There’s nothing like going home for the holidays. A few days off work, boozing from morning until night, having screaming rows with everyone in your family. Bliss! This year, if that wasn’t enough to get you in the Christmas spirit, you could also load up Amazon Prime and settle in next to grandma to watch Barry Keoghan fuck a freshly dug grave.
Yep, Saltburn has been the bizarre family favourite of the festive period. Whether we loved it or hated it, we all seem to have tortured ourselves by watching it with our relatives.
For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure, Emerald Fennell’s satire of the super rich follows Keoghan’s Oliver Quick, a misfit Oxford first year from a poor Northern background who befriends – and becomes infatuated with – Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), the charming and unbearably handsome son of an aristocrat who invites Oliver to spend a scorching 00s summer with him and his family (played by Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, and Archie Madekwe) at their enormous estate, the eponymous Saltburn. Sounds innocuous enough, right? But – surprise! – there’s a twist. And it involves a handful of, shall we say, risqué sexual scenes: Barry Keoghan drinking Jacob Elordi’s bathwater, Barry Keoghan licking period blood off his fingers, and, yes, Barry Keoghan fucking a grave.
Watching a sex scene with your family is painfully awkward at the best of times – no matter how old you get, how progressive you might be, or how close you are – but it’s especially torturous when, as is the case with Saltburn, it’s designed to shock. So, how did Saltburn, with all its bloody fingering and spunky bathwater-guzzling, go down with its intergenerational audience during the jovial holiday season?
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“It was my idea to watch it,” says 39-year-old Liam* from Norfolk who watched with his wife and in-laws, having already seen the film in the cinema himself. “I sold it by saying that Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant were both exceptional. During the bath, fingering, and grave scenes, my wife kept nudging me as if to say, ‘WTF? Is this really appropriate for my parents?’. I felt most uncomfortable during the grave scene. No one left the sofa though, or even looked away.”
This was also my coping strategy when I watched Saltburn with my mum: stare silently at the screen, willing the scene to end, and then never mention it again. Others might talk or joke loudly through it to try and alleviate the tension, or even strategically absent themselves for a second.
20-year-old Ellen* from London, who had also seen the film before, did the latter when she watched it on Christmas Day with her parents, nan, sister, and sister’s boyfriend. “There were a few moments when I left the room to go and make drinks for the rest of the family,” she says. “Despite being an adult, I was still the youngest in the room and I was sitting right next to my nan. I’d say my nan was the most shocked. When Oliver started reaching for his pants during the grave scene, the vibe of the room changed and my nan said, ‘I have the shivers’.”
Although arguably the coward’s strategy, Ellen’s exits at least enabled her family to brace themselves for what was coming. “My mum and dad seemed uncomfortable throughout, but they caught on to when an explicit scene was coming up because I’d come up with an excuse to leave the room,” she adds. “We didn’t talk much about it afterwards, but my family picked up on the film’s dark humour and we had a few laughs every now and then.”
If you didn’t laugh with your family, that’s ok. Christmas isn’t about fun! In fact, as 31-year-old Patsy from Egham knows, the holidays are actually about provoking your relatives. “Sometimes I find it funny to make my conservative parents watch things that might shock them,” she says. “I’d seen people on TikTok say that Saltburn was chaotic, so I suggested it to my mum and dad.”
As if that wasn’t chaotic enough, Patsy adds: “My dad is partially blind, so my mum has to describe what’s happening in darker scenes. When I asked her why she didn’t describe the ‘vampire’ scene – and some other sex scenes – she told me, ‘I didn’t want to say, ‘He’s eating her bloody fanny and making her taste it’, while you’re sitting there’. I’d have just laughed it off – we’re all adults! But at one point I did put a pillow near my peripheral vision, so I wouldn’t have to see my mum’s reaction to some scenes. I don’t think she realised the faces she pulled.”
For other parents, Saltburn was simply prime fodder for zingers. “My parents are cross-and-crucifix-in-every-room Christians,” explains 30-year-old Fred* from London. “My mother was raised Catholic, but my dad is a punk. So my mum and I were more bothered than him; he was just gleeful at the opportunity for disturbing one-liners, like, ‘I’m not sure that’s very hygienic’ and ‘Oh look, he’s tonguing the plug hole’. We switched it off after about 70 minutes, and my dad put on a historical film, just to be able to say, ‘Two period dramas in one night? Aren’t we lucky!’”
Awkwardness – and dad jokes – aside, the film got mixed reviews from the families I spoke to, who respectively described it as, ‘ridiculous’, ‘gratuitous’, ‘fun’, and ‘provocative’. Nonetheless, nobody seemed to have any regrets about watching it with their relatives, and, in fact, some of them even learned something new. “My mum explained that she would never drink my dad’s bathwater,” concludes Patsy. “So I’m glad I know that now.”
*Names have been changed
Saltburn is streaming on Amazon Prime Video now. Enjoyed the film? Here's what to watch next.
