Film Review - “Wuthering Heights”
Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
Emerald Fennell took a nearly 400-page masterwork, stripped it of all its themes and turned it into smutty fan-fiction with two hot Australian actors.
When asked what feelings Writer/Director Emerald Fennell wanted to evoke in adapting Emily Brontë’s masterwork Wuthering Heights, Fennell has stated in multiple interviews that she wanted to create the version she imagined when she was 14. After watching the film, it’s clear the version she wanted to see at 14 was simply: “what if Cathy and Heathcliff had sex”. Just like Fifty Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan-fiction, and recently The Idea of You was theorised to be loosely based on Harry Styles, this version of Wuthering Heights is a horny woman’s fantasy. Except the difference in this case, is that Fifty Shades of Grey and The Idea of You did not draw from delicate source material. No one is saying that the Twilight Saga deserves to be respected for its depictions of race, class, and gender dynamics (although it does need to be respected for giving us Charlie and Carlisle).
“Wuthering Heights” is not an adaptation; it is loosely based on the story of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. The quotation marks around the film’s title are doing god’s work. Why the film was titled “Wuthering Heights” at all (even with quotation marks), is confusing and suspicious. It is suspicious because it seems like everyone making the film knew this was not the Wuthering Heights of the book, and instead maybe the aim here was to generate conversation and piss off ‘BookTok’. In fact, the film expertly dog whistles to a chronically online generation. Just like Saltburn, Fennell relies on hashtags to cement the film’s cultural relevance (#bathwater). She knows what will grab an audience’s attention, but lacks the ability to grab their mind and have them thinking long after the film is over. Fennell has mastered the ability to pluck on the heartstrings of a generation with a lost ability to detect nuance. In multiple moments throughout the film, Fennell tells you exactly how you should feel. In one scene, Heathcliff literally tells Isabella Linton that he’s only sleeping with her to make the love of his life, Catherine, jealous (if that wasn’t obvious enough from the entire first act of the film).
At best, “Wuthering Heights” is a wonderfully shot art film. Linus Sandgreen’s cinematography paired with Suzie Davies’ production design and Jacqueline Durran’s costumes is simply breathtaking. Every individual shot is a piece of art. The final scene where Elordi runs up the staircase to find Robbie is a visual masterpiece. If you could put the film on mute and forget the source material, it is a work of genius. However, that is unfortunately not the case for “Wuthering Heights”. The story is bland and lifeless without the context of intergenerational trauma, and the romance between Cathy and Heathcliff is devoid of any of the tension that is palpable in the novel. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi have the chemistry of brother and sister (which is quite befitting given their characters’ upbringings). However, for a film that is meant to ooze sex, I felt nothing. I’d even say Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan had better chemistry in Fifty Shades of Grey, and that’s saying something.
So, what exactly was the point of making the film?
In an interview with W Magazine, Fennell was asked what she wanted to say in her adaptation that was different from those that came before: “It’s vast, the book. It covers generations. It’s at odds with itself. It changes depending on the time of day that you read it. It was like looking at a Shakespeare play or Milton’s epic poems. I could only take my experience of it and try to translate it.”
Yes, that’s her answer. The book is so vast and in depth, that she simply made a palatable version for her 14-year-old self.
If you look at “Wuthering Heights” through this lens, then a lot of Fennell’s creative decisions make sense. Erasing the racial undertones of the book by making Heathcliff white, makes sense. Removing the character Hindley makes sense. Removing the film’s narrator Mr Lockwood makes sense. Removing the story’s entire second half makes sense. Making Heathcliff and Cathy go at it like dogs, instead of building the tension between these characters makes sense.
With all of the nuance of the story removed, all we are left with is a toxic romance between two hot Australian actors. It’s Bridgerton with world-class cinematography and a funky soundtrack by Charli XCX. And perhaps, it’s what we deserve.
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“Wuthering Heights” is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.