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A Scandalous Wuthering Heights, Invigorated and Reinterpreted

Whatever one might think of Emerald Fennel’s new Wuthering Heights, it should at least be clear that the novel by Emily Brontë is not exactly the “classy” work of literature it is often presumed to be. Though it has had that veneer impressed upon it by its era and literary quality, Wuthering Heights was pretty scandalous for its time -certainly more so than the other books by the Brontë sisters. It dealt in direct themes of class and abuse, featured characters (or at least one) who are incredibly morally ambiguous, and had greater sexual connotations in its central romance than a lot of mainstream fiction of the time. Wuthering Heights has always been scandalous, if perhaps not to the degree that Fennel brings.
It is by design not a very faithful adaptation -at least in the details. The quotation marks around the title apparently are a clue to the fact it is more inspired by the idea of Wuthering Heights than a direct adaptation. Although that is not a particularly convincing train of thought given the general strokes of the plot are all very much present. Wuthering Heights though has a passionate fandom, and as someone with my own love of the work of Dickens, I understand the higher level of scrutiny that comes with watching a new version of such a beloved story. I empathize, although I think the venom that this movie has received comes from a bit of a puritan blindness.
That said, it is a messy movie no doubt -as has been the pattern of all of Fennel’s films. Omitting the traditional framing device of a man finding shelter at Wuthering Heights in a storm and having the story of the Earnshaws, Lintons, and Heathcliff told to him after the fact, this movie begins with a hanging in Liverpool implied to be something very different over a blank screen before the context is revealed. It certainly sets a tone, sordid against the more gothic aspects of the narrative. We see the orphaned Heathcliff brought into the family of the Earnshaws, living in the ramshackle titular estate on the Yorkshire Moors. Specifically he is to be the “pet” of Earnshaw’s daughter Cathy, and they grow up together very close, until they receive new wealthy neighbours in the Lintons, whose lord Cathy is poised to marry, to the envy, resentment, and anger of Heathcliff who is deeply in love with her. Cathy shares those feelings but their difference of class prevents them from being together. Ultimately, she marries and Heathcliff reacts in tempestuous ways.
Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi play Cathy and Heathcliff respectively, and they are both quite good for the versions of these characters set by the script. They fit the atmosphere well, and one can’t argue that they -and Elordi especially- don’t look good in the period context. They each bring a fitting raw passion to the parts, as unwieldy as it sometimes gets, and it adapts well enough to the more sexual material that Fennel incorporates, including masturbation and several examples of BDSM.
Of course even referencing such things is taboo and heretical to some fans of the novel, but it is not necessarily out of keeping with the themes particularly pertaining to thr roughness of Heathcliff, who has always been a very morally ambiguous character whose love for Cathy drives him to manipulation and cruelty. It’s an interesting turn of fate that Elordi has now played two classic literary “monsters” in a row -Oscar-nominated for one as the other is released. Fennel seems to interpret Heathcliff as the Byronic hero in all of the archetype’s faults as well as the more attractive traits, such as in poetry, beauty, and devotion. What she doesn’t do however is have any conversation on race (like most other versions the ethnically ambiguous character of the novel is whitewashed) or in a serious way on class -her vision on this theme being very diluted by the mid-point. She articulates fairly well that theme of longing that drives Heathcliff and Cathy, but only up to a point. Unlike in the novel, her characters come together. In multiple senses of that term.
