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Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a movie or literary work.

The Relationship Between Love, Hate, and Obsession 

Throughout the movie, Oliver fluctuates between feelings of obsessive love and equally obsessive hatred for Felix and the other members of the Catton family. At Oxford, he is immediately drawn to Felix, who seems to represent everything that Oliver wants but does not have, from his easy, suave charisma to his aristocratic pedigree. He lavishes his attention on Felix and, when Felix seems to lose interest, Oliver and fellow student Annabel hook up, each hoping to make Felix jealous. Whether Oliver’s obsession is, at its core, defined by love or hatred, it serves as a destructive force in the movie, and ultimately the members of the Catton family are swept up in it.

Though Oliver kills Felix, he nevertheless loves him, sobbing at Felix’s funeral and even lying naked over the soil above his grave. Venetia, perceiving Oliver’s destructive obsession, states that he “ate him right up,” a comment that registers the violence at the core of Oliver’s fixation. In the closing lines of the movie, Oliver repeatedly states that he loved Felix in a rapturous manner, but shortly after, he insists that he also hated Felix and the other members of the Catton family. For Oliver love and hatred prove difficult to separate from one another. Though he is deeply attracted to the wealth and privilege of the Cattons, he also resents them for the same reasons. 

The Realities of Class Difference 

At the core of Saltburn is its exploration of class difference and its satire of the upper class. At Oxford, a girl in Felix’s circle named Annabel notes that none of their friends want to talk to Oliver, dismissing him as a mere “scholarship student” who cannot afford to pay the expensive Oxford tuition. Oliver is socially alienated due to his inexperience navigating upper-class social environments. During his meeting with Professor Ware, for example, he demonstrates that he is dedicated to his studies, reading a long and voluntary list of books and submitting a carefully written essay. Farleigh, however, who was educated in expensive boarding schools, outmaneuvers Oliver, impressing their professor with his social connections and mocking Oliver’s stuffy essay, which uses old-fashioned words such as “thus.” This interaction between Oliver and Farleigh underscores their different attitudes. While Oliver, raised in a middle-class household, initially believes that he must work hard in order to succeed, Farleigh ignores the assignment and instead relies upon his social skills and easy familiarity with the social conventions of the British upper class. Oliver learns from Farleigh that he must learn to adapt in order to impress others.   

This is just one of many instances in which class difference is explored throughout the movie. At Saltburn, Oliver struggles to adapt to his new surroundings and commits several faux pas, failing to bring a dinner jacket or cufflinks, for example, and requesting a full breakfast from Duncan, though the butler only prepares the eggs while the other food is available at a side-table. Though Farleigh snickers at these errors, Oliver learns that he can exploit these class differences in order to further ingratiate himself with the Cattons, who perceive him as an intelligent but disadvantaged young man and take a morbid interest in his false accounts of his difficult upbringing.  

The Consequences of Privilege  

Saltburn emphasizes the various ways in which wealth and privilege can breed ignorance and cruelty. When Oliver first arrives at Saltburn, he overhears Lady Elspeth and Pamela speaking in a withering and condescending way about Prescot, where his family lives, and Liverpool, the major city just a few miles from Prescot. The two confess that they don’t know where Liverpool is located, though it is one of the largest cities in England. When they ask Sir James, he merely notes that it is “North.” Ultimately, they dismiss the area as nothing more than “some awful slum.” This is one of many instances in the movie where the wealth and privilege of the Cattons limits their understanding of the world around them. Though they can discuss Romantic poets and other refined topics with ease, they are deeply ignorant about the lives of those who do not share their background.  

Felix is embarrassed by his mother’s condescending manner, and he apologizes to Oliver. Nevertheless, Felix is more like his family than he realizes. Just as Lady Elspeth treats Pamela like a pet but sends her away from Saltburn when she grows tired of her, so too does Felix’s interest in Oliver begin to wane, forcing Oliver to resort to drastic tactics to keep his place by Felix’s side. The Cattons, the movie suggests, think of themselves as charitable and generous to the less fortunate. Ultimately, however, they use others as mere entertainment. Both Felix and Venetia fail to understand Farleigh’s desire for financial independence, and Farleigh embarrasses Felix by revealing that he does not know the names of the Black footmen at Saltburn. Angered, Felix insists that his family is not racist and has never treated Farleigh different because he is mixed-race, but he reveals his own elitist attitudes when he hypocritically insists that Farleigh’s mother should learn to “stand on her own two feet,” even though the Cattons’ own wealth has been inherited. In the closing lines of the film, Oliver suggests that the privilege of the “spoiled” Cattons has made them easy to deceive and manipulate. He describes them as dogs “sleeping belly up” because they feel secure in their power and cannot imagine that someone like Oliver might outsmart them.  

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