This is gonna sound silly, but as a fan who’s seen every movie Shazad has been in in theaters since the beginning of his career, no matter how small the role, I’ve been struggling with a bit of fan guilt for not watching “Wuthering Heights” in the theater and supporting it during it’s run. While I didn’t want to support it monetarily, it’s been too long since I’ve seen him on the big screen, and I was hoping maybe I could catch it at a discount theater last minute, but it seems like it’s run is done in my state. I did it out of principal, but he’s so proud of it, and keeps saying it’s the best job ever done, best role he’s ever played, and it’s making me feel bad. 🙄😭 Someone please reassure me that I did the right thing and validate my actions (or lack thereof.)
In Brontë’s novel, Heathcliff is described as a Lascar, a term for a sailor from India or south-east Asia; the casting of Elordi, a white man, in the role has raised eyebrows in corners of the internet. When I bring it up, he says,
“If anything, it shouldn’t be on me, or any person of colour, to comment on this. It’s one for the industry. What is cool, to me, is being able to play these roles. We’re adding colour back into period dramas because we’ve always been there.”
Understandably, he would rather focus on the ease with which his own heritage was woven into the narrative.
“We were able to flesh out this backstory, which included the Linton family being from South Asia and adopting Isabella, who is white, as a ward. It adds another dimension to the story.”
Fresh from the promotional whirlwind of Wuthering Heights, the actor celebrates the joy of cinema, his nan’s VHS collection and being an inc
is there anyone who wishes we saw more of the Edgar and Isabella parent/child (guardian/ward) relationship or am I crazy. Not making them siblings was a choice definitely, but I still think there was room to explore their relationship. Obviously, Edgar has been indulging Isabella with everything, and he was also, understandably so, weirded out at her "awakening" when Heathcliff arrives, but I need to know more!!! How did he become her guardian? (I hate how they made him look bored and disinterested while she was telling him about Romeo & Juliet, you cannot convince me that man doesn't love Isabella, he's such a girl dad)
sorry even pretending it's not a wuthering heights adaptation, as an asian I can't get behind positioning a south asian man during british colonial times as a weak little thing who can't offer anything to his white wife or partner. one of the most prevalent stereotypes about asian men yikes.
Baffling that people don't understand the difference between a 19th C author telling a story with racist characters who use slurs in it and a 21st century woman directing an adaptation of that story where the blond, blue-eyed "safe" love interest is played by a Pakistani-British actor and fetishizes his white wife's skin.
A rant about Edgar Linton in the 2026 Wuthering Heights
Shazad Latif's Edgar Linton in the movie was underused and done wrong to say the least, among all the other characters and the story, but I think the casting also adds a lot more nuance to it and since this has been on my mind ever since I walked out of the cinema, I have to write something about it. It's going to be a long one and I doubt anyone cares but it's important to me so here I go.
My reasoning for all of the following is based on the interviews with the actors. When they talk about the movie, it seems that they are talking about completely different characters and I don't blame them at all, they are trying to sell the movie they worked hard for after all, but they seem to wonder how to answer the questions (it's so sweet and funny though, i don't mean it in a bad way). My point is that the movie is so bad that they don't know what they can say anymore.
If you watched any of the interviews with Shazad Latif (Edgar Linton) and Alicent Oliver (Isabella), you will have noticed that a lot of the things they shared about their characters is not something we actually saw in the movie itself, nor is it something you could infer. Shazad has repeatedly stated in interviews that, in conversation with Emerald Fennell, they talked a lot about how they're going to portray Edgar and multiple times he has stated that she wanted to make Edgar "a credible threat to Heathcliff" and we simple do not see that. In another interview, Alicent Oliver said something along the lines of Edgar is not just the husband they all have to deal with, but he's got the patience of a saint. But the important question is what did we end up with? An Edgar who was made weak, too weak to confront his wife for her adultery, to protect his ward and to stand up to Heathcliff. Where was the credible threat? They made him the perfect husband but they really treated him as someone who was just there to be a hurdle for Catherine and Heathcliff's relationship. I'm glad there are so many people who appreciate Edgar because they really did a number on him in the movie.
