FX Colab Pod S1 E1: Saltburn

Two friends discuss the movie "Saltburn" and the scenes that disturbed them. They talk about the vampire scene and the bathroom scene, discussing the symbolism of blood and the character's obsession. They also discuss the storytelling and how the plot unfolds. One friend figured out the twist early on, while the other didn't see it coming. I'm rolling. What's up? What's up? Welcome to the FX Co-Lab pod where we discuss salt burn. Well, we're discussing salt burn today. We don't know what we're going to do in later episodes, but today's mission is discussing salt burn. And before we do that, I have got Catch of the Day for us, which is where I introduce a fish that I like every single episode because I quite like fish. And it's called Catch of the Day. I think you're very excited for it, aren't you? She wanted to desperately put something into this to make it unique and a bit quirky, so we're going to roll with it. I have an Instagram account wherein every single week I post a fish of the week, and I feel like it's only applicable to that Catch of the Day. Is that the Charlie B2 account? Yes, the Charlie B2 account. I actively ignore that account. When you send me reels and stuff, I reply to it three days later. Seriously. I just wonder, everyone else likes my fish of the week, and then you're the only one of my close friends that don't actually like my fish of the week. That's probably why I didn't think of it as a thing before this podcast, so sorry. Do you want to introduce your catch of the week? I hope you become a loyal follower of fish of the week when next rolls around. Friday's next fish of the week is coming to us. Anyway, so today's catch of the day. I've gone for a trusty option today. This is a much-loved fish. Today's fish of the day is the coelacanth. The coelacanth was thought to be dead before, and I will just check how long it was, but they were thought to be dead for millions of years because they found a fossil of the coelacanth, and they thought, you know, they're extinct. They're dead, basically. Until the 20th century, they're fishing around, and guess what they found? Coelacanth, live in the flesh. They are a lobe fish, and they live off the coast of Africa. They're quite important because they reckon that they were related to the tetrapods, so things like the cichlidic, which is very exciting indeed. Anything that the modern, normal, everyday human would understand. Okay, you know, fish, you know, okay, everyone's... Like a cod or haddock or something. Right, okay, this isn't the chitty. This is catch of the day, right? This is like gourmet stuff. Anyway, right, so... So you can eat these as well? No, what was that? Who's doing that? When you say gourmet, you make it sound quite appetising. No, nobody's eating a coelacanth. These things are endangered because there's not many of them. Because, well, I mean, I don't need to tell you, if you reckon something's dead, you're not seeing it every day, are you? Anyway, they're so silly. You're familiar with the fish crawling out of water on the land? Yeah. Yeah, like that kind of... Like turtles do. No, no, no, but like the basic concepts of, like, you know, evolution. You know, like the whole shtick where they're like, oh, you know, like fish gets, like, crawling onto land. Okay, so like tetrapods are kind of like walled up in there. So the Tiktaalik is sort of like the first fish that could do a press-up, basically. Had that kind of, like, almost wrist flexibility to be able to do that. Whamfish. Whamfish, indeed, whamfish. And they think the coelacanth might have been sort of like a precursor to whamfish. And also what's really cool about coelacanth is they can stand on their head in the water and, like, pick up electrical signals in the water, sort of like the tech square frame might be, which is quite cool. I mean, this is something that studies have published. It's not actually confirmed whether this is truly what it is or not. You know, this has been... One study has kind of, like, alluded towards this, but I think that's very cool indeed if that is true. It's like a form of communication as well, then, I guess, or not? I mean, I don't know if they have actually got communication. I think it might just be for, like, detecting precursors, because, I mean, like, kind of like a Batec allocation, I guess. But anyway, I'm not entirely certain if that is a form of communication, but maybe in a few more million years, maybe it might be. That ends our catch of the week. Catch of the day, actually. Catch of the day. Catch of the day. Coupe du jour. Coupe du jour. Done. Right. Moving on to the stuff that... Everyone actually wants to talk about. Yeah. The main shtick of the podcast. Yeah. Saltburn. Exciting. I mean, initial thoughts. I mean, when we were watching it, like, we did actually have a couple of people walk out of the cinema. I can't remember, I think, was it after the weird, like, period scene, or was it the