Amid a never-ending downpour of criticism from classics enthusiasts and keyboard warriors alike, Emerald Fennell’s so-called adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” released in theaters last Friday. The movie completely disassembles Emily Brontë’s profound work, resulting in a film that is somehow both sexually deviant and entirely lackluster.
It’s no surprise that Brontë’s only novel, first published in 1847, has been stripped down and glossed over a dozen times in film and television — and why wouldn’t it be? Brontë, who was undeniably ahead of her time, tackled themes such as race, classism and revenge with a fervor that feels disturbingly familiar.
It is precisely this discomfort, this refusal to soften its edges, that has made the novel so irresistible to filmmakers — and so vulnerable to misinterpretation. Fennell’s adaptation falls squarely into that trap, trading the aforementioned themes for a marketing ploy that brands the film as “the greatest love story of all time.”
Although Brontë’s work couldn’t be farther from this description, for a world facing an ongoing literacy crisis, Fennell’s interpretation will be exactly what non-book readers are looking for, with historical inaccuracies on full display and an indulgent exploration of eroticism. Fennell placed quotation marks around the film’s title for a reason — this isn’t “Wuthering Heights.” This is fanfiction.
Starring Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as a whitewashed Heathcliff, the film has a cast tailor-made for 13-year-old Wattpad writers across the globe. Though the two feel entirely unconvincing in their roles, they sure are pretty to look at — which is, perhaps, precisely the point.
Elordi sports a hoop earring in the latter half of the film, a supposed symbol of rebellion that carries none of the social pressures Heathcliff experienced in the novel. Robbie, meanwhile, shifts in and out of frame, draped in anachronistic — but undeniably beautiful — red dresses, stripping her character of any characterization at all, instead dumbing her down to merely an aesthetic.
It’s a shame how two of Hollywood’s biggest names were given absolutely nothing to work with in terms of script. The dialogue is both unmemorable and predictable. Any time you think Fennell is going to finally wrestle with an exploration of power, the story is ultimately reduced to a girl choosing between two men. Catherine lusts after one but marries another. It’s as simple as that.
It’s like reading the subject line of an email but never opening it; viewers are presented with ideas on a silver platter, but are never actually given anything to chew on. And when, rarely, there was something of substance, it was inevitably cut short with one sex scene after another. They do it in a carriage. They do it on a table. They grope and grind and stick fingers in mouths, all of which leave viewers skeptical of whether or not Robbie and Elordi had any chemistry in the first place.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Fennell describes how she developed the story by recalling her memories from reading the book as a teenager — as if that wasn’t already obvious.
“It was funny, you know, I think the things that I remembered were both real and not real,” Fennell said. “So there was a certain amount of wish fulfillment in there, and there were whole characters that I’d sort of forgotten or consolidated.”
If there are any positives about this adaptation, it’s that “Wuthering Heights” borrows heavily from the flashiness that defined Saltburn, Fennell’s previous work: hyper-saturated color grading, outstanding production design and several well-placed close-up shots that poke toward the film’s forced intimacy. At least Saltburn was entertaining, however. This project brings nothing new to the table — but maybe it never needed to.
The “Everything is romantic” singer, Charli XCX, even wrote an accompanying soundtrack for the film, which is proof that there is a world where Fennell’s adaptation could break the mold of your everyday period piece. Yet the film only ever uses the viral song “House” featuring John Cale in its entirety. It’s a telling omission; Fennell wants her adaptation to be seen as transgressive, but she never fully commits to this intention. The absence of Charli XCX’s soundtrack becomes one of the clearest examples of hesitation, as boldness is abandoned in favor of playing it safe.
Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” is for the doom scrollers. Those who take things at face value, those who haven’t held a paperback since high school. It is a film designed for passive consumption, rewarding viewers not for their attention but for their recognition. Sure, the names are the same. The setting is the same. The outline, vaguely, remains intact. But the obsession, the cynicism, the very thing that made “Wuthering Heights,” well, “Wuthering Heights,” is nowhere to be found.
Right before the credits roll, Catherine has a miscarriage that results in her death, and Heathcliff arrives too late to save her. You’ll hear sniffling in the theater, but whether it’s in mourning for their relationship or in grief over this failure of an adaptation is up for viewers to decide.
