In September, the first teaser trailer for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights was released to widespread derision. We got a glimpse of Fennell’s vision for the classic novel and that vision was… not great. Fennell doesn’t care about period details, she doesn’t care that her teenage heroine is being played by 30-something Margot Robbie, and she doesn’t care about the actual original text by Emily Bronte. To make matters worse, Fennell organized some test screenings for the film and those people TALKED. They said the film is “aggressively provocative and tonally abrasive, leans hard into Fennell’s now-familiar brand of stylized depravity. It’s a deliberately unromantic take on Brontë’s novel, stripped of emotional nuance and full of salacious detours that serve shock value.” Well, there’s now a full-length trailer and it honestly looks like they’re trying to “soften” the imagery:
LOL, I’m out. While this trailer is at least attempting to connect the film to the book, it’s beyond clear that Fennell took some really wild liberties with the text. It’s crazy because I love Margot Robbie and I genuinely believe she’s an underrated actress, but she was miscast here, and that’s such a central thing. I do think Jacob Elordi would have been a decent Heathcliff in a straight adaptation, but who knows what he’s doing here.
Photos/screencaps courtesy of ‘Wuthering Heights’ trailer, poster courtesy of Warner Bros.
So aggressively awful!
I saw this last night while having dinner with my mother and stepfather. The sound wasn’t even on and I almost physically recoiled. It was just all entirely wrong.
It’s quite curious how the men in charge of Hollywood give Greta Gerwig and Emerald Fennell carte blanche (this is Emerald’s third film and Greta has also made only three films) and all it took was 1 hit while so many female film directors have more than deserved the financing/support from the suits in charge than these two. Two white blonde actresses, one from extreme wealth, are the most well known. Greta and the way she treated JJL while 9 months pregnant and having an affair/running away with Noah Baumbach tells you everything you need to know about how feminist and ‘supportive of women’ she is. Greta used male collaborators to get ahead starting with her entry into the DGA by insisting on a co-direction credit she didn’t start out with. Then the Duplasses. Then Baumbach. What a joke Hollywood is.
I’ll watch it. I might hate it. I might love it. It might have nothing to do with the book or it might be closer than it seems. I’ll wait and see.
I do have an issue with describing it as a great love story, I re-read it recently and there is very little love in this story of generational trauma.
Il watch it too probably but not until streaming and Ill try to separate the movie from the book.
Definitely not the greatest love story ever told. Saltburn was so bad I don’t want to waste another two hours on Fennell’s twisted view of rich people.
Thank you. I also thought Saltburn was ridiculous and was baffled by my favorite pop culture critics just fawning over it. I did like Promising Young Woman, though.
To me, its about obsession, not love.
So I now to read the book before passing judgement. And I agree with all you said about MR.
Even the poster bothers me. Why does it look like it’s for Valley of the Dolls? Has Fennell taken note of the negative reception from fans of the novel, and now she’s just going to try leaning into the camp value or something?
The pose reminds me of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind.
It is exactly “Gone with the Wind”
THAT’S where I recognized it from! The font is very late ’60s/early ’70s, though, and it’s an odd choice. I know it’s an extremely minor detail, but I tend to fixate on things like that, lol.
Am I the only one who doesn’t find Wurthering Heights to be a love story? It’s been a minute since I’ve read it, but I remember finding it a crazy ass book? Thematically I was more struck by lust revenge obsession than I was love. Maybe it warrants a reread. I remember reading somewhere that it was regarded as an absolutely shocking book for its time. Like people being outraged by its perceived depravity and cruelty. Maybe this is a subversive nod to that ?Anyway I’ll prolly watch because what else am I going to with my life, lol.
No, I feel like its pretty widely accepted that its not a love story. There’s relationships in it, but that doesn’t make it a love story.
I agree, it is certainly not a love story. The main two characters are awful, especially Heathcliff. There’s lust, dependence, revenge, hatred, suffering. No love.