bathroom scene? I can't remember. It was one of the two. I think it was sort of like following the bathtub scene. Yeah. Because I think, right, I think the vampire scene, and I hope we all know what I'm talking about. Vampire scene. The vampire scene. I think that was probably one of the more mild things in that film, and I don't feel like that has any right to be on par with the bathroom scene. My initial reaction was that it was worse, though, to be fair. I initially thought it was worse. Now looking back on it, it's probably, like, more common for people to do that than to, like, lick out of that drain. Let's all be honest here. The bathroom scene kind of was, and I'm going to say I think it was sexual assault scene, because, you know, you're kind of doing something sexual with someone else's bodily fluid. I have no idea you're doing that. I don't think that's right at all. Yeah. And I feel like that's why it's messed up. But with the vampire scene, it was consensual. And, you know, it is just two people kind of enjoying a very natural process. But there is more kind of nuance to the vampire scene that I wonder if we want to talk about. Because I find it very interesting there that Venetia, like, as a character, her theme centres around blood a lot, I think. I mean, we see her die in The Last Purple of Blood. We see her, like, when Felix dies. I should say this, like, before, you know, if you haven't watched Soulburn, then, you know, don't listen to this. Spoiler alert. Yeah. Massive spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. That would be on the title screen. Like, spoiler alert. I just bloody hope so. But yeah, when Felix passes away, they draw the curtains and the room is bathed in red. And she is bathed in red in the same way she is bathed in red when she dies. And she is bathed in red during that very intimate scene with Oliver. And I feel like that is kind of like her theme as a character, is the blood. And I also think blood is very symbolic and kind of like... I think Venetia... I will have to fact check this. I mean, as we're recording, Soulburn has not yet come out and streaming. So, you know, we've watched this once. I can't remember her exact words. But she does reference sort of Oliver sucking the life force out of the family. And I feel like that definitely symbolises the blood thing. And he also mentions he's a vampire. And it's not just in that scene that he's obviously literally, in the literal sense, he's a vampire because he's putting her blood in his mouth. But he's also, like you said, sucking the life out of the family. And I don't think his initial intention was actually to do that. He turned up at the house and he was kind of awestruck by the sort of stature of everything. But as the story develops, I can see why the theme of red becomes more prominent in that sense. Yeah, definitely. And I feel like his kind of presence in Soulburn, the way Fennel decides to frame her shots, as soon as Oliver gets to Soulburn. So, throughout that time at Oxford, Felix seems to be kind of central in shots. We always see Oliver's gaze going towards Felix. And in a group of people, he is the one that's highlighted. And the beautiful setting of Oxford is kind of dulled down around him. The kind of setting is secondary to this character. As soon as Oliver gets to Soulburn, we can see him sort of looking out towards Soulburn's land, and Felix just fades into the background. And I think that's where his obsession switches from total obsession with Felix, and plotting things like the flat tyre, and sort of bumping into him, the plotting of not having enough money at the bar, that sort of thing to reel him in. Things change then. He becomes obsessed with Soulburn instead of Felix. Yeah. There's a switch, and I think it's encapsulated in that pushing Felix into the background. Yeah, I think initially you kind of think it's just a voyeuristic thing, where he just has a bit of a crush. And then you realise how serious it is. But it's very clever storytelling how we don't actually see any of that until the end. It's kind of like we've already seen the climax of the story, and then it's kind of revealed afterwards all the build-up to that moment of him then putting the nail or the pin or whatever it was in the tyre to puncture it. He's actually like, he thought this was all a coincidence, they just happened to meet together and just be friends. And then it kind of started being gradually more forced. And I think the sort of unnatural course of their friendship kind of makes you probably dislike Oliver as a character. And I mean, that's quite a common theme for this kind of media, where you've got someone up to no good, and we're strung along with them in terms of their mischief. We don't quite know what's going on either. I mean, you figured out what was going to happen quite early. I did not know what was going to happen until the reveal, until it was all laid out for me. I could not see where this