Wuthering Heights Review
We thought we knew what to expect from Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. Saltburn (2023) and Promising Young Woman (2020) showed us a director with a flair for startling visuals who mixed them vigorously with a distinctive, rebellious style. So news of her take on Emily Bronte’s tale of obsessive love sent anticipation sky high – and, yes, it’s a surprising film. But not in the way you expect.
While the quotation marks around the title are designed to tell us this is not a straightforward adaptation of the 19th-century classic, the film’s narrative stays reasonably close to the original. The young Catherine Earnshaw grows up with Heathcliff as her “adopted brother,” and, although he’s harshly treated as a servant, the two youngsters become inseparable. As they grow up, their feelings grow into something deeper and more adult, but the older Cathy (Margot Robbie) is socially ambitious and agrees to marry wealthy new neighbour Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), prompting a distraught Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) to disappear. When he returns several years later, now a man of substantial means but with anger in his heart, he finds Cathy settled in a life of luxury. An affair between the two is doomed from the start, and Heathcliff takes his vengeance by marrying Edgar’s ward, the naïve and childlike Isabella (Alison Oliver), leaving her in no doubt about what she can expect from their union ……
We’re never introduced to the second part of the novel, with Fennell concentrating on the more familiar storyline but, while it’s nowhere near as restrained as Brontës, this is a Wuthering Heights remarkably lacking in real passion. It’s about ownership, possession and, at best, obsession, while the latter would be expected to generate some heat, the whole experience is distant and cool. There’s none of the ferocity that characterised the director’s previous work, and it permeates the majority of the film. Its origins lie in an unexpected mismatch between Robbie and Elordi. A Hollywood glamour couple, on the face of it, it’s his Heathcliff which comes closest to bringing some intensity to the screen. His presence is powerful and, once again, his uniquely physical style of acting impresses, but there’s much less coming back at him from Robbie. Her Cathy is little more than a spoilt brat, and she is so stilted in the way she delivers her dialogue that everybody, including the audience, is kept at arm’s length. It’s a wonder Heathcliff ever gets near her.
The film delivers when it comes to striking images, with some suitably extravagant set pieces – the bedroom wallpaper inspired by Cathy’s skin is the most heavily stylised – and a to-die-for collection of gowns that wouldn’t look out of place at the Met Ball. But, once again, there’s a strange clash between the adventurous and the conventional: the time spent with the young Cathy and Heathcliff in the early stages of the film is unfussy and nicely performed by the two young actors (Owen Cooper and Charlotte Mellington), while the latter stages have the mandatory gallops across the misty moors. The two approaches regularly bang heads, and it’s as if Fennell can’t quite make up her mind whether she wants to give us a more traditional adaptation or something more in line with her usual bold, if not shocking, style. It inevitably ends up down the hole in the middle.
Ultimately, Wuthering Heights frustrates. By the end, its inconsistencies and oddities make it an eccentric experience, but one without any of the bite that it promised. All that remains is a cold, unemotional feeling, which, given the reputation of the original story, isn’t exactly a welcome surprise. Forget the tissues. You won’t need them.
★★ 1/2
In cinemas from February 13th / Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Martin Clunes, Alison Oliver, Owen Cooper / Dir: Emerald Fennell / Warner Brothers / 15
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