Prime Video Adding Controversial 2023 Movie That's Still in Theaters

A new movie is coming to the streaming giant Prime on Dec. 22, and it's not a holiday flick. Reports surfaced that Emerald Fennell's Saltburn starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, and Rosamund Pike is making its way to the streamer. Per the official description, the film brings us a beautifully wicked tale of privilege and desire. Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family's sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten. It's rated R, and has been controversial since its release. Variety was one outlet to report on the film arriving at Prime, despite the film currently being available in some theaters. 

One of the reasons for some of the controversy was due to a few sexually explicit scenes featuring Koeghan and Elordi. In one scene, Keoghan watches Elordi masturbate in a bathtub, and afterward, is seen licking up Elordi's semen from around the tub's drain. "I was like, 'Thank God, it's mine,'" Elordi told Variety at the film's premiere. "I was very proud. I was very proud to have Barry Keoghan guzzling it like that." There were also several twists and turns in the film.

In a New York Times review, the writer says of the scene: "It's a fine shot that's also an absurd thing to have this guy do. Which is how you know the movie is failing as a good work of trash. I didn't laugh or gape. I just sat there watching an actor do his damnedest to save the rest of the movie before it heads down the drain. Fennell keeps going, though, turning her mild protagonist into someone ripe for the cover of a bodice-ripper: a crafty virgin discovers the lethal weapon of lust.

The reviewer adds: "Fennell had found a way to turn a premise you'd propose at a dinner party or while tipsy in the back of a cab into something tight and mordant: a "rape culture" revenge-o-matic."