one was going. I'm still trying to think where I thought the turning point was, because I was trying to think about it when I was watching the film, but I couldn't quite figure it out. I think it was definitely before they left Oxford to Saltburn. Really? I think it was, I think once you notice that the obsession is more than just physical, because obviously initially he has that quite nerdy friend, and they're just kind of quite lonely together, and then I think it's that kind of moment where, I didn't necessarily know at that point that he was going to murder his whole family and take everything, but I wouldn't know in front of my dad. Yeah, exactly. That's what all makes it so shocking, but it's in that pub scene where he just ditches his geeky friend and he goes with the group, and it's like, it kind of sets up a bit of a kind of immature kind of power dynamic where, or kind of hierarchy that you don't normally see in universities as much. It's kind of like, oh, he's the loser, he's not a popular kid, and he's joining the cool kids, and I kind of think that, I'm not quite sure how that relates to the period of 2006, but in the university in general, and obviously with most uni students, I think we can kind of agree that there's not really that social hierarchy as much, but I think maybe in these kind of more posh sort of Russell Group universities or the very top universities like Oxford and Cambridge, there is that kind of like, maybe not necessarily your dynamic in terms of whether you're cool or not, but that's kind of determined by your social background, and obviously Oliver being from Liverpool and being a bit more working class, it feels like he then has to kind of go to these extreme lengths to kind of fit in by literally lying and attaching himself to the only person that he can see, basically. Well I think your point about him being working class is quite interesting because there's quite a lot of debate online about Oliver's kind of true class, because I feel like he's very much cemented in the middle class, I mean his parents are kind of quite affluent, when we look at his house, we see that his house is far from how he describes it being for Felix, it's in a gorgeous setting, we've got, I thought it was quite cool that we could see the sprinkler in the neighbour's garden, for me that had kind of an American element, it's sort of like if you've got a sprinkler on during summer, to me that's affluent, to be honest, because it's caring for your lawn and the lawn is the first thing that visitors see, I think those are all very middle class ideas of sort of like social status, and I feel like despite Oliver being middle class, he's not quite in those same ranks as Felix and Farley, because I mean, what you were saying about the social hierarchies, these are enforced by the lecturers as well, because we see that first tutorial with Oliver and Farley comes in late, he hasn't done any of the reading, and the lecturer recognises his family name, and that's it, you know, he's immediately accepted, and it's sort of like the kind of prominence of titles within these kind of universities, I feel like that could be, well, in 2006, I mean this is obviously set in a time long before our time of going through university, but you know, in 2006, I feel like that was still definitely part of the culture. Yeah, I think that's quite an interesting point, I actually completely forgot about that seminar scene, and I thought it was very interesting how, you know, I'm not quite sure what significance it necessarily has, but when he kind of said, oh yeah, don't mention my name to your mum, like, you know, he kind of made himself sound like a bit of a stalker, and like, maybe that's like a very subtle reference to in-cell culture or something like that, maybe, but like, that was quite interesting, because he was like, oh yeah, no, I was an admirer, and then there's a pause, from afar, and I was like, bro, this guy definitely stalked her, he's like an Oliver, like, regen. Yeah, exactly, no, it totally, like, it warms us up for what we're about to see, I think, it kind of eases us, yeah, yeah, thematically, but also, like, comedically, it eases us in for what we're about to see unfold. But then Oliver takes that extra step, and he actually gets, like, involved in his life, and like, completely ruins it. I also find it really interesting, like, I think how I would describe this film, in like, one word, is just devouring. He doesn't just consume the life force, he completely devours it. He enjoys the act of devouring the entire family. Yeah, just on our document, we've got a shared document for this, she's put devour with lots of exclamation marks, and that was the point she wanted to get across. Definitely, definitely. No, but I feel like he devours in the bathroom scene, he devours in the scene with Venetia, he's enjoying every minute of draining their life force. Yeah. He absolutely, you know, Venetia is the closest to getting