"WUTHERING HEIGHTS"
- Colin Fraser
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
TWO AND A HALF STARS Cathy and Heathcliffe get wet and wild on the Yorkshire Moors.
PERIOD DRAMA UK English #WUTHERINGHEIGHTS Starring Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi
It’s all there in the title. This is “a” vision of Brontë's Wuthering Heights but reimagined as only Emerald Fennell (SALTBURN) could. It’s a ride, a “romance”, an assault on the senses and a story told in her very singular, visionary voice. Does it bear much resemblance to the novel? About as much as a sexed up Kate Bush video, and that might well be enough for some viewers.
“WUTHERING HEIGHTS” arrives swaddled in prestige but lands like a racy streaming hit that’s wandered onto the moors by mistake. It’s Emily Brontë by way of glossy brand management, all windswept hair, heaving bodices and a persistent sense that someone, somewhere, has decided the real tragedy here is insufficient thirst. Think the frothy romanticism of Bridgerton with a splash of designer stout advertising: lush, expensive, faintly absurd.
Margot Robbie’s Cathy and Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff smoulder with the intensity of two people who’ve never encountered a camera they didn’t want to seduce. Their early clinches prompted full-throated screaming at the preview screening I attended — not polite titters, but full-bodied roars of appreciation when the pair first tumbled together. One half-expected ushers to distribute smelling salts. It’s a testament to the casting’s combustible appeal, though whether it serves Brontë’s brooding fatalism is another matter.
Fennell directs as though texture were plot. The imagery is insistently tactile: split eggs, glossy fruit, dripping gravy, parted lips. Food and flesh are shot with the same hungry fascination, the lens lingering on slick surfaces and eager tongues as if compiling a mood board titled “Moist.” The much-discussed finger-licking moment - Heathcliff clocking Cathy in mid-pleasure and deciding to take her by the hand, quite literally - encapsulates the film’s ethos. Subtlety is for the faint of heart; here, desire must be seen, heard and, preferably, slurped. Oh Cathy!
The largest bones of the novel remain; the passion of a feral orphan and a willing heiress that’s curdled into vengeance across the blasted Yorkshire landscape. Missing is the desolate interiors and class politics that are central to the timeless enjoyment of Brontë's timeless novel. Aesthetics take charge and the wildness of the moors is rendered beautifully, but the luxuriant self-regard smothers any kind of emotional response.
Still, there’s no denying the watchability of it all. “WUTHERING HEIGHTS” is certainly outrageous, occasionally ridiculous and mostly entertaining. Does the sexed-up-style-over-substance approach to filmmaking add to the wealth of human experience? No more than a torrid streaming hit.
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