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There are some feminists—far, far better feminists than I—who watched the trailer for the new film adaptation of Wuthering Heights and thought, absolutely not. English lit majors and pop culture have been hostage to this Emily Brontë text since 1847. Enough is enough. This is not “the greatest love story of all time,” as the trailer says. Heathcliff lifting Catherine up by the corset laces to kiss her? That’s just patriarchal dominance, and a toxic relationship between unequal parties.
I watched that trailer and had a different thought. The thought was: clear my schedule. I’m going to the movies.
Because in the hands of director Emerald Fennell, star Margot Robbie and musician Charli XCX, even if it was terrible, it would be interesting. But I’m here to report it is not terrible. It is outstanding. And so now my challenge is to review Wuthering Heights without betraying my fellow feminists or humiliating myself, which might not be possible.
The film version of the story only covers the first half of the Brontë novel—and not particularly faithfully—focusing on the relationship between Catherine Earnshaw (Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi). It begins with young Cathy (Charlotte Mellington) living in a cold estate in the English countryside called Wuthering Heights with her abusive, alcoholic, gambling wretch of a father, Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes). One day, Earnshaw brings home a street urchin (Owen Cooper) to be a Wuthering Heights servant and sleep in the hay loft indefinitely. Cathy is delighted to have a playmate; she names him Heathcliff after her dead brother and she dresses him up and they run wild through the misty moors.
As they grow up, their relationship becomes a delicious will-they or won’t-they unrequited love. Fennell is brilliant at naming this erotic tension through sensory shots: glistening bread dough being kneaded, a snail’s slimy trail, egg yolks, a jellied fish.
The longing builds until even after the aforementioned corset lift, at which point they move into an equally-delicious forbidden love. That’s because Catherine is now unhappily married to Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), while still pining for her childhood love Heathcliff. Cut to an excellent, pop-saturated montage of rich, bored, European decadence reminiscent of Sofia Coppola’s 2006 Marie Antoinette: huge shrimp cocktails, lawn games, card games and fine dresses displaying bountiful décolletage.
The casting of Jacob Elordi as the adult Heathcliff was a talking point in the lead-up to the Feb. 13 release of the movie. Brontë describes the character as “dark-skinned” and Elordi, a fair-skinned Australian actor, is not. So is his casting whitewashing? Would the plot make more sense if Heathcliff was shunned by Earnshaw (and then Catherine) on account of his race and not just his class? Perhaps, on both counts. But what is clear is that Elordi can’t quite keep up with Robbie’s acting, though his swagger pretty much makes up for it.
He isn’t given a ton of help from the script, with clunkers like this: “I have not broken your heart. You have broken it. And in breaking it, you’ve broken mine,” Heathcliff says to Catherine. Wait, what? This quote requires some serious mental gymnastics to parse. Is he not only blaming her for her own heartbreak but compounding it by blaming her for his pain? Yikes. Here’s that toxicity, which Gen Z has popularized many words to describe, like narcissistic personality disorder, breadcrumbing, gaslighting, or some combination of the three. Actually, breadcrumbing might not be relevant here, but who’s to say?
But my God does Heathcliff have a lot of great qualities: loyal, patient, persistent, tender, hard-working. He seems like a generous lover and sometimes even asks consent, which is pretty good for the 1800s! He licks Catherine’s tears and kisses her nose and at one point he is so overcome with passion he licks a wall. This is Galentine’s Day erotica, pure and simple, and I am sorry but I am only flesh and blood.
The ending of Wuthering Heights is very sad and I cried a few actual tears, which would have been embarrassing but all of the other ladies in the theater also appeared to be crying. By the time the credits rolled to Charli XCX’s “Always Everywhere,” I needed a few minutes to get myself together before stumbling out into the lobby. True love, sex and death; I had gone through a lot. And you know what? I could probably go again.
SEE IT: Wuthering Heights, rated R, is now playing at Bagdad, Cinema 21, Laurelhurst, Living Room, St. Johns Twin Cinemas, Studio One and AMC, Cinemark and Regal locations.
