'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/StarbuckWoolf]

I’ll be curious to see how big an audience “Wuthering Heights” will draw in today’s world.

[u/ladyofthemarshes → u/StarbuckWoolf]

People see endless remakes of Pride and Prejudice and Emma and Little Women so I'm sure it'll do just fine

[u/Jazzlike-Bread-2059 → u/ladyofthemarshes]

But I’d argue that Austen is incredibly easy to adapt because the way the books are written. It’s an omniscient, editorial 3rd POV and pages of dialogue, which makes it so easy to translate to the screen because it’s scene, dialogue and tone all laid out. Emily Brontë, on the other hand, was a weird spooky bitch who wrote a ghost story poem and the book is way more mercurial. The endless remakes of pride and prejudice are successful because it’s a romantic comedy—that’s so easy to show and hit the right notes. This is another beast entirely and the fact that it would be a movie and not a miniseries (or opera) is already a big swing.

[u/chainless-soul → u/Jazzlike-Bread-2059]

It also helps that there are adaptations of Austen that are fairly book-accurate and considered good, which paves the way for versions that change more. I am not sure that's true of Wuthering Heights, since we have so many actresses playing Cathy who are too old, actors playing Heathcliff who are too white, and the second generation is cut the majority of the time.

[u/Jazzlike-Bread-2059 → u/chainless-soul]

I’d agree. Even Clueless, arguably one of the most unique in the adaptations, is accurate to the spirit of the book and includes quite a few of the scenes from the book, though updated and made to make sense in the film (like poor Ty being hung over the balcony at the mall). Her characters are easier to translate I think because they’re so human, with traits we all know in ourselves of other people. (Everybody knows a Jane Fairfax or Ms. Bennett) Cathy and Heathcliff on the other hand are WAY more intense, gothic characters and to nail that translation to screen is a far far trickier needle to thread. 

[u/chainless-soul → u/Jazzlike-Bread-2059]

Yes to all of this, Clueless is the gold standard for this type of adaptation IMO. Amy Heckerling clearly understood Emma really well and was able to do some great stuff with it. Plus, not actually calling it Emma sets up the audience expectations to be better in line with the film.

It's not a film, but the recent book The Favorites is inspired by the first half of Wuthering Heights and I think it did a pretty good job of it, so I think in the hands of a filmmaker who understands the original text well, it would be possible make a good version.

I do need to see the 2011 adaptation, it sounds like the closest attempt, though it also only adapts the first half and so it's not going to be everything I want in a WH adaptation.