Emerald Fennell’s sophomore feature “Saltburn” is, and I don’t put this lightly, one of the worst films I have seen this year. It’s a disaster in almost every department and almost never in a fun way. For the majority of its runtime, I was either confused at the mess I was watching or just bored.

For starters, the structure of “Saltburn” does it no favors. The movie’s opening has Barry Keoghan’s Oliver profess his love for Jacob Elordi’s Felix, all while future scenes of the two flash by the screen. The first act is then spent catching up to what the viewer already knows and has seen, a terrible choice that left me bored and waiting for anything new to happen.

The rest of the narrative is a slow burn with a few cool montages or “funny” scenes tossed in like jingling keys in front of a baby to try and distract them from what’s happening with flashing lights. To not spoil too much, there’s also some “gross” scenes of cheap provocation that will give away the movie’s attempted twists far before it’s ready to reveal them.

This brings me to the movie’s ending which, again, without spoiling too much, is kind of acting like a twist but it’s so clearly telegraphed that I would be shocked if a single audience member didn’t see it coming. That’s saying nothing of the true final scene which prioritizes its “hilarious,” dumb visual over any narrative significance.

Next are the performances which are shockingly largely bad. I mean, it’s not like Fennell’s script gives the cast much to work with. Elordi, much like in “Priscilla,” is legitimately great here and may be the one thing I enjoyed. Keoghan tries his hardest but he’s just given one too many terrible lines (not sure anyone could drop a “I’m a vampire” in the context of that scene and not make me laugh at how ridiculous it is). Rosamund Pike, far from her excellent performance in “Gone Girl” is basically a cartoon character here with a laughably terrible performance.

The cinematography is sure to please any fans of “Midsommar.” Shot in a cropped aspect ratio for no discernable reason, it’s filled with cool close-ups, reflections, colors and symmetry but doesn’t seem to serve any other purpose than to be screengrabbed and posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) later.

The themes are practically impossible to fully pick apart here. It’s a half-hearted class satire where the only message I could come out with is a full indictment of the middle class, where they are evil parasites who will try to destroy the upper class and everything they love.

In the end, “Saltburn” tries to be a dark and provocative satire but it just ends up vapid and dumb, both formally and thematically, and I was left with nothing else but a few visuals I wish I could forget.