You’ll be sorely disappointed if you pick up Wuthering Heights after this. Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel is a slow read with an out-of-time atmosphere, really one of the most virginal and repressed romance stories of all time. That’s not something I picked up on myself as a child, but reading as an adult, you’re like, All this drama—aren’t they even going to make out?
Emerald Fennell’s new film rendition—officially titled “Wuthering Heights” in scare quotes—drags, too, which is surprising, since her adaptation retells the story with fanfic gusto by making its emotional subtext as explicit and viscous as possible. The unconsummated love and undying obsession between Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie) and her unruly adopted brother Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi)? Well, they’re grown and fucking. The novel’s heavy psychosexual undertones and implied intergenerational trauma? It’s right out there in the open, wearing bondage gear. It’s not a bad idea. Fennell’s approach opens up an endless well of drama and symbolism, which she plumbs for an imaginative and overwrought movie with the sumptuous swag of high period drama and the garish flair of Melania Trump’s Christmas.
In an era of instant gratification and few taboos, how to represent an antique story so entirely conditioned on denial and restraint? Fennell’s screenplay strips out the story-within-a-story structure, sidelines major characters, and simplifies the multi-generational plot—all regular book adaptation stuff. These also happen to be the distinct formal characteristics of Wuthering Heights, qualities that make it a peculiar, multifaceted historical novel and not a more straightforward bodice ripper with shades of the step-siblings on PornHub. The first time Catherine and Heathcliff almost hook up on screen is legitimately crazy hot, and it sets a high bar for their would-be physical chemistry that nothing in the next hour-plus will ever touch. “Wuthering Heights” is tediously long, and the acting is not strong enough to carry this outright irrational love story, even if it does kind of make more sense now that they’re finally getting some.
Thank God for Catherine’s faithful servant Nelly (Hong Chau), who, even with a small role in the film’s plot, is the only actor here with a meaningful grasp of emotional subtlety. These star-crossed romantic leads are tragically miscast: Robbie’s authentically wholesome aspect suits the role of a grown-up little Catherine, but as Cathy, the bitter and unpredictable adult, she’s missing the character’s volatile psychic wrongness, what the critic Elizabeth Hardwick referred to as “the charm of a wayward schizophrenic girl.” Complaining she’s too old for the part is a distraction from Elordi, the real problem here. Elordi is passable in his grungy younger iteration and ludicrous as the adult Heathcliff, back from his glow-up like a looksmaxxing skincare influencer wearing a cunty little earring. With the beard shaved, it’s suddenly apparent he doesn’t have enough facial expressions to carry enduring torment and eternal vengeance—he barely even looks mad.
And like Fennell’s Saltburn, “Wuthering Heights” spends way too long being decorative, stranding us in the decadent scenery and blood-red walls at moments when another director would have sought stronger performances or more interesting camerawork. The drama is dull and unconvincing, and then you have to laugh: Past Wuthering Heights adaptations are rarely much fun (“Take care not to smile at any part of it,” after all), but in service of unsettling the vibe, Fennell gets very silly with it. We are aware that Cathy is aware that her jewelry is comically huge. To explain the plush sets, the neighboring Linton family becomes velvet manufacturing royalty. Heathcliff’s chest is so manly that it’s constantly filling the screen. And in one of Fennell’s wildest edits, pure-hearted girl next door Isabella Linton (Alison Oliver) becomes a scary-horny savant à la Emma Stone in Poor Things, with a fabulous voodoo dollhouse and a questionably consensual taste for S&M. She’s so annoying and she’s my favorite part—the only stuff in the movie that feels as delightfully perverse as I imagine it would be to witness the Victorian mind behold any of this.