The actor also stated "I remember Emerald talking about this—you only buy into their love story if all the points of the triangle work," but the love triangle didn't work. They did show that Catherine loved Edgar - not even a little bit (whereas in the novel, she does genuinely want to be with him, though she still pines for Heathcliff). I agree, however, it would've been perfect if we saw her torn between the two men, but that is simply not what happened. Catherine was bored with Edgar, the scenes of intimacy between them portrayed Catherine like she was forced to have sex with him and she didn't enjoy it (and mind you, when she suggested something new, he went along with it - again because he loves her so much and would do anything for her).
Looking into more of the interviews with Shazad, I found out so much more about Edgar which is simply not something you can glean from the movie and bear with me, it matters. Here are some of the more important parts, though feel free to look up some of the interviews yourself.
"He’s someone who’s repressed"
"But she wanted to make him a credible threat, not just because he’s rich. Because he’s clever, he’s kind, he’s an advanced man. "
"This is someone who’s made a lot of money, and that’s his protection, that’s his safety."
"... be the most gentlemanly he can be and be a very good businessman. Because if he makes one mistake, in my mind, you get hanged. He has to be the most English, the most rich, and that way he can protect everything." (the quotes are from The Cosmopolitan)
So there is more to Edgar than we saw or that was implied. In another interview Shazad said that he did a lot of preparation for the role (and it seems he was the only one on that set who has actually read the novel). Because Edgar is a textiles merchant, he said he learned a lot about that, but as Shazad said none of that ended up in the movie. And in that same interview (it was Shazad and Hong Chau), they said they filmed scenes together (Nelly and Edgar) but they weren't included in the movie. More quotes from youtube interviews "the pain of growing up how he probably did, he creates an environment for himself that's very safe to keep everything wild away, "he's got his ward but he infantilizes it, he puts everything in glass cases, so it's all to do with protection and distraction so that he doesn't get hurt inside".
From all of this, there is so much more about his character that was discussed beforehand and which Shazad did preparation for, yet it all got scrapped? Even his relationship as Isabella's guardian wasn't fully utilized. He is literally bored while she is retelling him the story of Romeo and Juliet and he doesn't worry at all about her elopement with Heathcliff, nor does he go to rescue her after Catherine dies.
It's especially interesting, since Shazad has been vocal about the necessity of telling stories about people of color. So how did he end up in this? I do not blame him at all (I love Shazad) and he himself has said that he still doesn't get many offers, and also, by what he discussed with the director, it seemed like the character was quite promising on paper. Shazad even says Edgar is a progressive character - a brown man who has made his fortune and is trying to fit into society while also protecting himself at the same time, but also being very open and accepting of his wife's behaviour and love for another man. Even if we do not compare it to his characterization from the novel, Fennell's vision still falls flat. All of this makes me wonder whether the director promised enough about his character to get him on board, but premeditated or not, she ended up completely ruining Edgar Linton. I'm wondering if we were supposed to see a different movie altogether, but it got changed through editing, or that had been Fennell's intention all along.
I must add, however, that all of this is speculation on my part and I am angry at the movie because I love Shazad Latif and I really liked his character and people fail to see the potential in Edgar.
And to quote Shazad one last time, "the dog collar of it all".
