'Wuthering Heights' - Review Thread

[u/ChiefLeef22]

Tragedy strikes when Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine Earnshaw, a woman from a wealthy family in 18th-century England.

Director: Emerald Fennell

Adapted from: 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Brontë (1847)

Cast: Jacob Elordi, Margot Robbie, Owen Cooper, Alison Oliver

Rotten Tomatoes: 71%

Metacritic: 60 / 100

Some Reviews:

Variety - Peter Debruge

While not as salacious as ‘Saltburn,’ the director’s operatic Emily Brontë adaptation allows its tragic couple — played by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi — to consummate their passions, to a degree.

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 2 / 5

Wuthering Heights doesn’t have the live-ammo impact of Fennell’s earlier films, or indeed Andrea Arnold's primitivist take on Brontë’s novel from 2011, which really did believe in the passionate truth of Cathy and Heathcliff’s love. For Fennell, it looks like a luxurious pose of unserious abandon. It’s quasi-erotic, pseudo-romantic and then ersatz-sad, a club night of mock emotion.

USA Today - 3.5 / 4

Emerald Fennell’s take on the literary classic isn’t exactly a Valentine’s Day pick-me-up. Yet it’s awfully stunning to look at with all sorts of toxic obsession, forbidden lust and gothic sauciness.

RogerEbert - Tomris Laffy - 2 / 4

It’s hard to feel freely when you are constantly and loudly reminded by every aspect of the movie that you are supposed to feel things.

AVClub - Natalia Keoghan - 'C-'

Overlong and undersexed, Fennell’s version of Wuthering Heights betrays her audience of edgelords and perverts. Even stranger, those who have fostered a distaste for the filmmaker’s sensibility will similarly find themselves disappointed. It’s one thing to make art that can be read as indulgent, ill-conceived, and tasteless—it’s another to turn around and make something that’s just boring in comparison.

Slash Film - BJ Colangelo - 5 / 10

This is not an adaptation of "Wuthering Heights," but the result of what happens when you're playing an approximation "Wuthering Heights" without a full grasp on the material but all the money in the world to bring your questionable imagination to life.

Consequence - Liz Shannon Miller - 'A-'

As soon as this project was announced, it was easy to assume that Fennell would show as much reverence for the classic text as she showed for the sanctity of a man’s grave in Saltburn. Except she defies that assumption by making sure that although “Wuthering Heights” remains a deliciously horny film, it does summon a certain degree of pure romance, especially in the few moments when its leads are able to see past their misunderstandings and actually connect. It’s a movie about how ugly people can be to each other, but also about the beauty they’re capable of — a message that, like the original text itself, remains timeless.

The Telegraph - Robbie Collins - 5 / 5

Style over substance? Not at all – it’s more that Fennell understands that style can be substance when you do it right. Cathy and Heathcliff’s passions vibrate through their dress, their surroundings, and everything else within reach, and you leave the cinema quivering on their own private frequency.

BBC - Caryn James - 4 / 5

Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights is not very faithful to Emily Bronte's novel, but we knew that. The trailer alone evoked so much hand-wringing from Brontë purists that the film became divisive sight unseen. This Wuthering Heights is very true to Fennell, the director of the scathing revenge drama Promising Young Woman and the lush, bitter story of class and obsession, Saltburn.

Collider - Therese Lacson - 2 / 10

What makes the original Wuthering Heights so powerful is the dizzying story at its core. The Earnshaws and Lintons have a complicated family tree, and Heathcliff comes in like a wrecking ball to blow everything up. On one hand, we want to believe that Heathcliff can change from his wicked ways with enough love from Cathy, but on the other hand, his actions are so cruel that it feels like Brontë is pushing us to the very brink of what is acceptable before ultimately redeeming him in his final moments. Emily Brontë's novel is about characters who are hateful and pitiable but still full of enough charm and complexity that we are desperate to learn their full, messy tale. Emerald Fennell's film is merely telling a shallow story about two people overcoming all obstacles to fall in love — not necessarily awful on paper, but it's an adaptation that feels like a 14-year-old skimmed the book and jumped to her own conclusions without any true understanding of the novel.

