‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’: LOVE IT OR HATE IT?
Wuthering Heights’: the greatest love story ever told, or the biggest missed opportunity for a deeper introspection on the toxicity of co-dependence?
Emerald Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’, starring three-time Academy Award winner, Margot Robbie, and BAFTA-nominee, Jacob Elordi, is the latest adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel of the same name (minus the quotations), originally published in 1847. Robbie stars as Catherine ‘Cathy’ Earnshaw: a young woman, conflicted between her untamed nature and social ambition, with Elordi as her kindred spirit, Heathcliff, a brooding foundling turned gentleman. Controversy has been synonymous with this film since the first look of Robbie in an anachronistic wedding dress, which then ignited the conversation of how faithful this adaptation would be. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t comment fully on that aspect, but as a booklover in general, it will always be something at the back of the mind.
For all her brattish and spoiled behaviour, I actually found Cathy really fun and endearing. I’ll always champion a woman’s right to be dramatic and petty, but her decisions were that of a young woman – given the context, I’d estimate early to mid-20s – which felt disconnected from her 35-year-old actress. The characters’ youth would also intensify their tragedy; being forced into a future decided on impulse, having to regret those decisions for the rest of their lives, only for it to ultimately be cut short. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy Robbie’s performance. I thought she did a fantastic job of balancing heart and comedy, and delivered some of the most iconic lines of literature with such authenticity it was as if they were being said for the first time. Elordi, as well, made a compelling Heathcliff with such a convincing accent it had me questioning his Australian citizenship. Nevertheless, it would be remiss of me to not call him into question as well, even though at 27, his character’s impulsivity didn’t feel so divorced from his age. However, that was not the main gripe I and many others had with his casting.
Brontë described Heathcliff as a ‘dark-skinned gipsy’, yet in Fennell’s version, he is portrayed by a White man. Even separating the film from its source material doesn’t resolve this (which shouldn’t be an excuse for whitewashing, anyway) because the character’s race is part of his identity. It’s implicit in his words, his actions, his relationships. It wasn’t convincing that Heathcliff’s status was all that ‘othered’ him, especially when it’s such a defining trait, whereas his financial position is more flexible. Pair that with Cathy’s husband, Edgar Linton, portrayed by Pakastani-British actor, Shazad Latif, and it creates a narrative of Cathy being shackled to a perfectly nice man, but longing for her White soulmate. As much as people of colour shouldn’t be restricted to who they represent, within this story and the implications of the book, it does leave a sour taste.
In terms of the rest of the cast, I thought that Alison Oliver a Isabella Linton was one of the standouts. Her first appearance had me in stitches, but by the end, my thoughts weren’t so clear. Isabella represents female desire in a time where women had little autonomy, but she explores it within a loveless marriage where she is outranked in experience and power. It was almost as if Fennell wanted to explore a darker side to Heathcliff but couldn’t commit to losing the romantic hero she’d envisioned. There’s a fine line between exploring your sexuality and becoming a victim of domestic abuse, and I’m unsure if Isabella crossed it. Their scenes definitely made me uncomfortable, whatever the intention, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The tone was established from the offset with a public hanging, followed by Charli XCX’s House to accompany our first view of the moors. The ambiguity of the tightening rope quickly introduced the themes of sexuality and death, and how – with the reveal that the man is being hanged for rape – the two are interlinked. Then the title card being a stop-motion animation of Robbie and Elordi’s real hair was the first of many uneasy visuals, others including the close-up of the slug climbing the window, the fish encased in gelatine, the infamous skin room, and of course, the dollhouse. The shot from within the dollhouse of doll-Cathy and doll-Isabella standing in front of a second, replica dollhouse was one of my favourites, so I wish they played more with the idea. If you consider the film a reimagining rather than a direct adaptation, the dollhouse represents Fennell’s interpretation and how the characters are puppets to the inevitability of a story already written. Framing the whole film through this lens would have been a refreshing take on such an enduring classic.
