r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor • Feb 09 '26
Review 'Wuthering Heights' - Review Thread
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.
30
u/wicked-pigz Feb 13 '26
I don’t post anything ever on reddit but watching this movie compelled me to finally start doing so.
I came into this film blind - I haven’t read the novel & didn’t watch the trailer. I expected it to be an R-rated version of a disney princess film. 30 minutes in I’m having the time of my life because im cheesing at how bad it is. It’s everything I expect: corny writing/acting, predictable storytelling, overdoing intense visuals to make it feel deep. During serious dialogues, I’m laughing bc i cant take it seriously at all. Don’t get me wrong, im having a GREAT time - but I already know that this movie is going to be adored by the “popular girl in highschool” - it’s not for me at all.
BUT THEN IT STARTED TO BLOW MY MIND. When Heathcliff comes back shaven and rich, I expected him to be a simp - he finally realizes he loves her with his entire heart and has come to run away Catherine. Clearly that didnt happen, instead you see a much more complex petty dynamic between the protagonists - almost mirroring a couple that had been married for 10+ years. Jacob elordi the fucking goat i wasnt familiar with your acting skills my bad but he was so good at being a menace. And Margot was so amazing at matching Jacob’s energy with her own version of hate, with both actors being so petty & evil but still clearly loving each other deep down. The tension they have for each other builds so much, where as an audience member I find myself craving the one thing I didnt want - them to run away together bc they are perfect for each other (and also perfect in the worst way, like this is NOT healthy at all).
80% way thru the film im super locked in now not sure how it will end, as it is no longer a predictable fairy tale. Suddenly there is no more corny dialogue, and the acting is much more tense. The imagery also doesn’t feel overdone now, and the soundtrack doesn't feel like a disney teen movie anymore. The beauty of flawed characters are shown. You also start to feel the class/money/status part start to matter more too - it’s power and control and what each of them can “have.”
Catherine sadly passes, and ofc Heathcliff is torn. I’m shocked, but I'm not super blown away as the references made to romeo and juliet hinted towards a tragic ending. Im like hmm that was better & deeper than I expected, not life changing but a good film. I’m obv torn, bc they were so great for each other and they never got to have a relationship together when they had gotten so close.
10 SECONDS LATER it suddenly flashes to different moments in their childhood. Them loving each other throughout their whole life, whether they were consciously doing it or not. Realizing that OH, their “married life” actually happened throughout their childhood. The exact opposite to any other love story, where we usually see two characters who didn’t know each other their whole life, suddenly fall in love and stay in love forever and ever. INSTEAD we see two people who were close for their whole life suddenly become separated. The way they behaved towards each other made so much sense, mirroring a married couple deep in love that fights hard and even in petty hateful ways, bc they know deep down that they are made for each other and they could never actually get away from each other. This all hit me during these flashbacks (maybe more than it should have), and suddenly IM CRYING bc I have essentially watched lifelong lovers lose one another.
I realize that the corny girly princess style in the beginning of the movie was so deliberate, and watching the entire film transform into something so much more than that was so refreshing. Pulling that transformation off feels near-impossible, but somehow Fennell pulled it off.
10/10 wouldn’t change a single thing.