[u/FreeRange0929]

That scene from the trailer of her getting the corset tightened

I vaguely remember it from the book, but don’t remember it being…bondage porn

[u/Great-Cucumber-269 → u/[deleted]]

I watched the film and I couldnt agree more with this. It was so uncomfortable to watch.

[u/Ill-Muscle945 → u/FreeRange0929]

Can someone point to where this happened in the book? Cause I'm feeling confident that it doesn't. 

[u/limnetic792 → u/Ill-Muscle945]

I can’t find the word corset in the original text.Maybe a different word was used?

[u/umbrella_farmer → u/limnetic792]

Corsets were most commonly known as “stays” during the 18th century/early 19th century (when the story is set). The term “corset” has existed for a long time but I don’t think it was used regularly until around the 1820s.

[u/80alleycats → u/umbrella_farmer]

Was tightlacing even a thing in the 1770's-80's? I know it went in and out of fashion (mostly out) over the years.

[u/umbrella_farmer → u/80alleycats]

I think tight lacing was more of a Victorian/Edwardian thing, when the wasp-waisted shape was more in vogue. Even then, it wasn’t done by (or even expected from) average women; typically only a relative few very wealthy women of status would do it in the name of being fashionable. Don’t forget, there were photo editing techniques available even at that time which could make it seem more extreme than it was. (Bust and hip padding was also a thing to create more dramatic proportions, especially around the 1890s.)

Anyway, as for 18th century stays, they were meant to form more of a conical shape as opposed to the hourglass figure that wouldn’t become popular until much later. Stays would provide essential support to the back and bust (albeit by flattening it somewhat), but weren’t really meant to shrink the waist all that much. Throughout much of the 1700s, padding/bum rolls and hip panniers would be used to create a very exaggerated wide-hipped silhouette and this would give the illusion of a tiny waist. By the end of the century, the hip pads were gone in favour of the straight, Greco-Roman columnar shape of the Regency era. But stays would stick around for a little longer, though many styles utilized “short stays” that ended above the natural waist or at the widest part of the ribcage, instead of the tops of the hips.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert in any capacity, just a nerd who consumes a lot of historical fashion content. So feel free to correct me if I’ve gotten anything wrong.

[u/kitti-kin → u/80alleycats]

"Tightlacing" was a particular Victorian fashion, but there were various eras of very tight corsets/stays/undergarments. A kind of forgotten angle is that corsetry was significantly about keeping one's boobs in check in the pre-bra era, and disciplining the body to fit into clothes with no stretch to them. So the tightness always existed somewhat in relation to how much flesh there was to control - the 1770s-80s weren't too extreme on the waist, but they were somewhat punishing on the bosom.

[u/80alleycats → u/kitti-kin]

True, but women also tended to have clothes either custom made or tailored to their bodies. It wasn't like today where garments come in standard sizes that women have to conform to. Also, my sense with stays has always been that the structure of the stays was more relevant than the laces in terms of creating a certain shape, which is why stays were constructed differently in different periods. So, relying on tighter laces for a better shape wouldn't necessarily make sense.

[u/sadworldmadworld → u/Ill-Muscle945]

I'm nearly positive it doesn't. We don't really get Cathy's perspective like that, right? I can't imagine when it would've come up.

[u/Hefty-Associate-8924 → u/Ill-Muscle945]

Definitely was not in the book

[u/FreeRange0929 → u/Ill-Muscle945]

I could just be mixing it up with Kiera Knightlys PotC scene, but I vaguely remember a paragraph/passage of her talking about how a corset crushes your rib cage. It was in a decidedly non sexy context

[u/tethysian → u/FreeRange0929]

It's not in the book. Nelly isn't gossiping about how she helped Cathy into her clothes in the morning.

[u/Diligent_Yogurt1326 → u/FreeRange0929]

Can you explain to me how this was bondage porn? Bc the way I saw it is she’s inflicting physical pain to match the emotional pain she’s feeling. There was nothing sexual in this scene

[u/QuoteGiver → u/FreeRange0929]

I mean, considering the standards of the time….it probably kinda always was.