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Wuthering Heights Review
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
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Directed By: Emerald Fennell
Written By: Emerald Fennell; Based on the novel by Emily Brontë
Runtime: 136 minutes
MPA Rating: Rated R for sexual content, some violent content, and language
Margot Robbie – Catherine Earnshaw
Jacob Elordi – Heathcliff
Hong Chau – Nelly Dean
Shazad Latif – Edgar Linton
Allison Oliver – Isabella Linton
Martin Clunes – Mr. Earnshaw
Ewan Mitchell – Joseph
Charlotte Mellington – Young Catherine
Owen Cooper – Young Heathcliff
Vy Nguyen – Young Nelly
Promising Young Woman and Saltburn director Emerald Fennell adapts Emily Brontë’s seminal novel to the screen in Wuthering Heights. However, whereas Brontë’s novel is a dark, gothic tale of obsession, revenge, exploring themes of racism, class, and generational trauma in 19th-century England, Fennell opts instead to focus on the obsessive, toxic romance between its two lead characters.
The quotations around the title, “Wuthering Heights”, are intentional stylization. This isn’t Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. It’s Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”. But is Fennell successful in taking ownership of her version, interpreting Brontë’s dark and tragic tale into a deeply harrowing romance? Unfortunately, that is not the case.
In 18th-century England, the Earnshaw family’s drunken, abrasive patriarch, Mr. Earnshaw (Clunes), takes the young and destitute boy into his home. Catherine quickly takes to the lad, naming him Heathcliff, after her late older brother. Her father approves, allowing her daughter to use him to her whims as her new pet.
Through their youth, Heathcliff and Catherine bond, with Heathcliff protecting Catherine from abusive rebukes from her father. As they grow into young adults, the Earnshaws’ estate grows further into dilapidated disrepair through his gambling debts and deteriorating mental state. Of course, when the rich and affluent Edgar Linton (Latif) moves into the neighboring estate, Thrushcross Grange, the now adult Catherine (Robbie) sees an opportunity for potential courtship and to improve her status, despite her genuine love for Heathcliff (Elordi).
Eventually, Linton pursues Catherine’s hand in marriage. Although Catherine orchestrated and desired this outcome, she appears hesitant due to her feelings for Heathcliff. However, due to the manipulations of Catherine’s lady-in-waiting, Nelly (Chau), Elordi learns of the marriage proposal and flees from Wuthering Heights.
Several years later, Catherine is living in a dull marriage with Linton and his flighty, dimwitted ward, Isabella (Oliver), and Heathcliff returns, after acquiring a fortune and purchasing Catherine’s childhood estate. Despite the social restrictions, Heathcliff and Catherine can no longer resist the allure of their lustful passion. Unfortunately, they live in a time where their status and social norms prevent them from loving whom they wish, and their wanton romance might prove to be their undoing.
Fennell’s chief goal in adapting Brontë’s novel focuses more on fashioning the story into a single-minded, bodice-ripping romance, sans any actual bodice ripping. Fennell is less concerned about exploring themes of general trauma and classism and more about turning up the heat between Heathcliff and Catherine, as two magnetic forces who cannot resist their sexual pull toward one another.
However, for all of Fennell’s posturing about focusing on the story’s “sadomasochistic” elements, those aspects in the movie appear rather tame and dialed down. “Wuthering Heights” is an R-rated, breathy romance movie where the clothes stay on. Despite Fennell’s reputation for edgy and risque content, the most provocative moments from the film come not from the sex scenes, but from extreme close-ups on cracked egg yolks, kneaded dough, or a snail sliding across a window. The almost overt imagery clearly alludes to Heathcliff and Catherine’s carnal activities.
By focusing on Catherine and Heathcliff’s mutual lust for their taboo relationship, Fennell loses sight of Brontë’s text and classic themes. It becomes more of a story about two unlikable, toxic people engaging in an erotic chess game, waiting to see who will “come undone” first.
Much has been made about Elordi’s casting as Heathcliff, and the whitewashing of a character who was intentionally written as a person of color in Brontë’s book. Meanwhile, Fennell opts for colorblind casting with the supportive cast, with Pakistani-British actor Shaazad Latif portraying Catherine’s suitor and later husband, Edgar Linton, and Vietnamese actress Hong Chau as Catherine’s lady-in-waiting, Nelly Dean.
