Written and Directed by Emerald Fennell, adapting the novel by Emily Brontë | 136 min | ▲▲▲ | In Cinemas
I’m blessed by having never read the Brontë novel, so have none of the preciousness (or maybe even legitimate concern) around a film adapting its themes and intent. The only association I have with Wuthering Heights is with Kate Bush, whose huge first single I’ve listened to since I was a teen. The song’s implication of a ghost of a love stronger than death isn’t borne out in this movie adaptation, but that’s OK with me. I like where Fennell goes with “Wuthering Heights,” a movie about passionately selfish love, even as the title’s inverted commas — excuse me, quotation marks — suggest she’s using the source as just a jumping off point for something her own.
I’ve never quite understood the problem people have with Fennell. It’s one thing to not be a fan of a filmmaker’s work, but it’s quite another to relentlessly condescend to them because they think, oh, here’s a storyteller who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, nothing she has to say could possibly be relevant. Sofia Coppola comes from similar privilege and has been mining themes around it for her whole career, but she doesn’t get crapped on like Fennell. It particularly surprises me because it seems obvious, especially with this work freely adapting a classic text, that Fennell is inspired by British cinema provocateurs like Ken Russell in her ostentatiousness, here and in Saltburn. She’s shown she’s a talented visual stylist, if a little unfocussed in her storytelling.
The problem is Fennell also wants her movie to be a hit at the box office, so while we get some occasionally steamy moments, there’s nothing too shocking on screen to concern the censors or more sensitive in the audience. It’s a shame because with the film’s R rating she could’ve pushed the sensuality a lot further than she does. She’s been upfront about her intention: This is a full on epic romance trying to recapture the feeling the book gave her when she read it as a teen — a bodice ripper, with gorgeous, gothic notes in the set design serving the relentless, self-destructive love affair.
Cathy and Heathcliff meet as children (played by Charlotte Mellington and Owen Cooper, then as adults by Aussies Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi) when Cathy’s father (an especially impressive Martin Clunes) rescues the boy from an abusive parent. Heathcliff becomes a servant to this rural family and Cathy and Heathcliff grow up together as kind of siblings. The repressed heat between them starts to steam when they mature, and as anyone who’s checked out straight porn lately will tell you, there’s nothing more popular than step-sibling sex.
Cathy resists Heathcliff despite loving him because he’s got no means, which spurns him. She instead marries local landowner Edgar (Shazad Latif), and moves into his house with her lady’s maid, Nelly (Hong Chau), who secretly resents Cathy’s freedom. Eventually, Heathcliff returns as a man with mysterious wealth, still obsessed with Cathy, manifesting as a toxic stew of passion and revenge.
The movie’s emotional tenor swings wildly from scene to scene, bringing in a lot of humour — something else Fennell gets no credit for. While its 2+ hour runtime could’ve been easily trimmed with a little more discipline in the editing suite, the wonderfully peculiar production design delivers gothic treats — the Wuthering Heights estate itself seems carved out of obsidian — while Edgar’s property with its massive dollhouse in the dining room, blood red floors, and flesh-inspired lounge feels like Fennell’s channelling Del Toro, Cronenberg and Greenaway. There’s never a moment where there isn’t something interesting to look at, deliciously scored by Charlie XCX.
I still wished the film was more transgressive, but there’s still a lot to appreciate in what the actors bring. It’s Elordi who is the MVP — he’s got a deadly, looming presence, half Terence Stamp in Far From The Madding Crowd, and half Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind. When Heathcliff seduces Edgar’s sister, Isabella (Alison Oliver), the picture gets really interesting for about 15 minutes in what it has to say about mutual degradation for the sake of desire. A little more of that would’ve been welcome.
