Reading – Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

So many psychological thrillers advertised on Amazon seem to feature a missing teenage girl and her overwrought mother in their storyline. The blurb on the front cover is always the same, Heartbreaking, Addictive etc. Having read one or two of Jewell’s other books I knew that this would not be a churned-out-for-Kindle disappointment. Then She Was Gone is particularly chilling because it is, in part, narrated by her adductor. of the way then fifteen year old Ellie just appears to disappear off the face of the earth. A conscientious student, she had been gong to the library to study in peace for her GCSEs. There don’t appear to be any sightings, leads or clues as to what happened to her. Then one day, after seven agonising years, her backpack is found along with, sadly, some remains and Laurel, Ellie’s Mum, goes back down the rabbit hole of trying to figure our what happened to her “golden” daughter. There is quite a lot of girls being described as golden in this book.

The stress of Ellie’s disappearance causes Laurel’s marriage to break down and her relationships with her two remaining children suffer. Hannah, Ellie’s sister knows that she is a poor substitute for Lauren’s favourite, now dead, daughter  Laurel meets a flirtatious man called Floyd in a coffee shop and begins a tentative new romance. Her new beau is some sort of maths wizard with his own peculiar fan base. He has a seven year old, horribly precocious, daughter, Poppy, who is home schooled and behaves as though she is thirty-five.

When we learn of Ellie’s fate it is horrifying, in part, because the perpetrator is last person anybody would suspect. The cruelty and selfishness involved is staggering. The thought that we go through life brushing shoulders with people who have such sickening personality traits is terrifying. All in all a bleak page-turner that does perhaps stretch the boundaries of believability.

Watching – Saltburn on Amazon Prime Video written and directed by Emerald Fennell

My daughter saw this at the cinema and when I asked her about it she just said it was weird and that she was glad I hadn’t been watching with her! I quite like weird so decided to watch it over the Christmas break. The title Saltburn refers to the name of the stately home that Felix Catton and his photogenic and enormously rich family reside in. The first thing to mention about this black comedy is that Saltburn is full of dazzlingly beautiful people. Australian actor Jacob Elordi who plays Felix is perhaps this generation’s Robert Pattison with his aristocratic good looks and floppy dark hair. His mother, Elspeth, is played by Rosamund Pike who appears to be doing her best Joanna Lumley impersonation. The father is played in a very understated way by a dishevelled Richard E Grant. 

Felix is a student at Oxford University and catches the eye of Oliver Quick, payed by Barry Keoghan. I had previously seen Keoghan in the utterly bizarre and unsettling film The Killing of a Sacred Deer with Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell. Oliver is definitely not one of the cool, elite, beautiful people and watches the fun and debauchery from the sidelines. Then one day and opportunity presents itself for him to help Felix and Oliver grabs it with both hands. In no time at all he finds himself invited to Saltburn to meet Felix’s family and once there, Oliver certainly makes an impression. He ingratiates himself with Felix’a parents, has a bizarre sexual encounter with his sister, Venetia, and manages to thoroughly usurp a cousin, Farleigh . There are a couple of, quite frankly, nauseating scenes involving blood and bathwater and this film definitely has plenty of shock value. I couldn’t help but note that, as the plot progresses, Oliver is styled to look more and more like Jude Law in one of his most famous roles. My favourite character was Duncan the butler played by Paul Rhys. His disdainful facial expressions really stole the show.

At two hours seven minutes Saltburn is quite long but doesn’t fail to hold the attention. I would have liked to have seen little more of Farleigh’s backstory, he did just seem to be a little bit of an afterthought and Carey Mullgan’s appearance as “Poor Dear Pamela” was far too brief. The end scene, set to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor, is very funny and outrageous. Keoghan does look a little too old to be playing a teenage student but we can overlook that in light of his brilliant performance.

Listening to – Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonald on Itunes

After the rather heavy watching and reading choices I opted for something more light-hearted and fun to listen to this week. Heather McDonald is an American comedian best known for her work on Chelsea Lately which, I must confess, I never watched. She is also known for collapsing in the middle of a stand-up performance just after proclaiming “Jesus loves me the most” as the punchline for one of her jokes (you can watch on YouTube). The conspiracy theorists had a field day with that.

Juicy Scoop is a gossipy pop-culture show which features interesting and usually funny, guests many of them women building their own little empires within the the entertainment industry. There are stories of plastic surgery nightmares, dodgy yet hilarious modelling auditions and glamourous Hollywood parties. Have a look out for the episodes recorded with Heather’s fellow comic and friend, Chris Franjola, perfect for listening to if you just want something to make you laugh.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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