The issue the casting presents is that in Brontë’s novel, Heathcliff’s race and skin color become a major part of his upbringing and abuse during his youth. The character is poorly treated and socially ostracized for his race, denied education, and mistreated by others. As a result of his mistreatment, Heathcliff becomes a vengeful and awful person, returning the same cruelty that was put upon him, even toward others who do not deserve it. It enhances Heathcliff’s complexity and tragic nature, showing how racism and classism create a cycle of multi-generational trauma of further abuse and cruelty.
The production’s casting of Elordi as Heathcliff, along with the colorblind casting for Edgar and Nelly, represents a microcosm for commercial Hollywood progressivism. On one hand, Hollywood likes to appear forward-thinking, progressive, modern, and racially tolerant. Hollywood studios will often take victory laps and pat themselves on the back for diverse casting for roles that do not specify persons of color. However, when a genuine opportunity arises to cast a person of color in the role of a big-budget Hollywood adaptation of a classic literary work, who was actually written in the original text as a person of color, Hollywood executives get cold feet, reverting to old entertainment industry habits that have sadly endured for over a century.
Despite the movie’s emphasis on their ill-fated romance, Elordi and Robbie display sparking chemistry onscreen. They appear and sound believable when the tension heats up between them. Unfortunately, the movie grows far too long and dull by dragging out the tale’s inevitable conclusion, which ruins multiple lives in the process.
Latif portrays a thankless role in Edgar Linton. He’s portrayed as little more than a feckless cuckold, who cannot even comprehend his wife’s affair transpiring right under his nose. The character lacks any genuine agency throughout the film, other than portraying an affluent man who delivers Catherine from her father’s declining household into an opulent life of luxury. Latif does well with the material he’s given, but it’s an underdeveloped role.
However, Edgar’s home looks like a low-key horror show with its garish decor. He designs the walls of his wife’s room to resemble her skin, which he obviously finds to be beautiful and appealing. What person wants to sleep in a room with padded walls meant to resemble the veins and freckles of your skin? It’s downright horrific. Fennell’s depiction of Edgar and Catherine’s relationship makes it understandable why she finds Heathcliff irresistible, due to feeling romantically and sexually unfulfilled, with her kind, yet milquetoast, husband.
Alison Oliver and Hong Chau deliver the movie’s most entertaining and layered performances, respectively. Oliver portrays Isabella, now Linton’s ward instead of his biological sister, with a naive mirth. At first, she is portrayed as a spacey dimwit who eventually discovers her own sense of lust in Heathcliff’s presence. Sadly, she becomes an unwitting pawn in Heathcliff and Catherine’s twisted game due to her inept personality.
Isabella emerges, unintentionally or not, as one of the story’s most pitiable and sympathetic characters, in the way that she’s used and exploited by both Catherine and Heathcliff. Oliver embraces Isabella’s naive amusement, providing some of the movie’s more humorous moments.
Chau provides one of the more fascinating performances as Nelly, a character who commits acts of unfortunate manipulation and selfishness. However, Nelly’s behavior and manipulations never appear to be cruel acts of malice, but actions born out of necessity for survival. She’s one of the few characters who appears to reinforce Brontë’s themes, someone who merely acts and becomes a product of their upbringing in a cruel and unfair world. Additionally, the way the plot executes Nelly’s pushing of Catherine toward Linton lacks sufficient effect.
To the production’s credit, although Fennell fails to tap into the core of Brontë’s text and themes, the movie does look impressive, moody, and lavish. Oscar-winning cinematographer Linus Sandgren impressively lenses the film with aplomb, making the misty Yorkshire Moors and the estates of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange look eerily magical and otherworldly.
Production designer Suzie Davies and costume designer Jacqueline Durran certainly achieve some impressive feats with their work as well. The sets enhance the gothic style and mood, and the costumes are all satisfyingly unique, from the more formal wear to the flowing gowns. The world of “Wuthering Heights” looks wonderfully imaginative, even though the story and execution are lacking.
Where To Watch Wuthering Heights
“Wuthering Heights” arrives in theaters on February 13. Ticket and showtime information are available on the movie’s website.
