he’s literally American, with the accent and all. Farleigh is mixed, so he looks different from the rest of the family, which immediately sets him apart. However, his role in the family is crucial because of his unique position. He’s close enough to the family to know what’s going on, but distant enough to get a clear view of the situation. Because Farleigh is a cousin, he’s a member of the extended family but benefits from a different dynamic with the immediate family than the one Venetia and Felix experience. Farleigh is the only member of the family who speaks the complete, brutal truth without feeling the need to dance around subjects or act with the same social graces as his aunt and cousins. Farleigh sees right through Oliver and Oliver feels threatened by him. Farleigh always speaks the truth and Oliver always lies. However, when Farleigh speaks the truth, the family tends to scoff at him, whereas Oliver charms the family with his lies. If only anyone would have actually taken Farleigh seriously, the tragedies that occur in this film could have been avoided.
Felix can see the best in everyone, but his mother is judgmental, although she hesitates to come out and say how she feels about people in the interest of saving face. When Elspeth meets Oliver for the first time, she seems pleasantly surprised that he appears to be a nice young man. It’s revealed that she doesn’t trust Felix’s assessment of others because he’s kind to everyone, therefore not a good judge of character. Despite Elspeth’s judgmental nature, Oliver manages to endear himself to her by appealing to her vanity. He knows that Elspeth has power and influence and seeks to win her over. Oliver’s relationship with Elspeth is a means to an end for him; he simply wants to dig his proverbial fangs into the family, into Saltburn, and into Felix.
The Catton family has a tendency to take in strays. During Oliver’s first days at Saltburn, we’re introduced to Pamela, a goth-looking friend of the family who is heavily implied to have overstayed her welcome. In an attempt to make Oliver feel at home and like she understands his predicament, Elspeth tells him that she’s lost many friends to addiction and says, “It’s the root of poor Pamela’s horrors, too, I’m afraid,” to which Farleigh replies, “And the only interesting thing about her.” There are clear parallels between Pamela’s role and Oliver’s role because both of them were welcomed into the house following tragedy (or, in Oliver’s case, “tragedy”.) The only difference is that Pamela is on the way out and the family intends to replace her with Oliver. What they don’t know is that, like a vampire, once Oliver is invited in, he will never leave.
There are two things Oliver fears: the truth and being discarded by Felix. Towards the beginning of the film, there’s a scene where Felix and Oliver are spending time together in Felix’s dorm room on a hot day. Oliver takes it upon himself to clean up Felix’s room, despite the rich boy’s protests, which subtly demonstrates Oliver’s refusal to take no for an answer. Feeling annoyed and disturbed by Oliver’s persistence, Felix kicks Oliver out of the dorm room and stops spending time with him. Oliver’s despair over being abandoned leads him to manipulate his way back into Felix’s life by telling him his dad died. Oliver will do anything to worm his way into Felix’s life because he’s desperate to be close to Felix and terrified of being discarded. When Oliver is staying at Saltburn, Felix’s sister Venentia initially pursues him, but when Oliver scorns her, the dynamic changes. When the family is entertaining Sir James’s friends, “the Henrys”, Venetia has a tense conversation with Oliver at the dinner table in which she gets under Oliver’s skin by saying that he’s just one of Felix’s toys, taunting him that Felix doesn’t want to play with him anymore. Venetia’s comments cut deep and Oliver fears she’s right. He knows he’s on thin ice and starts to feel desperate once again, but this time, Oliver knows he can’t talk his way out of the situation. The stakes are higher and he’s terrified that he’ll lose his connection to Felix for good.
Although Oliver’s time spent at Saltburn feels like a dream, the events immediately before, during, and after Oliver’s birthday party paint a stark picture of his reality. While the family is planning the party, Elspeth says that Oliver can invite all of his friends, to which Farleigh – ever observant and honest – states that Oliver doesn’t have any friends. Additionally, because he feels so deeply betrayed and hurt by Oliver’s lies, Felix orders him to leave Saltburn immediately after the party. Oliver knows this is his last chance to cling to the dream of staying at Saltburn, and he also feels desperate to get back on Felix’s good side. Despite the fact that the party should revolve around him, Oliver spends most of the extravagant event alone. The only person he wants to interact with is Felix, who is, as usual, constantly surrounded by people; but Felix has made it abundantly clear that he no longer wants anything to do with Oliver. When the massive crowd is singing happy birthday, there’s a pause when the partygoers realize they don’t even know Oliver’s name. Even at Oliver’s birthday party, Felix is the center figure, which perfectly demonstrates the extent to which Oliver’s entire life revolves around him.
The only time Oliver is truly honest in the film is when, during the scene with Venetia, he calls himself a vampire. Although he ends up covered in her blood, I don’t believe that’s the only vampiric thing about Oliver. We’ve already discussed how Oliver refuses to leave Saltburn, which aligns with the aspect of vampire mythology wherein once you invite one of these creatures into your house, they will never leave. Vampires can only “live” by draining humans of their life essence, which traditionally happens through the consuming of their blood. In the controversial bathtub scene (you know the one,) Oliver slurps up Felix’s life essence, just not in the form of his blood. Vampires are also often seen as impure, tainted beings. Felix may be rebellious and debaucherous, but at his core, he’s pure; his angelic nature is symbolized by the wings he wears at Oliver’s party, the ones he dies wearing. I believe that Oliver realizes Felix truly is too good for him and that to get too close to Felix would sully that purity, destroying the very thing that makes him special and desirable. Oliver is the antithesis of Felix: he ruins everything he touches. Whereas Felix is generous, Oliver is constantly draining others, both literally and figuratively. Oliver is a vampire in the worst sense of the word.
But, does Oliver love or hate Felix? Both – in fact, Oliver appears to love and hate Felix with equal intensity. I don’t think any plot point illustrates this as vividly as when Oliver murders Felix at his birthday party and later on “has sex with” (if it can be called that) Felix’s grave. Not only is this scene shocking, it’s revealing: to murder someone and then defile their grave in such a way is an ultimate act of both desire and hatred. He deeply admires Felix and desperately wants to be him. He resents Felix for having everything he wants but cannot have. He hates Felix for setting boundaries and for repeatedly abandoning him. He wants to be close to Felix, but he can’t – at least, not as his true self. Because he knows he can never have Felix, the next best choice in Oliver’s obsession-addled mind is to kill him so that nobody else can have him.
Although Oliver can never truly have Felix, he systematically destroys the family through manipulation and murder so that he can have Saltburn. Like Felix, the house of Saltburn symbolizes everything Oliver wants but can never have. In the beginning of the film, Saltburn is a vibrant home, well-lit, with rich historical significance. Like blood, life is constantly circulating throughout the house in the form of visitors and parties. However, under Oliver’s influence, Saltburn becomes a mansion haunted by the memory of the Catton family and inhabited by a vampire: Oliver, who has always been alone and always will be. By killing the entire Catton family and taking over Saltburn, Oliver strips the home of its spirit, leaving it a hollow shell. In the absence of humans to drain essence from, Oliver will eventually wither away. Similarly, Saltburn will fall into decay, having been drained of its lifeblood. Everything that was so alive will die, everything that Oliver loved will be gone, and he will be the only one to blame.
(Shoutout to my good friend Galletita for helping this essay take shape with her sharp observations.)