I typed up an entire thing before tumblr mobile crashed and killed me forever, so this might seem a bit disjointed (pulling from scraps in my mind). You can call me out if I start to sound too conspiratorial
I feel like for a lot of WH26 fans, and perhaps even Fennell herself, it isn't that they enjoy BDSM dynamics or like dub/noncon, but that they have a deep hatred towards poc and it's leaking INTO the media they enjoy. You can see it especially in the way some viewers are talking abt Shazad Latif's Edgar, and occasionally in people talking about Hong Chau's Nelly
The whitewashed main couple has to be comically woobified and defanged compared their source material. Margaret Robbie's Catherine is afraid of Elordicliff's violence, she's more innocent, she has altruism that book-Cathy tends to not embody. Elordicliff has a purposeful scene of asking consent from Isabella to show that he's not a reaaaal abuser, of course! All of this is contrasted with the characters played by poc, who have been turned more cruel, sexual, and both suffocatingly domineering, and paradoxically weaker.
The thing is, these viewers NEED the whitewashed Earnshaws to be "virtuous" in comparison to the "base" and "degenerate" poc. All the incest and rape subtext is written out of Cathy and Elordicliff, because that would make them too gross for the comfort of WH26's white fans. It loses their perceived moral superiority over poc, and the sex that poc supposedly have, according to this movie. The fantasies aren't necessarily of bdsm or "taboo fetishes", but the idea of a strong white partner saving them from the "corruption" of a Nasty Asian Person. Very often violently, as many have already pointed out before me.
and I would argue this goes from racism to more general colourism with Oliver's Isabella. While Blond Cathy can now be a poor sensitive soul, Brown-Haired Isabella's agency in the original text is turned into vapidness, immaturity, and a "sexual deviancy" that says "she deserved her abuse because she wanted it, actually!" The only compliments fans of WH26 has towards her is that she's "camp," her abuse/kink is Entertaining because she's Dramatic About It. (apparently her actor is also Irish, which feels very ironic considering the "white irish heathcliff" argument)
(side note: I also think she is infantilised and Latif's character has been adultified by the change from siblings -> ward, and that doesn't sit well with me for either character. i'd say it's racist, but I don't quite know where to include this, so it's in parentheses here)
Throughout this film, characters who are darker in colouration, be it skin or hair, are constantly shown as mentally and sexually perverse. Violence towards them is considered "deserved" because of their Deviancy, and this isn't only an idea held by fans, but also by EF's narrative itself. When people say they just want to have sexy fun with the movie, I wonder if their fun is the puppyplay or the violent subjugation of nonwhite people
Hey, just coming out of hibernation, I'd seen your message as it arrived, but life has been hectic over the past few days!
So... this movie reads as confirmation bias to me.
From its creation, to the way fans engage with it.
You are completely correct that the audience's own perceptions and prejudices seep into the media they consume, and this is a broader discourse: we see it when we have white people who couldn't name a single movie that doesn't have a majority white cast (and even when they can name it... have they watched it? Often, the answer is no - and this applies to all forms of media), we've seen it with the multiple "Dev Patel was right there!" comments regarding Heathcliff (name another Brown actor, go!), and we're seeing it with the reception of this movie, too.
A movie has been written by someone with a clear bias, both classist and racist, for people with the same bias to consume. While the rest of us are absolutely horrified.
To me, it isn't accidental that the only way Fennell could make an upper-class man "undesirable", was casting him as a MOC. It isn't accidental that Nelly had proximity to that very same upper-class, but casting her as a WOC implies that this is the true reason she can't join that crowd. And both their stories could have been fine stories to tell, too, if they were handled with grace and a will to denounce discrimination, rather than perpetuating it.
There was a video on the official Wuthering Heights instagram stories where Fennell talks about how Heathcliff is the most unlikable/unforgivable leading man in classic literature (that's the gist of it, I can't remember the exact wording and I wish I could find it again!), and she accidentally made the same exact point you made about needing the (now white) lead to still be likeable and desirable, and therefore removing some unsavoury aspects from his character now that Elordi is playing him, and the audience will empathise with him. She made it sound like a good thing, and all the while, I was completely gobsmacked, because in what world is the original Heathcliff not a character one can empathise with, or feel for? Not that he should be forgiven for what he ended up doing, but not empathising with him for the treatment he received for existing is absolutely wild to me, especially since only the first part of the novel made it on screen.
