Finally, a Smooth-Brained Wuthering Heights

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Emerald Fennell’s film adaptation of Wuthering Heights is remarkably sensual and visually drenched, filled with images of wetness – from frequent rainstorms to glistening skin and tactile textures. The film emphasizes physicality: a housemaid kneading dough, a sweaty back, and even a scene where Heathcliff discovers Cathy has played a prank on him by hiding eggs in his bed, leading him to smear the broken yolks. This consistent focus on fluids initially feels like a way to represent the hidden desires of the Victorian era, but it soon becomes clear Fennell is taking a much more direct approach. The film culminates in a boldly explicit scene where Cathy is discovered masturbating on the moors, and Heathcliff responds by intimately engaging with her, bypassing any sense of restraint in favor of immediate physical connection.

Emerald Fennell’s latest film, Wuthering Heists, is surprisingly her most successful, even though it’s also her most frivolous. Fennell excels at creating visually stunning and immediately gratifying scenes – think lavish imagery set to energetic pop music – that bypass intellectual analysis and tap into pure enjoyment. However, she hasn’t quite mastered delivering films with strong, meaningful themes. Her first film, Promising Young Woman, started strong but ultimately struggled with its ambitious attempt to explore the complexities of anger surrounding sexual assault. Saltburn was visually striking but lacked a clear focus in its commentary on class. With Wuthering Heights, Fennell abandons the pressure to deliver a profound message, and the result is liberating. She recognizes the core of Brontë’s story – a passionate, obsessive, and destructive relationship between two people – and boils it down to its essence: two complicated individuals drawn to each other despite themselves. This understanding makes the film’s playful and sensual approach even more effective.

Like many adaptations of Wuthering Heights, this version focuses on the intense connection between Cathy and Heathcliff, starting in their childhood at Wuthering Heights. It shows how their bond develops and is ultimately threatened by the social differences that pull them apart as they grow older. However, this adaptation simplifies the story even further by removing the second generation of characters and the framing narrative. It also omits Cathy’s brother, Hindley. The film opens with young Cathy, played by Charlotte Mellington, living with Nelly Dean (Vy Nguyen) – here reimagined as the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman and hired as Cathy’s companion – along with a few servants and her troubled, gambling, and alcoholic father (Martin Clunes). When the father impulsively rescues a street urchin (Owen Cooper from Adolescence) from Liverpool, he brings him home and assigns him to Cathy as a sort of pet. Cathy cheerfully tells the boy she’ll be kind to him “unless you are bad, and then I will pinch you,” and this surprisingly ominous statement secures her lifelong devotion from Heathcliff.

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights feels like a teenage girl’s secret reading life – a mix of classic literature assigned in class and steamy romance novels devoured in private. The passion is intense and often impractical, like when Heathcliff dramatically lifts Cathy by her corset just to kiss her. The characters’ appearances emphasize this heightened emotion; Cathy is always dressed in flowing, dramatic clothing, and Heathcliff returns after years away as a brooding, rebellious figure – a rougher, more dangerous version of Mr. Darcy. The settings are equally over-the-top. Edgar Linton’s opulent home is filled with unusual details, feeling more like a modern, stylish space than a traditional period estate. While undeniably captivating, the story’s excess leaves you with a feeling of pleasurable discomfort – like indulging in something a little too rich.

What really makes this adaptation work for me is the central cast, especially Robbie and Elordi, but also Hong Chau as the adult Nelly – she’s fantastic as Cathy moves into the Linton home. Elordi, who falls on the lighter side of the Heathcliff ethnicity debate, gets this role. It’s honestly the easiest one, but he nails it. He doesn’t play Heathcliff as a character so much as a collection of conflicting desires. One minute he’s this big, almost monstrous figure – it reminds me a bit of the role that first got him an Oscar nod – and the next he’s a really wounded, sensitive guy, or even a confident, almost manipulative seducer who just knows what women want. I think Robbie plays Cathy a little too nicely, honestly. She’s meant to be strong-willed and even a bit spiteful, but the film always makes sure we understand why, because it needs us to see her as a sort of tragic figure, a martyr to this intense, undeniable connection she has with Heathcliff.

Chau acts as a relatable stand-in for the audience, observing the intense romance with a mix of amusement and exasperation. She’s like a friend who’s grown tired of a couple’s on-again, off-again relationship and just wants them to move on. In a film that portrays both love and death as equally romantic, Chau offers a grounding perspective – she doesn’t dismiss the lovers’ grand feelings, but gently points out how exhausting it would be to deal with two people so convinced they’re the center of the universe.

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2026-02-09 22:55