“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
The new screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights has already gotten its fair share of criticism from those who have gotten an advanced peek, many of whom have taken issue with writer/director Emerald Fennell’s highly erotic take on the classic novel. The movie’s endless array of dazzling visuals has also been the subject of much criticism, with some suggesting the film is a case of style over substance. Seeing the film last night, I can see why the criticism exists and how it might be echoed by the audience. Some will find Fennell’s take incredibly distasteful, while others will undoubtedly be howling with laughter at the array of outrageous scenes that play out on the screen. It’s a stroke of obvious genius that the movie is being released in time for Valentine’s Day, and if it isn’t the ideal first date movie, it’s for sure a five years into the relationship one. With so much to offer in every single area, Wuthering Heights definitely looks like it has legs and the potential to be a box office hit. The only lingering question remains: Could it possibly be too much?
In this retelling of the classic Emily Bronte novel, Cathy (Margot Robbie), the daughter of a once-prominent family, finds herself torn between her love for the family’s servant Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) and a life with the well-to-do Edgar (Shazad Latif) away from the dwindling ruins that have made up the world she inhabits with her alcoholic father (Martin Clunes). With loyal servant Nelly (Hong Chau) in tow, Cathy marries Edgar, but finds her love for Heathcliff renewed when he disappears for years and eventually returns a wealthy man.
For those who have miraculously missed any of the film’s marketing, there hasn’t been anything so incredibly stylized as Wuthering Heights in quite some time. There isn’t a single inch of this film which hasn’t been meticulously pre-planned in terms of costumes, lighting, set decorations, and musical cues. Yes, I am fully aware that these are all standard concerns for any production, but the extent to which Fennell and her team have delved into these elements is relentlessly exhilarating. Every other frame is so specifically staged that any one of them would be able to double as the cover of a romance novel. You know the kind I mean. Wuthering Heights is the sort of film where costumes and shots are assembled not necessarily to aid in the telling of the story at hand, but to showcase Fennell as a visual artist with this, her most visually arresting effort to date. The touches are everywhere, from a white fireplace made entirely of carved out hands to wallpaper that’s been made to match the skin on Cathy’s face (complete with freckles) to a shot of two mountainous stacks of empty bottles piled high with Cathy’s dead alcoholic father laying in the center to the red and black dress Cathy wears when she confronts Nelly about her betrayal. One would assume this hinders the retelling of this classic tale, but on the contrary, it actually transforms it into a sort of pop opera, complete with a bevy of dramatic scenes, and an intoxicating Charli xcx score.
Plenty of people will (have) quickly label Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights as trash. They’re not too far off. Sure, the film could be called lurid, trashy, and dangerous. It doesn’t seem to be pretending to be anything else. But is the movie coming across that way because it’s actually all of those things, or because we are shocked to see people from this specific era, from this specific world, daring to behave in such a way? Seeing Cathy watch two servants indulge in some S&M-esque activity in the barn, or us watching our heroine masturbate by a rock only to be discovered by Heathcliff who then proceeds to lick her fingers, are sequences not everyone entering the theater will be banking on. Other period dramas have attempted to take things further over the years in such a way, but none have pushed it to the brink that Fennell has here. Her desire to see people of Bronte’s era embrace raw desire is apparent and unending. Watching it, I was reminded of Robert Altman and how he once said he was less concerned with the total precise accuracy of a time period than he was how about how people probably actually behaved during that time. Fennell may be taking things a bit further with Wuthering Heights than Stephen Frears did with Dangerous Liaisons or Sofia Coppola did with Marie Antoinette. But that same curiosity is certainly there in great, mesmerizing abundance.
Robbie continues to prove one of the most fearless and forever watchable actresses on the screen today. Her Cathy is a conflicted heroine caught between eternal petulance and great vulnerability. Robbie plays these two sides with the kind of ease and intensity that make her one of the only actresses today with the capabilities needed to breathe life into one of literature’s most indelible figures. Elordi matches Robbie’s watchability with a smouldering, brooding intensity that makes him both exciting and tragic in his own right. The actor doesn’t just coast on his sexuality, but rather imbues Heathcliff with the kind of fire and determination to rise above his place in life and conquer the only woman he’s ever loved. Out of the rest of the cast, it’s Chau who is the stand out. Tasked with what may be the film’s most deceptively tricky part, the actress plays Nelly as both an ally and a perpetrator, making the most of every minute she’s on the screen.
I’m aware that I haven’t mentioned the nuts and bolts of the romance too much in the course of the review. It’s not because it feels secondary in terms of the many other elements Fennell is juggling all at once. The romance does work and is felt, if for no other reason, because the two leads are good at their jobs, and the original pull of the story (that your one true love can be so close, yet so far out of reach) still has the ability to resonate, no matter what the movie it’s in looks like. But with so much striking imagery in terms of the aesthetics and the characters’ actions, it’s a romance that’s destined to feel back street, both in the context of the film and in the way it’s available for audiences to absorb. It’s almost as if we have to experience it in secret along with Cathy and Heathcliff. We can only feel the romance and the passion when no one is around, and nothing else is happening. This may feel like a negative that’s the result of Fennell favoring style over substance, but in its own way, it binds us to the two doomed lovers even more.
