It was that bathwater scene. The moment that truly tested the boundaries of family movie night. In Emerald Fennell’s much-discussed film, Saltburn, a lavish and provocative thriller set in a grand country estate, my family – myself, my mother, and my father – found ourselves squirming on the sofa. The film, already notorious for its “scenes of a sexual nature,” reached a new level of discomfort when Oliver Quick, played with unsettling intensity by Barry Keoghan, decided to drink the bathwater left behind by the object of his desire, Felix Catton, portrayed by Jacob Elordi. My mother’s reaction was classic avoidance: she grabbed the nearest newspaper and pretended to be engrossed in an article about interest rates. My father, seemingly speechless, stared blankly ahead. And me? I couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer, awkward audacity of it all. We’d definitely been here before as a family when it came to uncomfortable on-screen moments.
Navigating family movie nights with potentially awkward content, as depicted in a lifestyle newsletter.
Anyone who has ever dared to watch something even slightly risqué with their parents knows the feeling. That peculiar mix of embarrassment and morbid curiosity. It’s a universal experience, highlighted recently by the viral story of a woman who was famously ejected from her family’s Christmas Eve gathering for suggesting they watch Saltburn. While I wasn’t banished from the living room, there were definitely audible groans and a fair amount of “argh-no-what-is-he-doing-please-stop-it” moments throughout Saltburn. The infamous grave scene, in particular, comes to mind.
Even setting aside any discussions about director Emerald Fennell’s background, the sheer audacity of Saltburn‘s explicit scenes is undeniable. The film sparked a lively debate among my friends. “People were losing their minds at the cinema,” one friend texted. Another pondered, “Thinking of watching it with my parents, but just how explicit are we talking?” I reassured them, perhaps a little too confidently, that in the grand scheme of family movie night mishaps, Saltburn might actually be relatively tame. This is coming from someone who has endured far more eyebrow-raising cinematic experiences with my parents over the years.
One such experience, ranking high on the list of my childhood movie traumas (despite an otherwise happy childhood), was the fateful night we rented Bad Santa. An innocent-seeming Billy Bob Thornton Christmas comedy from the local video store seemed like a fun Friday night choice for my parents. They were clearly unprepared. As an 11-year-old, I still held onto a flicker of belief in Santa Claus. Bad Santa extinguished that flame rather abruptly. The moment Lauren Graham’s character enthusiastically yells “F*** me Santa!” during a parking lot encounter with Thornton’s St Nick is forever etched in my memory. My mother still visibly cringes when Bad Santa is mentioned. “We were simply not ready for that,” she admits.
Cameron Diaz’s iconic hairstyle in “There’s Something About Mary,” a film known for its memorable and awkward-for-parents scenes.
Other cringe-worthy family movie moments include the lengthy and intense sex scene in Monster’s Ball (a recurring Billy Bob Thornton theme, it seems). Even as a fully grown adult when we watched Halle Berry’s Oscar-winning performance, that scene felt incredibly prolonged and uncomfortable in a parental setting. My younger sister bravely watched the sex-positive sitcom Catastrophe, starring Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney, with my mother when she was eighteen – a true test of familial bonds.
We are certainly not alone in these shared experiences of parental movie-watching mortification. A friend of mine still recoils at the memory of seeing There’s Something About Mary in the cinema with his parents at the tender age of 14. His cinematic ordeal also involved a semen-related scene. The Farrelly brothers’ 1998 comedy, starring Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller, was considered quite outrageous at the time and became instantly infamous for its “do-not-watch-with-parents” sequences. The most notorious of these, of course, is Mary mistaking Ted’s… bodily fluids for hair gel. “As I roared with laughter and then instantly shrunk in my seat,” my friend recounts, “that was precisely when my parents realized I understood what masturbation was. I still recall the look of disappointment in my mother’s eyes as she glanced from my snickering face back to Mary’s comically stiff quiff on the big screen.”
Even further back, my father vividly remembers the excruciating experience of watching Ken Russell’s 1969 romantic drama Women in Love with his own parents. The now-legendary nude wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed was simply too much for a 13-year-old to handle in the company of his parents in 1969 – a truly scandalous moment for the time.
Saltburn Trailer
Almost everyone harbors at least one tale of on-screen sexual awkwardness endured with their parents. It’s practically a rite of passage. So, should you watch Saltburn with your family this holiday season? Perhaps. It’s certainly a conversation starter, and maybe, just maybe, a bonding experience – in a uniquely uncomfortable way. You might just find yourselves laughing about it… eventually. Hopefully. Just be prepared for some newspaper-reading, stunned silences, and a potential early walk for someone. Consider this your Saltburn parents guide: proceed with caution, and maybe have an exit strategy planned.
