I finished Emerald Fennellâs new adaptation of Wuthering Heights and WOW.
I know many self-proclaimed âlit nerds,â âbookish girlies,â and âclassic loversâ despise this film (and to be fair, some of their criticisms are valid). But after seeing it, I canât help but feel that a lot of people are missing what the movie is actually doing.
Yes, I read Wuthering Heights in high school. And no, this is not a page-for-page adaptation of Wuthering Heights. But what Emerald Fennell delivers is not a watered-down romance or empty spectacle, itâs something far more disturbing.
From beginning to end, the film is insane, tragic, and at times genuinely hard to stomach. It is filled with cruelty, debauchery, and a relentless cycle of trauma. Loyalties you expect to hold dissolve quickly under self-interest and obsession. There is no sweeping, romanticized love here. There is devouring. There is possession. There is a desperate need to tether another person to yourself at any cost.
Many viewers have pointed to the erotic additions (the sex, the kinks, the animalistic imagery) as proof that the film reduces the story to romance. I couldnât disagree more. I found nothing romantic about what I watched. It was sick. Deranged. Toxic. Heartbreaking. The sensuality isnât there to make you swoon; it underscores how destructive the connection between Heathcliff and Catherine truly is. They are not lovers to aspire to, they are forces that consume one another.
Visually, the film is stunning. The dreamlike cinematography, the production design, the costuming, and the music all work together to build an atmosphere that says far more than the dialogue ever could. If you focus only on what the characters say and whether certain plot points were cut, you are missing most of the storytelling. This is a film that communicates through imagery and tone. The tragedy lives in the spaces between words. I want to say more on this but Iâll have to watch the movie again to fully understand how much depth there is to it.
Of course, there are valid criticisms. The loss of large portions of the novel will disappoint purists. Some argue that the main themes were diluted or replaced with eroticism. I disagree, I believe those themes are still there, embedded in the visual language and emotional violence of the film rather than spelled out in exposition.
The portrayal of Heathcliff is another point of contention. In the novel, his racial otherness is central to his outsider status and the cruelty he endures. Any casting choice here is fraught. If you emphasize it and you risk reinforcing harmful stereotypes, but if you downplay it, you risk erasing an important layer of meaning. While I was initially taken aback, I can understand the complexity of that decision in todayâs cultural climate, even if it invites debate.
Ultimately, I did not leave the theater swooning over a romantically tragic love story. I left unsettled. Disturbed. Impressed. This adaptation doesnât ask you to romanticize obsession, it forces you to confront it. And for that, I loved it.
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