Emerald Fennell's highly anticipated adaptation of Emily Brontë's literary masterpiece, Wuthering Heights, arrives on screens with a distinct lack of emotional depth, instead presenting itself as a visually extravagant but ultimately hollow fashion shoot. The film, starring Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, prioritises style over substance, resulting in a campy and often silly reinterpretation that fails to capture the novel's raw passion.
A Superficial Spectacle on the Moors
Fennell reimagines the windswept Yorkshire setting as a backdrop for relentless visual excess. The adaptation is characterised by ripped bodices, saucy BDSM elements, and a general air of theatrical silliness. In one particularly bizarre scene, Margot Robbie's Cathy ventures onto the moor for a moment of self-pleasuring, a departure that highlights the film's shift towards superficial provocation rather than genuine character development.
Characterisations and Casting Missteps
Jacob Elordi's Heathcliff is portrayed as a moody, long-haired outsider, initially resembling a brooding figure of menace before being somewhat 'Darcyfied' later in the narrative, often seen in a perpetually damp, gossamer-thin shirt. Margot Robbie's Cathy is a primped and quivering belle, their dynamic feeling less like a tragic romance and more like a mismatched pairing, described in the review as akin to Scarlett O'Hara melting into the arms of Charles Manson.
Notably, Martin Clunes, playing Cathy's father Mr Earnshaw, manages to steal scenes with a roistering performance, a bright spot in an otherwise misfiring ensemble. The film makes significant alterations to Brontë's original plot, abolishing the character of Hindley and reassigning his destructive traits to the father, while also entirely omitting the novel's second generation storyline.
Narrative Shortcomings and Stylistic Excess
Fennell's version feebly sidesteps the crucial issue of Heathcliff's dark skin, a central element of his otherness in the novel, perhaps hinted at by the arch use of inverted commas around the film's title. The story follows the familiar beats: childhood friendship between Cathy and the adopted Heathcliff, their impossible class-divided love, Cathy's marriage to the wealthy Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), Heathcliff's vengeful return, and a passionate, doomed affair.
However, the treatment is emotionally lightweight. Heathcliff's cruelty towards Isabella Linton (Alison Oliver) is played for laughs, with Isabella portrayed as a consenting submissive. The complex housekeeper Nelly Dean (Hong Chau), literature's queen of unreliable narrators, is present but the film only glancingly addresses her role in the central tragic misunderstanding.
A Departure from Passionate Truth
As the plot accelerates towards its tragic conclusion, the film unleashes a tsunami of tears in a frantically edited, Baz Luhrmann-esque style, resembling an extended music video for its Charli XCX soundtrack. This Wuthering Heights lacks the impactful bite of Fennell's previous works like Saltburn and Promising Young Woman, and stands in stark contrast to Andrea Arnold's flawed but passionately authentic 2011 adaptation.
Ultimately, Fennell's take feels like a luxurious pose of unserious abandon—quasi-erotic, pseudo-romantic, and ersatz-sad. It is a club night of mock emotion, a visually sumptuous but emotionally vacant adaptation that guarantees more bewilderment than bad dreams. The film is scheduled for release on 12 February in Australia and 13 February in the UK and US.
