Sometimes, you watch a film and wish the creative just decided to make an original film and that’s where I’m at with Wuthering Heights. The Emerald Fennell adaptation feels less like Emily Brontë’s work and more like a fanfiction take on Heathcliff and Catherine.
Catherine (Margot Robbie) and her doomed connection with Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) is a textbook definition of a gothic romance in the book. Fennell’s adaptation leans heavily into the “romance” side of that idea and adds a romantic twist to the story that doesn’t really exist within Brontë’s work. There is a desperation and a kiss between the two in the novel but it is not the sex filled affair that Fennell presents to the audience.
