“Wuthering Heights” Review

Emerald Fennell’s "Wuthering Heights" Adaptation Is More Lust Than Literature

By: Marc Kozak

“Wuthering Heights”

Emerald Fennell’s "Wuthering Heights" Adaptation Is More Lust Than Literature

By: Marc Kozak

Adapting any great work of literature seems like a bit of a fool’s errand. There can often be solid rationale behind making an attempt, but it’s worth remembering that most classics stand the test of time for a reason. Making large changes to the source material will not only instantly upset much of the audience inclined to be interested in the adaptation, but it risks eliminating aspects of the story that people connected to in the first place. If enough changes are made, you start to wonder if it can even be called an adaptation at all; it may as well be an entirely new story.

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is rightly canonized as one of the greatest novels in the English language and has fascinated millions of readers since its publication in 1847. One of those readers is Emerald Fennell, director of outrageous, shock-heavy psychological thrillers like Promising Young Woman (2020) and Saltburn (2023). The announcement that Fennell was working on a film adaptation of Wuthering Heights caused quite a bit of eyebrow scrunching, as her past work did little to suggest she’d be a logical choice for such a project. Things started to become a bit clearer when it became apparent that Fennell would be applying a heavy dose of her own signature style to the story, which included the controversial casting of the Australian (and very white) Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, a character described in the book as a "dark-skinned gipsy." Advertising for the movie made liberal use of the phrase “greatest love story of all time,” which seemed like a strange way to describe a story that isn’t exactly heavy on romance. Needless to say, people were concerned.

Fennell, to her credit or to her detriment (depending on who you ask), seems all too aware of the challenges that come with adapting such a work. "The thing for me is that you can't adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book,” she said in an interview with Fandango. “I can't say I'm making Wuthering Heights. It's not possible. What I can say is I'm making a version of it.”

For those expecting and/or desiring a faithful translation of the book to the big screen, that quote probably caused physical illness. It’s clear Fennell wasn’t interested in a straight adaptation, and therefore many dedicated readers found their interest shot before the movie even came out. On the other hand, there have been hundreds of Wuthering Heights adaptations in various forms of media since its publication, including 16 movies and at least 19 made for television. Why shouldn’t Fennell or anyone else take their own liberties with it at this point? If you’re looking for a straight adaptation, there are plenty of others to choose from.

" There are a lot of words and feelings to sort through before even getting to the movie itself, which is, sadly, not nearly as interesting as the conversation surrounding it. "

So that’s a lot of words and feelings to sort through before even getting to the movie itself, which is, sadly, not nearly as interesting as the conversation surrounding it. Fennell’s version is light on the subtleties and interpersonal relationships that make the book so engaging, instead choosing to play things as a forbidden romance more in the vein of Romeo and Juliet (which is literally discussed in the movie itself). There is a great deal of kissing, sex, innuendo, and even more kissing, none of which was found in the novel. None of it is particularly shocking, provocative, or – its biggest sin – all that hot, and in many instances, the more physical stuff seems like it was thrown in for no other reason than cheap thrills.

If you’re somehow not familiar with the story, here’s a ridiculously high-level, one paragraph recap. Heathcliff (Elordi) is an orphan brought to the estate of Wuthering Heights, and raised alongside his adoptive sister, Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie). The pair are inseparable for years and form a deep and passionate bond, which is eventually broken when Catherine decides that she needs to marry for status and money, scorning Heathcliff and marrying Edgar Linton, the wealthy but super boring head of a much more successful nearby family. The scorned Heathcliff is driven to leave the estate, only to return years later with newfound money and a burning desire to enact revenge on the entire Earnshaw and Linton families.

Most complaints you’re going to hear about this movie relate to the many ways in which it differs from the book. There is no getting around it – Fennell altered a lot of stuff. For starters, the entire second half of the book is omitted. Hindley Earnshaw, the brother of Catherine and a large source of Heathcliff’s desire for revenge in the novel, isn’t in the movie at all. Major changes are made to the behavior and motivations of Nelly Dean (Hong Chau), the long-time servant of the Earnshaw family. In probably the biggest change, Catherine and Heathcliff have a prolonged physical affair where they basically make out and have a ton of sex for seemingly weeks on end – again, not at all in the book.

Are any of these changes good? It’s hard to say – they are more in line with the story that Fennell seems to want to tell, which is more focused on the physical longing and doomed love affair between two characters that could’ve ended up together but were driven apart by foolish pride and class envy. It ends up being an incredibly simple tale (again, not anything someone would say about the book), and one that only pays the slightest bit of attention to the thematic material of its source.

And then there’s the sex stuff. It’s honestly nowhere near as shocking as the pre-release hype and the director’s previous work may have suggested. In fact, it’s pretty tame. There is a very light (and pointless) scene of BDSM between a maid and the servant Joseph (who is inexplicably young, handsome, and not all a religious man like his book counterpart). Some fingers get stuck in a few inanimate objects (complete with wet sound effects) that resemble body parts, but that’s really it. Elordi has his shirt off a few times, but his scenes with Robbie are PG-13 at best. If anything, the biggest provocative moments belong to Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton, in a bizarre twist of a character that had no agency in the book. Isabella, who Heathcliff marries only to spite Catherine, is portrayed here as someone who is totally into the punishment that her husband routinely gives her, gleefully doing whatever is asked of her, including being chained up to the wall and barking like a dog. It’s treated as mostly comic relief (and is admittedly often quite funny) and Oliver steals most of the scenes she’s in, but it’s hard to see this version of the character as an improvement.

Elordi and Robbie are two very talented and extremely attractive actors, but they don’t exactly set the screen on fire when they are together on screen. Their affair is much more exhausting than alluring, and their interactions end in yelling or crying more often than not. The music does a lot of the emotional heavy lifting, as Charli XCX (who recorded an entire album for the soundtrack) and composer Anthony Willis manage to heighten the drama with their soaring and string-heavy compositions. The respective estates look fantastic, as cinematographer Linus Sandgren makes the titular Wuthering Heights appropriately wuthering, with thick fog and pouring rain, whereas the Linton estate is resplendent in colors and sunshine. There are quite a few simply beautiful shots of valleys in the English countryside, and some particularly stunning images that result from Robbie wandering the hills in her wedding dress.

If you’ve never read the book or are able to completely detach yourself from it, Emerald Fennell’s "Wuthering Heights" is a slightly salacious but fairly standard story about two lovers destined to miss out on a happy life together. It looks and sounds great, it has talented and good-looking actors, and it’s a decent time at the movies. For everyone else, your enjoyment will likely depend on how much you are able to deal with the numerous changes Fennell has made, and if your disappointment over said changes completely overwhelms your ability to enjoy the movie for what it is.