Director: Emerald Fennell
Writers: Emerald Fennell, Emily Brontë
Stars: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau
Synopsis: A passionate and tumultuous love story set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire moors, exploring the intense and destructive relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw.
It pains me to say, but not nearly as painful as sitting through the latest adaptation of Wuthering Heights, that Emerald Fennell’s latest film is a misfire on several levels. When a film reinterprets a classic work through a different lens, it challenges the audience’s moral norms and expectations. When handled the right way, a filmmaker can deepen the already established thematic impact of the source material.
However, Fennell doubled down on the boundaries she pushed with last year’s Saltburn, which makes the impact feel manipulative and, in particular, hollow. Which is a shame, since Fennell, a gifted filmmaker, has two stars in the leads, but the effort that leaves the audience feeling exploited instead of illuminated. This Wuthering Heights is reduced to “gotcha” flash and sex appeal, a vapid romp with little to build on the classic work.
Perhaps most damning, Fennell’s interpretation feels troublingly disconnected from the present moment.
The movie begins with some cheap shock value, showing a man, we think, committing suicide by hanging. That’s before we are forced to assume that there is some serious bed-springy lovemaking going on. Young Catherine (Charlotte Mellington) watches the public execution, witnessing the victim’s “angel lust.” She lives with her father, Mr. Earnshaw (Shakespeare in Love’s Martin Clunes), in a mansion that has seen better days.
Catherine’s father is a world-class alcoholic who brings home a young boy, telling Catherine to meet her new pet. The young lad (Adolescence’s Owen Cooper) has no name, so Catherine calls him “Heathcliff,” after her dead brother. Taking care of the children, probably because if alcohol-soaked Mr. Earnshaw stands near a fire, he may burst into flames, is Nelly (Showing Up’s Hong Chau), a household maid jettisoned to a career of service because she is the out-of-wedlock child of a nobleman.
Yes, the first act is a provocative setup intended to create cognitive dissonance. The young orphan continues to take beatings for Catherine, even when he had nothing to do with them. Years later, Catherine (Margot Robbie) is married, but has an affair with Heathcliff (Frankenstein’s Jacob Elorbi) when he returns years later. Here, it is interesting to see Catherine treated like a doll, a piece of property, but you can easily see how Heathcliff was treated as a “pet” and as property of the Earnshaw estate.
Fennell burst onto the scene with Promising Young Woman, a bold, provocative, and timely thriller that was so original and audacious we had never seen anything quite like it. Her third film, often a career peak for most filmmakers, tests whether she has lasting legs. For instance, Fennell reframes the material without recontextualization. Why take the time to show examples of Catherine’s inherited trauma through erotic shock imagery without real consequences?
When the film shifts into adulthood, the emotional wounds feel generational, like rocks forming on the bed of a rushing river. This is used to intensify the romance, a toxic passion that frames trauma as an aesthetic. Still, you cannot deny the exceptional chemistry between Robbie and Elorbi, in the way that two beautiful, horny people have when they hardly have the choice of free will in their own lives.
However, without that emotional connection that forms the bond, there is no reason to believe there is a deeper connection beyond the physical. That is an insult to Emily Brontë’s 1847 classic work. This Wuthering Heights withers under a leering eye instead of a symbiotic one, forgetting the genuine intimacy underneath all the feral intensity.
You can watch Wuthering Heights exclusively in theaters starting February 13th!
