Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Brontë’s classic Victorian gothic romance, Wuthering Heights, begins with a provocation. We hear a man grunting and moaning in such a way that can only be presumed as masturbatory. Then, as the image goes from black to visible, we learn that the man in question is a victim of a public hanging. Despite having his neck stretched, he achieves an erection, which is not lost upon the crowd. This opening sequence is presented in an orgiastic fashion, with a sense that the crowd is getting off on the wanton display of capital punishment. It’s a bold statement by Fennell. One that looks the audience in the eye as if to say, “Are you ready for this?”
The film’s title is presented on movie posters in quotation marks. There’s a reason for that. This is not your mother’s Wuthering Heights, and it certainly isn’t Laurence Olivier’s either. Fennell uses Brontë’s novel as a jumping-off point for a tale of class, repression (for a while), longing, and, eventually, dangerous consummation.
We first see our leading characters, Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff, as children. Cathy is to the dilapidating manor born, whereas Heathcliff is an orphan taken into servitude by Cathy’s father (a grotesque Martin Clunes). Mr. Earnshaw is a lout and a brute, only too eager to claim he is neither, while soon proving he is both. Young Cathy (Charlotte Mellington) and Heathcliff (Adolescence’s Owen Cooper) become close and platonic friends. As the two grow older (into Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi), Cathy dreams of marrying well, and Heathcliff dreams of marrying Cathy. In Fennell’s interpretation, Cathy’s desire for Heathcliff doesn’t manifest itself until her friend and servant breaks apart a wooden chair to build a fire to keep her warm. We are led to believe that Heathcliff’s furniture-destroying chivalry results in Cathy’s first stirrings.
Being a Victorian tale, the story revolves around Cathy’s need to secure her future. Her father has frittered away his fortune, and Cathy must marry at a certain level to maintain an aristocratic position. Heathcliff is not the suitor required. Enter Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), a wildly wealthy man only too happy to take Cathy into his largesse. Almost as soon as Cathy commits to “Mister Linton,” Heathcliff takes his brokenhearted leave, only to return five years later, having made his fortune, and seeking the only thing he’s ever really wanted: Cathy.
The first third of “Wuthering Heights” largely lives up to the promise of its lurid first scene. Cathy spies on two servants having a lusty BDSM session. Heathcliff’s manhood, at times, all but bursts through his peasant thread count. The sense of longing between Cathy and Heathcliff is palpable. When Heathcliff returns, the film sets up an explosive, torrid love affair.
A pre-consummation scene shows Heathcliff happening upon Cathy as she masturbates. Unable to achieve release due to the interruption, Cathy is both embarrassed and very, very frustrated. Heathcliff takes Cathy’s fingers into his mouth, arguing against her shame. The scene is erotically charged but creates a promise that the film cannot deliver on. Their affair, however manic, is not all that torrid.
While Cathy and Heathcliff conjugate their loins with great frequency, their often fully-clothed ravishing of one another feels repetitive and overly safe; the last thing anyone would expect from the director of Saltburn. Fennell is a polarizing filmmaker as her first two movies, Promising Young Woman and the aforementioned Saltburn, will attest. Her leap away from the source material isn’t problematic, but however overwrought and radical Fennell intended the film to be, I could not escape the notion that she only went halfway.
Only in the film’s later stretches, when Heathcliff’s anguish turns to cruelty during his depraved conquest of Isabella, Mr. Linton’s sister (a revelatory Alison Oliver), does the film touch the hem of its ambitions. Heathcliff’s cruel “squiring” of Isabella (“Do you want me to stop?”) is the most discomfiting seduction since Willem Dafoe pressed up against Laura Dern in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart.
There are a multitude of additional compensations within “Wuthering Heights.” Tech and craft credits are off the charts. The film should be competitive with Academy Award contenders in cinematography, costumes, makeup, and production design. Hell, Charli XCX’s songs are nowhere near as anachronistic as one might think. More than anything, director of photography Linus Sandgren captures the rugged beauty of the countryside. Nearly every shot could be turned into a still that would fit a high-end museum.
But Sandgren’s outstanding work illuminates the film’s overall issues. “Wuthering Heights” too often plays like a succession of sumptuous set pieces, but the heart is missing. However beautiful Robbie and Elordi are (that is to say, very), when the two most need to connect, the film puts you at a distance. The lack of nuance in the screenplay impacts their performances and even their chemistry. Robbie carries the film on sheer force of will, but the film’s sweeping scope could have used a few quieter, less fraught moments.
I’ve seen four versions of Brontë’s story on film. The Olivier film from 1939 revels in darkness, but doesn’t age well. Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche made a fine Heathcliff and Cathy in a slightly undercooked 1992 take. Best of all was Andrea Arnold’s little-seen 2011 film starring Kaya Scodelario and James Howson. Arnold’s vision of Brontë is grim, grimy, and bracingly realistic. It’s also the rare adaptation in which the gypsy orphan Heathcliff is played by a person of color. Before its release, Elordi’s casting caused a stir and was criticized as “whitewashing.” That mattered less to me because the story of class and forbidden love is still in play regardless of the ethnicity of whoever fills Heathcliff’s boots. It’s worth mentioning that Fennell cast the always terrific Hong Chau as Cathy’s long-suffering servant, and Mr. Linton is played by a Pakistani actor. Fennell isn’t afraid to offend or upset expectations in any direction.
Still, as much as I’d like to recommend this cinematic iteration of Brontë’s most famous work, I can’t quite. Fennell’s film is both too much and not enough. Oddly, when I think of my favorite adaptation of Wuthering Heights, I find myself returning to Kate Bush’s art-pop song from 1978. Bush managed to recreate the drama of Cathy and Heathcliff’s lives in just four and a half minutes. As much effort as was put into Fennell’s two-hour and sixteen-minute film, it falls short of Arnold’s film and Bush’s career-making single. Fennell has made a film about wanting that leaves us wanting.