What's also wild is that she specifically chose to adapt this novel, while siding with every single Linton and Hindley the plot has to offer.
She really said the quiet part out loud, when she stated that people would now have empathy for Heathcliff, because Elordi plays him.
Also, yeah.
The Edgar/Isabella dynamic bothered me quite a bit.
It feels, again, like a desexualisation of his character through boxing him into a parental/carer role (which isn't true in life, of course, but often happens in media), and agency taken away from her through infantilisation.
All this to say... yeah, you definitely have a point, and a point I agree with!
Wuthering Heights 2026 thoughts, now that I've seen it.
I'll try and go in chronological order with the bullet points, following my notes. I'm going to bold the character and actor names, so you can skim through with ease.
This is going to be a long post, full of very negative opinions, talks about racism, and spoilers.
You have been warned!
We learn that Heathcliff's Father (a role with literal seconds of screen time, created just for the movie) is abusive, which is why Earnshaw takes Heathcliff in in the first place. I wouldn't want to be reading too much into this, but he also is presented to us in a costume that feels a LOT like the stereotyping of Romani people in Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame, gold earring and everything (much like Heathcliff himself later in the movie). It could be just bad costuming, we all know by now that the film is full of that. Or it could be a way to set the tone. Either way, YIKES.
Speaking of Mr. Earnshaw... he's a caricature. His character motivations are non-existent, he's abusive towards both Heathcliff and Catherine because he needs to be to move the plot forward, but that's it. Hindley was cut out because Fennell thought he was one-dimensional (very debatable), but then we get a cartoonish villain, along with piles of empty bottles and evil laughter. It just doesn't work.
The acting from both leads is very much over-the-top, and underwhelming at the same time. There were moments when it felt like they were just reading lines. Robbie pouts at the camera, Elordi mumbles as he holds on the "Yorkshire" accent for dear life, I'm bored.
Also, why has everyone aged at different rates? How much time has passed from them as kids (where they're all around the same age, except Nelly who's only a couple of years older) to them as adults? I can suspend my disbelief and all that, but hot damn.
"Joseph is heartbreaking", they said in interviews, but the only heartbreaking thing about his character is that Ewan Mitchell is actually a really good actor who was given a really bad script (I have no horse in this race, I'd never seen this man before in my life). I also have the sneaking suspicion Fennell couldn't understand his lines in the book, so she made up a different character altogether.
We meet the Lintons. We get exposition and foreshadowing via Isabella's summary of Romeo and Juliet. 1. Why are you beating me over the head with this, 2. Why are we portraying women and girls' interests as annoying by having Edgar just... look dismissive/nod along while obviously judging her?
I literally have written down "Imagine being found by Shazad Latif and ever looking at another man again!" lol I'll keep this comment in, it's a fair assessment!
You may have noticed I haven't spoken much about Heathcliff yet. That's because in this movie, he's boiled down "I love Cathy" as his main character trait (why? We're not shown that they care about each other), is a bit of a doormat, and is very reminiscent of all the fanfiction boyfriends most of us have read and written in our formative years. A prop.
On that note, Cathy is written a bit better, but she also feels like she was written by someone who hates her guts. She is only petulant, only mean spirited, she is portrayed as the villain over and over again, she literally has a scene where she stares into the fireplace the way Cersei looked over the Sept Of Baelor as it was being blown-up. Does Fennell hate women? Not that women can't be villains (speaking of Cersei, I love her very much!), it's when said portrayal is meant to be a vessel to show us how they are the reason the men in the story become abusive that... yeah.
Nelly, too, becoming a clear-cut villain, and making her bitter because of backstory as a lord's bastard... um. That's a... choice. Hong Chau was giving it her all, and I cheered when she called Cathy out on the crying, but still... choices have been made when portraying ALL THREE women in the story as traitors, one way or another.