it right, he's not a vampire, he's a moth, and he's constantly trying to back his way into these, like, top upper classes. But, you know, as shown in the scene with the etiquette at the dinner party, for example, you're supposed to talk to the person on your left. Yeah. He is, you know, unaware of that. I think it was really interesting, actually, that they used etiquette as the point to get that across, because I feel like etiquette is something that pretty much all of us are quite familiar with, so as the viewer, we have a chance of saying, yes, no, he's wrong for that. Yeah. You know, if they were kind of making, perhaps, cultural references, or, you know, references to certain brands that, you know, your average Joe just wouldn't know, because, I mean, for example, I'd probably describe myself as quite middle class, and if they started going about very upper class references, I wouldn't have a chance of understanding what was going on. You're upper middle class, I'd say. You think so? Yeah. I think that's up for debate. But anyway. Mate, we need to get Freddy on this next podcast, then he'll back my corner and it'll get very messy for you. Oh, God. But no, I mean, if there were cultural references made to perhaps brands, or, you know, literature, I don't think I would stand a chance of getting any of those. But when they reference things like etiquette, things that are kind of like taught in schools, or, you know, you can just study out of interest, I feel like that's given the audience half a chance to be like, yes, if you know, you know, you know. I think it's quite interesting how also Emerald spoke about this in her interview. It's interesting how they kind of completely changed the dynamic in terms of, like, formality and etiquette, because when you initially meet the family, they are quite informal, I think. Yeah. They're all quite casual, and Emerald said that she kind of wanted them to be quite sort of, not sort of down to earth, but quite kind of relaxed and quite chilled out. And, you know, Felix is like, you know, he epitomises that, because, you know, when he walks through the house giving the talks, and, you know, he just, all these, like, stupid things. He obviously doesn't care that, oh, that piano's broken, or whatever. Yeah. So, yeah, Felix obviously just epitomises the fact that they're all quite informal. He doesn't really care about all of the sort of materialistic stuff. He walks through the house and kind of dismisses all of it. And something really interesting that Emerald picked up on was how you have all this sort of marvellous stuff around, but especially when you look in the bathroom, there's, she's like, her attention to detail is amazing here. She's like, you've got Colgate toothpaste and, like, a toothbrush, and, like, just kind of brings it right back down to earth. And you can have all this amazing, like, tapestry and everything, but you still need to have what you need to survive. And I feel like we don't really see that enough in films. Like, there's not that much attention to detail. It's kind of all trying to conform within that setting and make it look quite classy. But then there's that reflection as well. I think there's in a TV where there's, like, Dr Pepper and some, like, cigarettes and stuff that are, like, sprayed out over a table. And it kind of makes everything else look amazing around it, and you just see the mess. And it's, like, making it look very, like, naturalistic and obviously intentional, but I think it just reflects Felix's attitudes towards everything. I thought it was really cool that Felix actually had, like, I think it was an eyebrow piercing on there. Yeah. But I thought that kind of, like, I think that kind of sets you up for having that relationship. Did you see that though in the interview, right? The Emerald wanted to have the eyebrow piercing the whole time. Really? But apparently they, she had an argument with the costume department, and they said, we really don't like the eyebrow piercing. She thought that was, like, something that epitomised the period, like, guys with sexy, like, piercings, and she thought it looked really nice. She obviously wanted Felix to look as hot as possible. And in her eyes, that was, you know, the sort of archetypal kind of prop or sort of stylistic choice anyway. And then they just had to compromise, and she was like, okay, well, he can have the piercing until he gets to Sovereign. And then they obviously just wrote in that bit where he says, oh yeah, Mummy doesn't like it because it's a sort of hygiene issue or something, or she gets weird about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she doesn't like facial hair and all that sort of weird stuff. Yeah, yeah. So, no, I thought that was interesting. I think the film was, like, pointing us in a very different direction. There was sort of, like, that thing that you never leave Saltburn. There was the allusions to going mad. There was the mother's, like, very