"Wuthering Heights" - Review: A Love Story Come Undone

 

When writer/director Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman,” “Saltburn”) moved from working in front of the camera to behind it, it certainly signaled a shift in her work. Instead of period dramas, she made mood psycho-sexual thrillers, while also finding the time to appear in bit part roles of blockbusters (Hello Pregnant Midge from “Barbie (2023)”). But “Wuthering Heights” is her biggest film by far, both in terms of budget and source material. Tackling one of the pre-imminent High School English class classics with a new aesthetic and themes, it is certainly her version of this tale without a doubt. But is it any good is an entirely other matter.

The film follows Cathy Earnshaw, played by Margot Robbie (“Barbie (2023),” “I, Tonya”), growing up with her father Mr. Earnshaw, played by Martin Clunes (“Doc Martin,” “Kipper”), and best friend and companion Nelly, played by Hong Chau (“The Whale,” “Watchmen (2019)”) in their home of Wuthering Heights. After her father returns from the city with a young boy he’s rescued from poverty, Cathy names him Heathcliff, played by Jacob Elordi (“euphoria,” “Frankenstein (2025)”), and determines that they will be inseparable. As the pair grow up together, their bond becomes closer and borderline romantic, which is complicated by Heathcliff’s feelings for Cath and his aloofness after her marriage to Edgar Linton, played by Shazad Latif (“Penny Dreadful,” “Star Trek: Discovery”), to keep her home from falling into further disrepair.

Emerald’s strengths have always been in playing various characters against each other, which results in the best moments of “Wuthering” being the most confrontational. Cathy and Nelly arguing back and forth, Cathy and Heathcliff arguing, Cathy and Edgar arguing; they all feel like the lifeblood of the film. Emotions are charged and it's also when the film feels the most alive due to Robbie’s performance. While the cast is generally fine, she is the clear standout, turning Cathy into a complicated, twisted, yearnful, childish, grown-up. Elordi is good, but his brooding ends up feeling one note by the film’s end, although it doesn’t appear to be an issue with his performance. Chau gets a surprising amount of mileage out of Nelly’s two-dimensionality, and Latif seems bored as a boiled down disregarded rich boy husband. A standout, for better or worse, is Alison Oliver (“Task,” “Saltburn”) as Isabella, Edgar’s sister, who forms a romantic relationship with Heathcliff. She’s certainly one of the more memorable elements of the film, although whether you find her genuinely memorable or just memorably cringe-inducing is another matter entirely.

Fennell’s vision of this adaptation, separate from any changes made to the source material, is the source for many of the film’s inherent issues. The script is certainly full of yearning and sexually charged encounters. However, when the film isn’t showcasing its yearning or sex or arguments, its resoundingly boring. Much of Cathy’s arc involves her sitting around being bored, which ends up making a mostly boring film. This also means the pacing slows to a glacial speed, and the third act in particular feels as long as the first two put together. This doesn’t help the handful of silly and borderline parodic moments that crop up within the surrounding melodrama. Moments like a pop-up book of phallic plants and someone passed out drunk amongst piles of what must be almost a thousand bottles look like Terry Gilliam style bits shoved into a film not designed for them. Even sillier is the film’s approach to sex which, despite the marketing, feels watered down to the point of being silly. Both of Fennell’s previous films have pushed beyond these boundaries, which makes the decision to hold so much back feel odd. It isn’t even an issue with the marketing, as the entire film feels designed to be full of nude R-rated material, but at the last second, they just decided to not include it. This means that what does make it in just feels silly by comparison; Heathcliff massaging broken egg yolks is certainly a choice, but it appears laughable in the surrounding context.

The visual style of the world, regardless of what it is displaying, is certainly gorgeous. Linus Sandgren’s (“La La Land,” “Babylon”) cinematography sweeps around the foggy moorlands and rocky cliffsides like a spirit observing its former home. The washed-out colors of the production design actually work quite well within the context of the tale and its location, and even if they feel out of place, the fantastical elements still look exceptionally gorgeous. Anthony Willis’s (“Promising Young Woman,” “M3GAN”) score is perfectly melancholic as well, meshing with the original songs by Charli XCX to craft a unique soundscape for the film and arguably its best element.

“Wuthering Heights” has been stylized with quotation marks since its first poster, as if to imply that this is simply an interpretation of the material and in no way close to being the definitive version. That’s a good thing then, as Fennell’s version manages to look and sound too gorgeous to hate, with a handful of interesting performances, but has nothing going on under the surface. An interview with Vogue quotes Fennell as saying that her goal with this film was to “recreate the feeling of a teenage girl reading this book for the first time.” If that means she was only interested in the salacious parts and was bored with the rest, then she nailed it. 2.5/5