I cannot tell you how boring the sneaky sex in the moors was. I cannot tell you how unsexy, bland, and vanilla all of the sex scenes were. If you want to market this as a spicy movie, the spice level can't be "a conservative amount of salt-and-pepper".
EDGAR LINTON. We need to talk about Edgar Linton. First off, look at Shazad go, giving us everything he can. He's the only one who doesn't read on screen as "This is an actor, acting and reading lines" but "This is The Character". Good for him. However, I cannot begin to tell you how problematic it is to have him be blissfully unaware that his wife just isn't into him (giving all of his sex scenes with Cathy a dubcon connotation. Because we need to be portraying Brown men as both undesirable and sexually violent, apparently), to have Catherine literally finding every possible way not to look at his face as they have sex, have him be extremely meek when it comes to his wife's affair, and then trying to frame it all as if he is the villain or obstacle. The two main leads get turned on by discussing in detail how Heathcliff would murder him (after we get a little rant about Edgar not being manly enough, because why not. Let's lay the racism on thick!). This is ''Emasculation of Asian Men 101'', it's Fennell showing us that Brown men are undesirable in her eyes.
Isabella is constantly bullied, constantly ridiculed, constantly painted as very child-like and naive. There is literally a scene where she accidentally makes scrapbook pages that look like a vagina and a penis, respectively. She does not understand what Cathy and Edgar are laughing about, and this is supposed to be... a joke we're all in on? It just leaves me wondering how much she can actually consent to later on, and this also leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. Also she's somewhat of a villain, too. Again, does Fennell hate women?
I have not talked about the Skin Room because all the rumours were true, you can find it in my tags, I've said my piece on it and how it's racist. I'll only add that if Edgar making the room is painted as creepy, and Heathcliff licking the walls is supposed to be sexy, that is also a very clear message the movie sends us regarding who is desirable and who isn't.
Cathy dies. Heathcliff threatens Edgar, her grieving husband, in his own home. After being addressed with "I'll kill you", Edgar reveals that he just didn't want Heathcliff to see Catherine like that. Because, again, we need to portray the MOC as submissive. When I tell you I screamed into my pillow.
They couldn't even get the Drive Me Mad speech right. It was whispered ASMR, and lacked everything (including context, because there was no clear chemistry or bond between these two).
ANYWAY.
This was long, I definitely may have more to say in the future, but... save your money, pirate it like I did, off to watch Penny Dreadful now so I can pretend we got Shazad Latif as Heathcliff.
Apparently Heathcliff offered to kill Edgar to Cathy but Cathy said “No”. I haven’t watched the movie but I watched a lot of reviews of it.
This is something that technically could have happened in the book, so it is not the most outrageous element in a Wuthering Heights adaptation I guess. But I really am disturbed by the above conversation.
Yeah, if I recall correctly, the book does reference Heathcliff having the capability to kill Edgar, (which he obviously doesn’t.) I haven’t seen the movie either, but the above conversation is in regards to the film, which I’ve heard Edgar is supposedly nothing but a sweet and passive doormat in. So it especially disturbs and confuses me given that context. Unless this is just some hybristolphilia kink lost on me.
Ooh a Tiktok bonus 🤪 So thousands at this point are actually getting giddy and foaming at the mouth at the visualization of brown Edgar facing violence or m*rder by white Heathcliff. Thanks Emerald!
Am I the only one grossed by the optics of these fangirls wishing for white Heathcliff to kill POC Edgar Linton so he can take his white wife into the sunset?
No, you are not. I was slightly disturbed by it and was wondering if I was overreacting. Like yes, these are fictional characters, but the optics of it are just…weird. Do they subconsciously think a certain way (even if they wouldn’t literally go out and do something like that themselves or want their significant other to,) or am I overthinking it? I probably am overthinking it, but you can’t blame me for it crossing my mind if you know what I mean.
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