#emerald fennel

[myfandomprompts]

EWAN MITCHELL Wuthering Heights | London Premiere 2026

[en-theos]

“it's just a book”? “this is not based on real life”? “it's all art”?

Oh, okay. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you.

You go to your pile of scripts and you select some chicks in hoop skirts and foggy moors, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take your art too seriously to care about 1770's northern british class and race relations.

But what you don't know is that those moors are not just foggy. they're not random heights. they're not foggy. they're wuthering heights.

And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in the 1600's William Shakespeare did a collection of romantic tragedies. And then I think it was Lord Byron and Walter Scott who accelerated English Romanticism? And then others quickly proliferated the writing of gothic horror novels like The Monk and The Mysteries of Udolpho and sparked a boom of female authors. And then it filtered down through the emergence of the horror genre and gothic aesthetics and then trickled on down into cinema…where you, no doubt, fished it out of the multi-annual cycle of masterwork adaptations.

However, such an adaptation represents centuries of invested readers and countless reinventions of a widely beloved work.

And it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the literary and artistic tradition when, in fact…you're ignoring an aesthetic and narrative essence that was cultivated for you by the people in that tradition…from a pile of "art."

[kurtsmellsliketeenspiritt]

“heathcliffs race was ambiguous” “it was the 1800s there weren’t many darker skinned people in england she probably meant tanned”

the decrease in literacy and the absolute braindead media comprehension has made you all stupid and unable to see anything outside your own race and privilege. heathcliff is a POC and that is central to his character arc in this essay i will…

[jacobelordiimagines]

Imagine... You are on a train. You pass a field of seemingly normal sheep. You see one looks particularly tall and triangular. It's Jacob Elordi. He bleats and eats grass. He then scampers off on all fours. You never see him again.

[macabre-muses]

posting about this A LOT but if your casting for heathcliff in the year 2025 is someone who got called the white boy of the month by the majority of internet users then you're absolutely doing something wrong.

[viktor-kraken]

Nolan’s odyssey is low key giving Fennel’s wurthering heights, in that it’s a white bitch erasing all the cultural significance from a timeless tale for the sake of what THEY (basic ass white bitches) found interesting (equivalent to white bread)

[greatstuffdrawer]

Unpopular opinions (?): Wuthering Heights 2026

I have seen a lot of criticism concerning the new Wuthering Heights movie that has started to spread from engaging in valid and topical discourse on race and whitewashing in the year 2026 to beyond the original pale, calling it vapid and brainless, the eroticism feeling silly, having zero chemistry between the main leads, making zero social commentary, set designs being ugly etc. After viewing, I felt confused by the criticism having expanded to almost every crevasse of the film. I wanted to engage with and challenge some of these newer critiques so here are some thoughts on Emerald Fennel's Wuthering Heights (2026) and some disagreements with current critique…

Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie had chemistry that, especially in the latter half of the film, was perfect for this movie and the dynamic they played. Robbie was very good at playing Cathy’s annoying sides and I fully believed Elordi’s anger, sadism and devotion. All of the performances were phenomenal…

The first scene of Isabella was an immediately recognizable icon and depiction of how a teenage girl would be consumed by and consumes art and desire. If Isabella from the movie existed today, you could not convince me she wouldn’t be wearing a panda beanie and have charms on her backpack or messenger bag.

Other great things: Heathcliff’s cunty little earring (very David Beckham), the hair motif, speaking of which, the jealousy between Isabella and Cathy heightened in Cathy pulling Isabella by the hair and displaying her cruelty. This, at the very least, gave a glimpse into the Cathy familiar from the book.

In spite of the casting and plot changes, the movie still takes up the issue of class in the marriage choice of Cathy, the social climbing of Heathcliff and his servant status as a child, in Joseph being ostracized by his former lover and in Nelly growing up in her house of employment, being both part family and yet at the whims of her masters.

It also very smartly turns the religious conservative Joseph from the book upside down by representing what religious oppression often hides— suppressed desire and stifled self expression or a perceived deviation as dictated by the given time and context (in the movie, Joseph does BDSM with Zillah).

The movie takes part in other critical subject matter by also addressing the bodily autonomy of women. Coming out of the magistrate we see a crying woman just wed to a man who gruffly notes how at least he married her. Cathy dies of sepsis, blood poisoning from the baby that has died in her womb and has not been (or could not have been, without incredible risks) removed from her body in time. Nelly is at the brink of losing her home and job. These choices were surely not done accidentally and yet no one seems to be mentioning them in their critiques of no social commentary or all social commentary falling short.

It also addresses education and lack of it as a form of control, with Heathcliff not being able to write. This is very clearly illustrated in the book.

At one point the dad seems to take a jab at one of the aspects of the story that I do not see often talked about as an element of the gothic horror of it all. This is that Cathy and Heathcliff are siblings. Having read the book, I personally interpret Cathy’s father to be the biological father of Heathcliff but even if he is not, they are still siblings. In the movie, Mr. Earnshaw suspects that Edgar and Isabella have not married each other because they are more like siblings to each other. Who does that sound like?

Not an unpopular opinion but as to filmography and set design, the movie was visually stunning, especially the shots of Wuthering Heights in the beginning of the movie. The set design and filmography that made everything look like a sort of theatre stage set was just the right kind of ominous artificial. And of course the foggy views of the moors. The cellos of Charli XCX’s ‘House’ that you could physically feel in your body and ’Funny Mouth’ with violins that at times sounded like you were being drugged by a swarm of bees created a very haunting and personal sound for the movie that gave me goose bumps.

Where it lacked besides the obvious original critique: It had so much visual, atmospheric and story potential and yet it did not go as far as it could have with its source material. I’m saying Heathcliff could have opened Cathy’s grave.

The most disturbing parts personally (and horror is always subjective): Catherine emerging like a confection in cellophane wrapping to her new husband to be served up to him on their wedding night and the idea of Cathy and her baby dying, preventing the developmental cycle that happens in the book.

Some additional (thought) provoking things: Nelly, in experiencing reminders of her lower position and cruelty from her masters, becomes the more hardened “torturer”, in some way taking the original book-Heathcliff’s position. This can definitely rattle chains. Another provocative scene is seeing Mr. Earnshaw beg for more money and pick coins from the floor to sustain his alcoholism. Poverty in this way is implied to stem from bad choices, spending and greed.

All in all, it was a well made movie in spite of all my initial hesitation, the very valid criticism and surrounding discourse and the suspicious parts of the movie. I feel that a lot of people put a lot of faith in women artists specifically. Perhaps it creates greater disappointment when creative choices reiterate power positions and hierarchies that specific identities and positions makes possible to do. But. Emily Brontë is not turning in her grave. Her book remains the same.

[jjellecubed]

Am I just being a hater and a nitpicker or does anyone else also feel like there’s a lot of underlying misogyny in wuthering heights 2026