Saltburn still takes the cake for many people when it comes to disturbing movies – especially the infamous grave scene comes to mind. For better or worse, it wasn't even meant to be the way that it turned out to be.
Emerald Fennell's Saltburn has lots of disturbing scenes that make you ask yourself "Why did I start to watch this movie again when I knew what I was getting into?" more than once. What starts out as a story about a poor boy befriending the nice rich kid turns into a psychological thriller halfway through the movie and forces audiences to stew in highly uncomfortable scenes that just don't seem to end.
I'm assuming you've seen the movie or at least heard about the infamous grave scene if you haven't been living under a rock these last few weeks. But if you somehow ended up here with no idea what's going on, let me fill you in so we're all on the same page. Spoilers, duh.
The underdog Oliver (Barry Keoghan) befriends Felix (Jacob Elordi), his wealthy fellow student at Oxford. What Felix naively sees as friendship is a borderline obsession on Oli's part, though: Oli starts his manipulation in Felix's home, the Saltburn estate, by seducing the entire family one way or the other. While as a viewer you already know Oliver's completely nuts at this point, Felix realizes too late, dying in Saltburn's maze.
They say there is no wrong way to grieve, and I say they're wrong, because Oliver goes on to f*ck Felix's grave after the funeral. The scene goes on seemingly forever – and, while disturbing, does make the film pretty memorable, at least. In a recent interview, creator Fennell and Barry Keoghan shared that the scene was planned a little differently at first.
Saltburn's Grave Scene Was Kind Of Improvised
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Fennell shared that the plan was for Oliver to "only" to "finger and kiss the freshly dug grave of his beloved Felix", which also isn't the healthiest way of mourning and would have been disturbing enough, if you ask me.
Fennell had spontaneously developed a change of plans, though, and approached Barry Keoghan with her idea:
"I spoke to Barry in the morning, and I just said, 'I don't know, Barry. I think that he [Oliver] would... unzip."
And Barry Keoghan was game, and unzip he did, as he was "totally on board for it", he says. Because as Oliver, Keoghan says, "it wasn't about f*cking the grave, it was more about, I don't know what to do with this obsession; it's making me confused and making me unhuman in a way."
So, a spontaneous idea by the director and an actor who went all out (literally) gave audiences the scene that sparked lots and lots of discussions online. Fennell purposely didn't cut away, dragging the scene out for maximum impact on the "I am uncomfortable" scale:
The awful length of it is what makes it so powerful. People said, 'Oh, we know what's going to happen. Why do we have to watch it?' And I said, 'Watching it is the point! Not cutting away is the point. You have to sit in your discomfort – you can only understand it if you sit with it."
Well, Miss Fennell, mission accomplished: I did sit in my discomfort.