This post first appeared on The Waited on Substack.
I rewatched Saltburn on the flight back from California. I’d downloaded three iPads worth of movies and shows for my kids but somehow convinced myself I would read on the plane (which I never can because my brain cells shrivel up like a water bottle in flight). Luckily I’d downloaded Saltburn for some other trip when I’d had much more reasonable expectations of myself.
Let me tell you: it’s as fun as the first time you watch it. But what I’ve realized from talking to my friends and sisters-in-law since I got back is: many of you haven’t even seen Saltburn once yet.
ou need to change that, trust me. It’s a creepy, funny, sometimes graphic Millennial period piece about a group of college-aged haves and havenots in the early 2000s. And, as you may remember from reading countless reviews of Wuthering Heights earlier this year and even more thinkpieces about those reviews: Saltburn was also made by Emerald Fennell. (There’s less wind in Saltburn, but just as much Jacob Elordi, and maybe even more bodily fluids.)
While we’re talking about films, let me, someone who has never taken a single film studies class, take you on a cinematic journey for a moment.
Starting with Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say there is no movie more important to the elder millennial cinematic universe; it was fun and fast and beautiful and devastating and surprising and cool. It holds a place in my heart so special I’m afraid to rewatch it because there’s a tiny part of me that’s worried it’s not going to hold up. (It will. It has to. Right?) Though I will rewatch it as soon as my kids are old enough to watch it with me. Which will be very soon (for 2/3 of them, at least) because they’re almost as old as I was when Romeo + Juliet came out.
One of my high school best friends brought the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack to school where I distinctly remember sitting in science class (where else?) pouring over the CD liner notes. In my memory we were looking for clues to what the movie would be like because we hadn’t yet seen it. Google tells me in the 90s they did in fact release soundtracks before films as a marketing tactic, so maybe that timeline holds?
Anyway—everything about Romeo + Juliet was perfect. The soundtrack, the costumes, the Claire Danes. And it was all I could think of while I was watching Wuthering Heights. (Well that, and Jacob Elordi.)
Turns out I, who—again—has never taken a film studies class, am not the only one to have spotted similarities between Wuthering Heights and Romeo + Juliet: Interview has a fascinating conversation between Baz Luhrmann and Emerald Fennell. What they don’t mention, though, is Sofia Coppola’s anachronistic masterpiece Marie Antoinette, which I would like to submit for your consideration.
There’s a real through line from Romeo + Juliet to Marie Antoinette to Wuthering Heights: centuries-old source material reimagined through wild visuals and thoroughly modern soundtracks made for what they would have at one point called the MTV generation (RIP).
They all also—and this might be a Wuthering Heights SPOILER! though there is great debate as to whether or not you can spoil a 178-year-old book—end in tragedy.
My friend Verity pointed out Romeo came out in 1996, Marie Antoinette came out ten years later in 2006 and Wuthering Heights was released, as your Instagram algorithm made very clear a few months ago, in 2026. What does this mean? Why did we skip 2016?
Seems like we’re going to have to binge them all to find out.
Worth the Wait
- My book club is reading O Sinners! by Nicole Cuffy, a novel that toggles between two timelines: the Vietnam War and a modern day cult. (My copy is all crinkled from reading it in the hot tub in Palm Springs while my kids fought over an inflatable boat.) Cannot WAIT to have our book club discussion: Is every friendship group a mini cult? If you were to start a cult, what kind would it be? And would you want to lead it? (Too many logistics, I’d imagine!)
- I scroll online vintage shops like some people scroll Instagram. And get a lot of questions about how to find the good stuff. Tess Sullivan of What’s Mine is Yours has said it better than I ever could.
- I’m so excited Canada could become the new Australia. If not in weather and marmite, then at least when it comes to instituting a social media minimum age. You can find a ton of info about why 16 is particularly important—and how we can actually make this all happen!—at Unplugged Canada.
- One of my favourite artists Bayonne has just announced a tour, which sadly does not include a stop in Vancouver (yet?), but if you’re in the States—or London—you’re in luck.
Thanks, y’all!
Kelsey
P.S. Backstreet Boys have announced new summer tour dates and if you’re wondering whether you should go ex-Sphere-ience it for yourself, here’s your answer.
P.P.S. Speaking of modern takes on classic literature… I spoke with Jasmine Sealy, author of the Odyssey-inspired beach read The Island of Forgetting, about loving Heated Rivalry and hating crafting. And you can listen to—or watch!—our conversation right here.
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