January 2024 Early Month Movie Reviews: Saltburn, Anatomy of a Fall, Poor Things

There are countless movies released every month, but oftentimes it feels like it’s the same generic films coming out over and over again. You can log on your streaming service of choice and watch your standard superhero blockbuster, run of the mill romantic comedy, or brainless slasher.

One thing I really appreciate is when films are different or unique. That’s one thing that the following three movies all have in common. While I personally enjoyed each of the movies below to different extents, I appreciated all of them for not being the same generic movies that Hollywood typically churns out.

Saltburn (2023)

MGM, 131 minutes

Saltburn is a film that falls into a lot of genres. It’s part black comedy, part thriller, and part drama. It’s also one of those movies where for much of the runtime you’re wondering where the story is going with all that’s happening.

On the surface, Saltburn is the story of an outcast Oxford student, Oliver, who is able to befriend a charming and rich classmate named Felix. When Oliver has nowhere else to go after the schoolyear, Felix invites him to spend the summer at his family’s massive estate, Saltburn. There, Oliver meets a colorful cast of sinister characters, who are as unlikeable as they are interesting (and they’re quite a bit of both).

It's what going on under the surface, the manipulations and unsaid secrets, that makes Saltburn such an engaging watch. This is writer-director Emerald Fennell’s second feature film, after 2020’s Promising Young Woman, and she definitely has a talent for crafting engaging, unique stories. Still, Saltburn is most certainly not for the faint of heart. It’s a tale of power and sex that features some disturbing violence and graphic nudity. Fennell doesn’t shy away from showing us the uncomfortable.

That being said, I enjoyed Saltburn. It’s excellently acted, well-written, and definitely very different. As I said, for much of the movie I was curious where the story was going, and I felt like it ultimately delivered a fitting ending.

Grade: 8/10

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

NEON, 150 minutes

Anatomy of a Fall is a French courtroom drama where the case centers on (you guessed it) a fall. After Samuel is found dead under an open window beneath his family’s chalet, the police question whether it was suicide or whether he was actually murdered by his wife, Sandra.

The movie isn’t about only this incident though. On another level, the film is really about how we don’t really know what’s going on in a couple’s relationship, which we see as the lives of Samuel and Sandra are dissected by the court in a search for the truth.

The third member of the family, 11-year-old Daniel, is also supremely important to the story. While the entire cast is fantastic, the performance of Milo Machado Graner, who play Daniel, stands out as the best performance by a young actor in recent memory.

My only complaint with Anatomy of a Fall is that it feels a little long. I think it could’ve been shortened by maybe 15-20 minutes, something that could have been done by tightening up a few of the courtroom scenes. Overall though, this is a really well-made film and it’s no surprise that it won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

Grade: 8.5/10

Poor Things (2023)

Searchlight Pictures, 141 minutes

So, firstly, I want to say that I’m a fan of filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, and I particularly really enjoyed The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. I think that both are examples of great, extremely unique films, and I appreciate the unusual dialogue style Lanthimos has his characters speak with in both movies. With that being said, I had high hope for Poor Things. While I did like aspects of the movie, as a whole, I found it to be a disappointment.

Starting with the positives, Emma Stone is great in Poor Things. Her performance as Bella Baxter is one of two main highlights of the film. The second aspect of Poor Things that really worked for me was just the visuals of the film. The movie is fantastic to look at. Unfortunately, the positives mainly stop there.

While I can appreciate the feminist message of Poor Things, a lot of the movie is going over the same beats over and over again. I thought the Mark Ruffalo character would be in only a small portion of the film and then we’d get to see Bella’s relationships with other men, but nope, he’s a large part of our story. The movie is also way too long, with the final 30 minutes feeling totally disjointed and just stuck on at the end there.

Personally, I don’t appreciate humor that’s really silly/goofy, or when things in a movie get too wacky, and there’s a bit of that here. Poor Things is too out there for my personal taste, and I think that a lot of viewers will feel similarly. If Lanthimos had reigned in how extreme the movie is, he would’ve been able to appeal to a wider audience, and I think craft a movie more on par with his prior movies.

Grade: 5/10