specific taste. There was the kind of, like, you know, Oliver having to shave off his facial hair as soon as he got there. Like, for men, I don't know if you'd agree with this or not, but for men, I feel like facial hair is quite, like, a definitive feature of your face, you know. Like, if you've been kind of, like, keeping facial hair for a while, maybe a few years even, if you kind of have, like, this sort of stubble thing going on, and then you went to visit somewhere, and your host said that had to be removed. I mean, you'd find that really very strange. That was sort of, like, almost a mutilation of your identity. You'd find that very strange. I thought the film was going in a very different direction. I thought it was going in more sort of, like, a Saltburn is sort of, like, a Hotel California type of place where, you know, he won't be able to leave. The references to, I think it was something like, oh, you're much prettier than last year's one or something. Yeah, because he had another friend last year. I was thinking, is he going to get sacrificed or something? What actually is going to happen here? Yeah, there was some very kind of, like, dark and kind of gothic references, because there's obviously the bits with the lighting where it all goes black, and it's kind of almost like silhouette and stuff. There was definitely lots of avenues the film could have potentially gone down. It's probably maybe even more surprising that Oliver ended up being the one that killed everyone. But to pick up back on your point about, like, facial hair, I think I would be fine because I've got a bit going on now. But, like, if I walked up and Elsbeth said to me, Matt, you've got to get rid of that, it looks horrendous, I'd be like, that's fine. Really? Because I can't grow facial hair for the rest of my life. But what if Elsbeth says, Matt, the curtains, they've got to go? It's buzz cut, isn't it, then, isn't it? No, really? I don't know. Like, okay, imagine you came to visit me at home. Your parents? Yeah, you meet my cat, you meet my mum. You're not setting up the class divide very well now, are you? Your parents, you're comparing them to James and Elsbeth now. I'm just saying theoretically. Theoretically. Middle class, yeah. Shush. Theoretically. You live in Bristol. I don't want to hear it. I live in Bristol, yeah. I live in Bristol. I don't actually want to hear it. I don't actually want to hear any of that. Anyway, imagine you came to visit me at home. You've met my cat, you've met my mum, and my mum goes, Matt, facial hair, it's got to go. And while you're at it, curtain thing, it's got to go. I mean, before we started this episode, Matt was going, oh, my curtains don't look, you know. They look horrible. Everyone would agree with this, but. I don't think they look horrible. Just a bit. Well, yeah, but then imagine if my mum said, right, it's all got to go. What are you going to do? Respectfully decline and leave the Charles Gaffatron. Charles Gaffatron. The Smith abode. The Smith household. Yeah, the Smith household, yeah. You'd really leave my cat like that? I don't have the same love for cats as you do. I'm just kind of sending you all the reels just to kind of make you think that, like, I'm really into it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just gaslighting you into thinking I actually like cats. No way. Now, to be fair, I don't hate them as much as I used to. Like, I saw one on the way to the gym. I waved to it and I was like, you all right, mate? And then I just kept going with it. What colour was it? It was kind of like brown and, like, black. Oh, interesting. I don't know what you'd even call that. It has, like, kind of sort of hazel eyes. Oh, cute. I think they all have similar colour eyes. Cats don't really, but. No, they don't. I'd say I don't know anything about cats, so. Anyway. Moving swiftly on, I think, like, you know, you were saying about you don't see it going in that direction, that he's going to be the one to go in. And we discussed earlier about you're kind of like the viewer is dragged along with his lives, which is quite a common trait. We see this, and I think Fennel drew inspiration from the book Atonement by Ian McEwan, wherein we see this kind of grand house. It's not quite the same as Assault Van, because as it's been described in the first few chapters, it kind of seems like grand, but slightly lacklustre. I don't know if that's fair to say. I don't know if people are going to disagree with me, but. What about the house in general? Yeah, in Atonement. In the first few chapters, there's a fountain described, and it's kind of like, you know, it's a knockoff of one in Italy. You've got this kind of like red brick house. You know, the grounds are very grand, but, you know, it doesn't seem quite, you know, it's not quite your dream house. It's not described as a palace. There's something not quite right, basically. Yeah, it's just not, you know, it's just not great, you