Emerald Fennell’s new interpretation of the beloved novel is its own beast.
A confession upfront: I have never read Wuthering Heights. Going into the latest adaptation, the third film from Oscar-winning writer-director Emerald Fennell, I was blind as to what to expect. I had heard of Heathcliff, and how he was the archetypal Gothic romance anti-hero. But precisely what qualified him as such was a total mystery. I went in blind, only knowing it was Regency romance story that was put through Fennell’s hyperbolic, hypersexual prism.
Having come out the other side of both seeing the film and reading a synopsis of the source material, I can safely say that the new Wuthering Heights is maybe best experienced in that mindset. It bears resemblance to the Emily Bronte novel in mostly superficial ways, and it essentially cuts off the story at the midway point. Fennell has admitted to such, saying that to expect anyone to adapt the sprawling, multi-generational tale in one film is an impossible task. There is a reason the logo treatment for the new film exists within quotation marks. It is perhaps better to think of it as a story inspired by the novel, in the same way 50 Shades of Grey was “inspired” by Twilight. Anyone expecting a straight adaptation of the novel is going to be greatly disappointed.
But that comparison is less kind than intended. The ideas that Fennell is exploring aren’t without merit, and many of them are baked into the original Gothic novel. More pointedly, it perfectly plays into the subjects of Fennell’s previous films, Promising Young Woman and Saltburn. It is a story of power, wealth, sex and desire all colliding and leaving destruction in their wake. What Fennell sees in the Bronte novel is the scandal and melodrama, the soapy excess, and she extracts that and explodes it within her own film language. It is an overwhelming, unhinged story of romance and violence, anchored by performances that are keyed into the precise pitch that Fennell is attempting.
Fennell centers her telling on Catherine Earnshaw, the heiress to the titular Wuthering Heights estate. Her father (played with chaotic menace by Martin Clunes) is a degenerate gambler and drunk, who one day brings home a boy of unknown origin. He is named Heathcliff by Catherine, and the two soon form a close bond. Heathcliff even allows himself to be physically punished in Catherine’s place. It becomes clear that Heathcliff develops feelings beyond sibling closeness to Catherine as they mature, which Catherine in turn is more than happy to take advantage of.
As they grow up, they mature into being Margot Robbie and Jacon Elordi, a recipe for disaster. As Catherine’s estate falls into further disrepair due to her father’s misbehavior, she eventually finds herself forced into a scenario where she feels she must marry Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif, giving an all-timer Baxter performance), who is newer money one estate over. But only after confessing she also loves Heathcliff and is aggrieved she can’t marry him. Overhearing this confession, Heathcliff flees, only cementing Catherine’s need to marry Edgar.
Eventually Heathcliff returns, now moneyed and carrying a new darkness around him. When he realizes that Catherine won’t immediately leave her marriage for him, he decides to stick around, seducing and psychologically torturing her. The pair soon begin a very R-rated affair, which includes a copious amount of fingers in other people’s mouths and, inexplicably, sitting on eggs.
As is often the case with Fennell’s films, everything is pitched at a very specific heightened state. The end result is chaotic and often comedically unsettling; when Edgar reveals that he has remodeled Catherine’s bedroom in his estate, he is most proud of the walls that have been modeled after the skin of her face, freckles and veins included. Edgar’s estate in general is where the set design goes from era-appropriate if slightly Hollywood elevated, so unfiltered fever dream.
This energy also bleeds into the performances. Margot Robbie at the center of movie is a flurry of contradiction as Catherine. At times cruel, at times tortured, she always remains a melodramatic mess. She is objectively a monstrous elite who wields her affections to get what she wants, but she is also funny and clever and it’s difficult to not find yourself rooting for her. Similarly Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff grows up stoic and abused, but once he has the upper hand is merciless and vindictive. Just like in last year’s Frankenstein, Elordi’s dominating presence is a special effect unto its own, especially when he forcefully domineers Robbie. This is a romance about two broken people, who share a very specific mixture of privilege and psycho-sexual trauma.
The rest of the cast is filled out with equally captivating performances. Hong Chau plays Nelly, Catherine’s confidant and servant who has known her since childhood, with a sort of quiet resentment always waiting to bubble to the surface. Shazad Latif embodies the quiet, well-meaning loserdom of Edgar with quiet dignity, especially as he has to assert himself against the much more physically imposing Heathcliff. The biggest scenestealer however is Alison Oliver as Isabela, Edgar’s ward who is both cheerfully quirky and secretly maybe the movie’s biggest freak.
Almost certainly “Wuthering Heights” will be an annoyance to Bronte purists; it takes the basic bones of the story and wraps them around a totally new soap opera, one that almost gleefully plays more to prurient interests than romantic ones. It is a movie that deals with how repression only heightens hunger, and how denial of those desires make them all that much more decadent once they are fed. It has more in common with being the next Emerald Fennell film than it does with being an adaptation of the novel.
If you can separate the two in your mind, Fennell’s version stands as a tawdry, often darkly funny story of desire and betrayal, played by beautiful people operating at the height of their ability. As an adaptation, it may raise more questions than answers, but still plays into Fennell’s filmmaking identity as a prankster and imp. Either way, it’s a naughty little bit of cinema, and one that consistently invites you to gawk, judge and soak in Fennell’s decadent world. Just be careful or you might drown in it.