But then Fennel is not required to stick strictly to the novel's themes (and indeed few adaptations ever have -the second half of the story has rarely been translated) -her vision is allowed to be different from Brontë's. All that matters is how she articulates the story as she chooses to tell it, and her Wuthering Heights is squarely about people unable to express their real love for each other in a healthy way. It's not strictly about Cathy and Heathcliff. Isabella Linton (Alison Oliver) clearly has similar repressed issues in her relationship towards both Cathy and Heathcliff, at times being desperately attracted to both of them. And even Cathy's companion Nelly (Hong Chau) is suggested to have some emotional resentment behind her deception of Cathy -orchestrating a misunderstanding on Heathcliff's part. Yet Heathcliff and Cathy are the central pillars of this theme, as the film frequently and critically demonstrates the equal sincerity and toxicity of their relationship. It's noteworthy that though Cathy has always been spoiled, Fennel's emphasizes how casually arrogant and mean towards Heathcliff she is, and ultimately just as spiteful as he is after he returns from his long absence. And Heathcliff himself is of course as much a prick as ever. But they battle each other out in this, coloured by raw sexual fury, neither willing to lower their guard without tempering it in some kind of judgement.
And it is an interesting, revealing dynamic, though at times awkward in the way it grafts onto the plot details at hand. For instance, the romance is made a little more fickle by the fact that Heathcliff and Cathy do have some sexual episodes together, as they appear to have little bearing one way or another on the nature of their relationship -Heathcliff’s longing becomes a little more muddled while Cathy, stubbornly attached to precepts and mores, is flaky and irresponsible with what she wants. The sexual material is also rather strange, with Fennel and her actors bringing overt eroticism to the implications and foreplay (Heathcliff sucking on Cathy’s finger for instance), but not so much to their actual sexual encounters. It does legitimately feel in places like some of the material is there purely for the taboo, like the masochistic relationship Heathcliff sets with Isabella, in which he has her quasi-consensually roleplay a dog at Wuthering Heights. Isabella is hard-done by this adaption given the trajectory of her usual tragic arc, which is mostly omitted here perhaps to leave Heathcliff with at least some degree of sympathy. The ending is fairly clumsily handled as well, differing again substantially from the source material, and in so doing robbing the movie of a real poetic opportunity. Fennel’s intent is clear, drawing on the melodramatic weight of classic tragic romances like Love Story or even perhaps the 1939 version of Wuthering Heights. But some of the details in presentation and delivery are overwrought -it is the weakest showcase for both actors and much as Fennel tries to edit it into something profound, it isn’t convincing.
Yet her visual instincts are on the mark -with the wide bare room and the meticulous attention to light. If her storytelling and thematic notions are shaky here, her grasp of imagery and atmosphere certainly are not. Her very dour and dilapidated Wuthering Heights might be the most glaringly gothic the place has ever been conceived as, and looks genuinely frightful against the gorgeous  Moors. Thrushcross Grange is its exact opposite, spacious and colourful and rather pristine but vacant -its location at a distance relative to the harsh nature around it is a great visual joke of class and elegance where it doesn’t seem to fit. It is pretty but unnatural, and yet there is always a persuasive lushness to Cathy and Heathcliff’s moments together. The scenes overlooking the coast are wonderful, situating the story within a formidable yet beautiful world. And Fennel really knows how to use the fog -the moment of Heathcliff’s return, literally stepping out of the fog in the background might have come straight out of the pages of the novel, it is so perfect -demonstrating that Fennel indeed understands the essence of the material she is working with, she’s just choosing often to divert from it. What also gives moments like these an unexpected effectiveness is the music provided by Anthony Willis and Charli XCX, who wrote a handful of original songs for the film that, though anachronistic, fit the mood very well. They are low and soft and folk-heavy, adding some character to the scenes and montages they underscore.
The enhanced sexual material has led some to compare Fennel’s Wuthering Heights to Bridgerton, which isn’t quite warranted (Bridgerton wouldn’t go to the dark places this movie goes, and is more consistent in its own sexual language); but it is true that Fennel has made a Wuthering Heights for the TikTok generation. In the process, it has undeniably lost some of the novel’s core tenets, but has found new corners within the work to pick at and transform something new out of that isn’t as far from the traditional themes as some might contend. Not all of its endeavours work, it is viscerally imperfect. But it is an interesting film -on its aesthetics, its relationship to the text, and even some of its sincere romantic overtures. Whether you like it or not, it is the version of Wuthering Heights most appropriate for its time.

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