know. It's pretty cool, but it's not as grand as Assault Van. But you've got this family who are very obsessed with their own class. You've got this neighbour as well, and his name is Robbie, and he is, like, okay, this is, you know, if you're reading Atonement at the moment, I don't know why you're doing that in this year, but, you know, if you are, spoilers ahead. But basically. No disclaimer. You've got the themes of voyeurism there, because what happens is Robbie has sex with the younger daughter, and, you know, all is well, all is very happy. They're very pleased with themselves, I think. And then the younger sister sees them, watches them in the library, and thinks that he is raping her. Later on in the evening, another visiting friend is raped by an older man, and the girl who saw the two in the library reckons it was Robbie again. And he is falsely accused of rape, and that ultimately leads to his kind of demise. He is killed in the war, which is very sad. And him and the girl he was having sex with in the library don't get the kind of, like, marital bliss that they are promised. And then at the end of the book it is revealed that it was the younger sister who has written this story all along. She's written it as if Robbie was definitely the rapist. And then it's revealed at the end that this is not the case, and that she falsely accused him of raping the other friend. So we're kind of like, throughout the book, we're sort of taken along on her magical mystery ride of thinking that he is the rapist, kind of totally believing this author, because we don't realise that it's the younger sister who has written this. I mean, obviously Ian McEwan is the overall author, and the younger sister is kind of writing her story, but we don't know that this is the perspective of the younger sister. And it is really weird that the younger sister writes her sister's own sex scene. That is really weird, because it is not from the perspective that she's being raped like that, it's just this really in-depth, kind of like two, three pages long sex scene, where both parties are having a great time. So I find it really weird that it's canon that the younger sister has actually written that. But anyway, notwithstanding that, I mean, that is the voyeuristic element. But we have been taken along on this magical mystery ride. We've got this summertime setting, this grand house. I feel like it drew a lot of inspiration from the moment in that sense. So I feel like maybe I should have expected something coming along the lines of, you know, something is afoot, someone has told a mystery. I wanted to talk about casting a little bit as well, because, again, you were the one that initially kind of came up with the idea to obviously unpack this film, and you took particular interest in Emerald, obviously. And I was like, OK, well, I don't really know much about Emerald anyway, but from watching a few interviews with her, I'm really starting to understand her style and the way in which she operates as a director. And she's really, really focused on the casting aspect, which obviously all directors will be, but the way she kind of explains her ideas about people are quite interesting. I don't know if you've seen it, but she says how she thinks everyone's kind of in denial about their own personality. And no one is actually a nice person. Everyone just kind of just exists, and everyone has their flaws, and you just kind of need to accept it and just be honest with yourself. But our pure conscience as a human doesn't really allow us to do that. We always have to have someone else's perspective. So when she cast who acted as Felix, he was also in the kissing scene, wasn't he? Jacob Elordi? Yeah. He apparently was the only person she's actually seen come across as a nice person. Really? Or he at least gives that impression as an actor at least, because when he played the role of Felix, she wanted someone to come across as that really genuine and lovely person to kind of completely counterbalance that with Oliver, and it makes it more impactful, because if you just get some horrible person that Oliver's trying to chase after, you don't really care that much if he gets killed. You build up that kind of empathy for him and that kind of sympathy, obviously, when he dies. You have that long sort of attraction to him, just the way Oliver does. But we obviously see it a lot more innocently, I think. And there's obviously so many scenes where we literally just are allowed to watch Felix and just look at him, and then have him die kind of off-screen, or not really off-screen, but you don't actually see the actual acts of him being murdered. There's a lot of intrigue as to how exactly he dies, because we see Oliver leave, and for all we know, he's underneath this overbearing statue in the middle of the maze, and you're thinking, how is he actually going to... how is this going to pass? Also, I thought the choice of him was quite interesting at the