The costume and set design were also flawless, juxtaposing the wild moors of Wuthering Heights with the plastic beauty of Thrushcross Grange. Cathy’s life with the Lintons was visually perfect but lacking substance – literally depicted through the rose-tinted glasses she wears in the Chains of Love montage – while her childhood in the moors was unrestrained but grounded in reality. This contrast was made even more abundant every time Cathy returned to Wuthering Heights in her updated attire. Designed by Jacqueline Durran of Barbie and Little Women fame, the outfits of ‘Wuthering Heights’ feel like characters themselves. Throughout the film, red is used to symbolise Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship, but is customarily used for danger, cementing the two themes as one in the same. Their love is not limited to emotion; it bleeds into the surroundings and influences not only the other characters, but everything around them.
Cathy and Heathcliff are a large part of why the novel has been so everlasting, even though they are only physically together for the first half (the film not touching on the second). However, their tragedy was entirely self-inflicted. I’ll grant them the miscommunication (which is generous considering it’s my least favourite trope), but Heathcliff’s retaliation of leaving for five years without so much as a conversation or goodbye elicited no pity from me. If Cathy had married Edgar out of her own selfish desire for vanity and comfort, which I believe is the case in the book, then it would be a much deeper betrayal than a marriage of necessity. It would also allow us to further explore Cathy’s faults and give her agency in her own story. If Isabella can consent to her own abuse, then why can’t Cathy do the same? And if Fennell was already intent on romanticising the story, then wouldn’t it be a more meaningful gesture for Heathcliff to want the best for her, even if that wasn’t him? The reality of Cathy and Heathcliff feels misaligned from the versions Fennell has created; the script demands them to be romantic heroes, but the story tells otherwise. Furthermore, his return had the sole intention of proving her wrong in saying being with him would degrade her, but in starting their affair – another film exclusive – he proves her right. When Cathy calls things off – an appropriate reaction after Heathcliff threatens to murder her husband – he reacts with vengeance again, marrying Isabella out of spite, only to still carry a torch for Cathy and her attention. And not once does Fennell suggest this might be anything other than desirable. Nevertheless, for all their ambivalence, Cathy dismissing Heathcliff, Heathcliff running away, Cathy regretting her actions, and Heathcliff returning, was a routine – a toxic routine, no doubt – but one they understood as intimately as each other. After all, whatever our souls are made of, theirs are the same.
Nelly’s responsibility cannot be overlooked either, not informing Cathy of Heathcliff’s presence during her initial rejection and then burning the letters he sends afterwards. While it’s my natural instinct to support women’s rights and wrongs anyway, I still can’t in good conscience call Nelly a villain. She was the victim of Cathy’s cruelty, much like Heathcliff was. However, unlike Heathcliff, Nelly never leaves (and doesn’t have the advantage of being a White man), which perhaps is why Cathy never feels remorse or forgiveness until their parting is eventually forced by death.
There has been a lot of discourse online, claiming that people who didn’t enjoy this film don’t know how to have fun, but I think to reduce art to merely entertainment plummets us further into already concerning levels of media literacy. If you enjoyed ‘Wuthering Heights’, that’s okay. If you didn’t enjoy ‘Wuthering Heights’, that’s okay, too. I thought it was fine, personally. It had potential for a brilliant character study of terrible people doing terrible things under the guise of a great romance, which is what Wuthering Heights is at its core, but instead it settled for a basic tragedy with questionable morals. The romance isn’t the most engaging part of the book, and it’s not even the most engaging part of the film, so I wish it wasn’t made such a focus. Especially because being bad people doesn’t take away from their relationship, if anything it makes it more interesting. The love story should have been a foundation on which to explore further, not the whole purpose.
As for book accuracy, having not read it myself, I felt as though I was attending a lecture without having done the homework. It was as if Fennell had drawn her own picture of Wuthering Heights but forgot to erase Brontë’s original sketch underneath. Her interpretation was strong on its own, but it was when she abandoned it to fit the plot that it became weak. Attaching her vision to Wuthering Heights was a mistake; without it, she could have made her erotic love story without being tied down by plots and traits she clearly didn’t want – or lacked the courage – to explore in full. Picking apart the surface of a story does little to erase the legacy underneath.