I saw Wuthering Heights last night and was blown away by the cinematography and its very clear parallels with Taylor Swiftâs own imagery and storytelling. In particular, Thrushcross Grange - the house where Catherine goes to live after marrying into wealth and opulence - was quite literally depicted as the Lover House, and it wasnât subtle. Architectural Digest and HGTV both did a tour of the house and discussed it in depth.
The most obvious parallel was having each room dedicated to a different color - a bright red library and staircase, light blue drawing room, gray dining room, Edgarâs green velvet bedroom, Isabellaâs purple pleated bedroom, and Catherineâs pink bedroom made out of her own skin. The use of red is particularly prominent, which is interesting since that color can symbolize elite power structures and selling your soul.
The dining room features a dollhouse, which is an exact replica of the main house. Isabella even made a voodoo doll of Catherine to live inside it, using hair that she collected from Catherineâs hairbrush. Isabella showed an obsession with Catherine (which didnât exist in the book) that makes me think of the way sheâs often played with to sell a fairytale. All the elaborate gowns added to that feeling, like swapping outfits on a paper doll. Casting Margot Robbie as the lead adds an extra layer since she also played Barbie. It shows the darker side of Barbieâs dreamhouse and Taylor Swift in the Lover house (or the Ivy house, hiding an affair from her husband).
The gardens are also intriguing. In some places theyâre very manicured with twisting hedges and outdoor tea parties, evoking Alice in Wonderland. While in other scenes theyâre a bit more overgrown with ivy and tree swings like in the Secret Garden. The stairs up to the drawing room (i.e., the light blue room) even had a fishbowl on each side like the 1989 room.
The production designer (Suzie Davies) and Margot Robbie both said that it was designed so that âanything living is caged in something.â There are high walls and hedges encircling the property, and all the creatures are trapped in some way (in fishbowls, a birdcage, a lamb inside a display case, a fish suspended in jelly).
As for the Wuthering Heights house, everything is brutalist and cold, but there was some evocative imagery there too, like a giant crack through the house and the chessboard mastermind floor. (There was also an elaborate chessboard in the drawing room at Thrushcross Grange).
Anyone familiar with the story knows that Catherine dies halfway through the book after going mad from having to choose between Edgar (high society, comfort) and Heathcliff (wild, untamed, raw emotion). The movie made this scene much more macabre than it was in the book, as sheâs literally closed inside walls made out of her own skin. It was Barbie dying in her dream house. It was Taylor trapped inside her own skin, dying behind the facade of the showgirl.
All of this was hinted at in the lead up to the movie, with Charli xcxâs soundtrack singing about the chains of love, and âIâm gonna die in this house.â Margot Robbie wearing Schiaparelli and Elizabeth Taylorâs necklace to the premier also set off some alarm bells (I was going to post about some cool Schiaparelli connections but havenât gotten around to it!) Overall, such a fascinating story thatâs being told, ultimately quite horrifying.
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