funeral. The lyric, who's trust Avershaw's like, I thought that was quite pertinent, because the whole time he completely trusts Oliver, and he trusts Oliver not to cause any bodily harm. He hasn't told his family that Oliver has been lying to all of them. He is the only one who carries that secret, so it kind of makes sense for Oliver to... He trusts Oliver not to do anything. He trusts Oliver from the start about his upbringing, even though there is literally no evidence Oliver has provided about any of it. He completely trusts him, so I feel like the him choice at the funeral was quite budgeted. Yeah, and you see the level of his obsession, not only when he obviously goes into the bath after Felix has been in it, but he literally follows him into the centre of the maze while he's having sex with a girl, and he just, like it's nothing, he just walks in casually and just starts running towards him. He's probably like, because it's a party, he's probably a bit intoxicated or whatever. In all fairness, in a maze, you can't know. But even then... He kind of also waits until they've started kind of being intimate with one another as well. He starts watching it. He watches. Yeah, it's like if you were a house pup or something and you went into a room and there's two people getting on, your natural instinct is to leave the room, right? Yeah, and maybe draw up straight after. But he hangs around in the doorway of the maze. Yeah. Really interesting. Yeah, and I think... I didn't really think about him as a character that much until Emerald brought it up, but Duncan was very specifically cast, and she said she wanted him to kind of embody what Saltburn was, and I found that really interesting. I wasn't quite sure what she was getting at in terms of that because he just kind of seemed very serious, but I think she kind of wanted the impression that he's kind of timeless and like he's kind of almost like grown up with the walls being built and everything being built up around him. It's like he's been there since the start. It's kind of the impression you're kind of wanting to get. And, you know, he's quite blunt and quite sort of serious, and, you know, he doesn't seem to show that much sort of humanity. He kind of just does his job, serves his purpose, and that's about all there is to his character, I think. I think Duncan almost plays the role that we would expect James or Elspeth to play because James and Elspeth both seem very laid back. I mean, James less so, but Elspeth specifically, she's very open. She talks about the days where she was a lesbian, which you just completely would not expect from kind of like a traditional family of that kind of class standing. Yeah, especially in that time period as well. Yeah, yeah. I think sexuality was probably a lot less kind of talked about, I guess. Yeah, definitely. And James, I mean, when we have the introduction of the party theme, he's immediately like, Oh, I can wear my suit and pajama. And you just don't expect that from kind of, you expect a bit more formality perhaps. It almost seems like the butlers almost like force formality upon the family. Yeah. And Duncan seems to represent the sort of like ancestral heritage. They might have served a more serious family beforehand perhaps, or something like that. Yeah. The kind of like expectation of black tie at supper almost seems like forced upon by the presence of butlers. And I'd almost say that without the presence of butlers, there would be kind of no sense of formality whatsoever. I feel like they are kind of like the soul that keeps the formality of Saltburn going. I mean, we don't see any butlers at all when Oliver is having his celebratory dance around naked at the end of the movie. Yeah. And I think at that point, when he does some illicit drugs as well in the end scenes, the formality is completely gone. The butlers, the formality, everything has departed. It's not actually kind of like mentioned how the butlers left. And I also assume that they maybe would have left when Oliver moved up to look after Elspeth, because he kind of, he takes away her life support system, which is quite interesting. If there were butlers around. Yeah. Yeah. If there were butlers around, he wouldn't have got away with that, I don't think. I think he would have had to have removed the butlers at some point to avoid suspicion. I think it's also implied that he serves another family beforehand. The Pure family we first meet, and Felix comes in. Felix kind of, well, Duncan seems quite out of touch with Felix, and he kind of goes, oh yeah, you know, stop trying to be scary, or stop trying to scare him. Yeah, yeah. Which kind of brushes him aside, and kind of, not in a horrible way, but he kind of just tries to get him into the swing of how their family is, and he's clearly quite out of touch with that. Duncan and the sort of like stature of Sulphur do not match in that sense whatsoever. Yeah. 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