‘Wuthering Heights’ Review: A Beautiful Film That Doesn’t Feel Like an Attempted Adaptation
3.5/5 gothic romances
Sometimes, you watch a film and wish the creative just decided to make an original film and that’s where I’m at with Wuthering Heights. The Emerald Fennell adaptation feels less like Emily Brontë’s work and more like a fanfiction take on Heathcliff and Catherine.
Catherine (Margot Robbie) and her doomed connection with Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) is a textbook definition of a gothic romance in the book. Fennell’s adaptation leans heavily into the “romance” side of that idea and adds a romantic twist to the story that doesn’t really exist within Brontë’s work. There is a desperation and a kiss between the two in the novel but it is not the sex filled affair that Fennell presents to the audience.
There is something truly captivating about this adaptation of “Wuthering Heights.” The lack of care over the period put me at a weird sense of ease. I knew that this wasn’t going to be a “textbook” adaptation and for the most part, I was fine with that and along for the ride. But there is also a glaring issue through this adaptation of Brontë’s most famous work.
The reaction and hatred towards Heathcliff in the novel based on the color of his skin is something undeniable. While many scholars believe that Heathcliff is meant to be of Romani descent, the fact that he is a man of color is an important part of his relationship with Catherine. In Fennell’s adaptation, she has not only ignored that aspect of Heathcliff but then cast both Nelly (Hong Chau) and Edgar (Shazad Latif) as two actors of color. In the world of Wuthering Heights, those two characters are often the two who are racist towards Heathcliff.
In Fennell’s adaptation, that dynamic is obvious absent. Instead, Nelly’s anger feels only rooted in her own fear of loneliness.
This generation’s Atonement
While acknowledging the issues present within Wuthering Heights, this does feel like it will ignite film fans in the way that Atonement did for my generation. I remember sitting in school with my friends, reading Ian McEwan’s novel, and then going to the theater to see the Joe Wright adaptation. While that adaptation was a lot more faithful to the source material, it does have the ill-fated love story feel that this Wuthering Heights has.
Again, I think Fennell made a beautiful film. I don’t know that it is a good adaptation of Brontë’s in anyway shape or form. Which brings me back to my original thought about this take on Wuthering Heights: I wish it was Fennell’s own original gothic romance.
I am generally a fan of Fennell. I love both Promising Young Woman and Saltburn. Both are her takes on specific genres and they both work incredibly well. I wish that Wuthering Heights was part of that trend. Simply because this feels like Fennell’s own idea of what a gothic romance would be and using a very popular name within the genre to get there.
You will want Jacob Elordi to pick you up by the corset
There were moments where I found myself lost in what story Fennell was telling. Yes, I had to shut the part of my brain off that knows Wuthering Heights (and I am not a scholar on the novel) to do so but I did find myself captivated. Robbie and Elordi manage to bring the romance of this film to life in a way that will deliciously torment its audience.
Call it a short girl syndrome but there is something incredibly sexy about a taller man having to pick up a smaller woman to almost kiss her. So yes, I was obsessed with Elordi’s Heathcliff picking up Robbie’s Cathy by the corset to get as close to her as possible.
It is a conflicting feeling
Whenever I think on Wuthering Heights, I am conflicted. I do think that Fennell made an absolutely breathtaking film. But it is barely an adaptation. It is essentially someone’s thoughts on Wuthering Heights if they read it once and forgot a lot of the important beats of it. Which is why, prior to seeing it, I thought it was going to be a woman’s “idea” of Wuthering Heights. And in a way, it is. But it leans more towards an actual adaptation than something different.
So judging this movie as an “adaptation” means that I do think it failed there. Fennell ignores the important racial undertones of Heathcliff’s arc to, instead, paint a more twisted and doomed romance that doesn’t exist within the novel.
But if we are to judge it as a piece of fiction that is an adaptation of a novel that we don’t have to adapt page for page, I think Fennell created a captivating film that is erotic and fascinating to watch. I just really wish it was her own idea and not what is an attempt to adapt something that she planned to leave a lot out of.
It is a worthwhile film to watch, especially for fans of this genre. But if you’re going in looking for the most faithful adaptation of Wuthering Heights, you won’t find that here.
(featured image: Warner Bros.)
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