And if someone finds this romantic, I wish them to grow out of it.
And racism.
I have to confess it’s been so long since I’ve read the book or seen the original movie (black & white) that I was thinking, is this the one with the wife in the attic? I’m guessing not. 🤭
This is so wrong. Its revenge story because at the time people rejected heathcliff because of his race and it leads to trauma. It’s not romcom where two individual misunderstood eachother. Cathy and heathcliff is sadist and unhinged characters.
Why is it so hard for people to understand that you can make your own take of a another IP. It even says inspired by in the trailer.
Theres so many movies and tv shows that are great and chenged a lot from the source material.
For some reason people are really not grasping that Emerald wanted to make her own take on it, just like directors etc have done for centuries.
Like the new frankestain or the older romeo and juliet movie etc.
If you want the exact same story , read the book again.
Or Fennell could write an original movie rather than butcher a novel that’s been read for generations.
Butcher is subjective. There’s no ‘right’ way to interpret a book. It might not be for you, in which case don’t watch it.
Positioning a book about mental and physical abuse, revenge, and hatred as the greatest love story ever told is Fennell using the prestige of Emily Bronte without respecting the message Bronte intended to convey.
This was a reply to Niko’s comment – I completely agree with this. It’s just the same boring take again and again online that Margot is too old and the film doesn’t look faithful to the source text. SO WHAT. There are faithful adaptations. This one is taking the source and interpreting it differently. It’s also frustrating to me that people are clutching their pearls and saying “it’s smutty!!” – and? The source is violent, obsessive, dark. It’s not Pride and Prejudice. People really need to get TF over it already. I’m going into the film with an open mind and I’m expecting it to be interesting.
There’s putting your own spin on a book and interpreting it differently and then there is completely missing the point of a book and its overarching message and story.
Based on these previews, it just looked like she made a 19th century romance/drama with characters named Cathy and Heathcliff. Not Wuthering Heights.
There is no ‘point’ of a book. It’s art. Once it’s in the public domain people are free to take what they take from it. People are protective of their favourites, I get it, but the gatekeeping around it is reductive and boring.
It’s actually not my favorite – I hate it, lol, but am going to reread it this winter just to properly hate this movie too – so I’m not protective or gatekeeping of it.
Again if she wanted to make some random ass movie she could have done that. But she didn’t. She wanted to make Wuthering Heights. and it seems she didnt understand the source material. Its hard to interpret something, even in a different way, if you dont understand it.
I agree with Niko and this notion in concept, but Becks is right. I loved the book and have read it so many times I’ve lost count. Both Bronte and Fennell were/are obsessed with social class and its consequences. Bronte was ahead of her time, and Fennell is a posh girl rebelling against her station, which is interesting if it doesn’t get too deliberate and obvious, like it did in Saltburn. Parts of that were so disgusting that while I understood her point, I was nauseated.
If this film is truly “inspired by” WH and explores a different, modern path, like the Tik Toker suggests, then it’s interesting and I’ll see it. But if it’s a heavy handed adaptation made for shock value, it’s a hard pass from me.
I completely agree. The Bronte books are not Jane Austen, they are much darker and subversive. I was never a fan of Wuthering Heights because I found it unpleasant from start to finish, not at all romantic. This doesn’t look romantic either, to be honest, it looks like people obsessed with and playing with each other, which is absolutely in keeping with the original text. Ultimately people who like Fennel’s work may like this and people who don’t may hate it. I personally enjoyed Saltburn for what it was and understood the literary references she was making, particularly nods to the gothic romances of this time period. I’ll see it because I wonder if I’ll like the story better in this adaptation but if I don’t then that’s fine. It’s just a movie.
The primary audience for any book adaptation are always the fans of the book. They are kind of your built in audience. They are also always the first to comment.
There is nothing wrong with adopting the book as an interpretation, moving away from the source material, but the film makers can’t expect the fans of the books to just be OK with these changes, especially if they change the narrative or the characters a lot. The movie bears the title of the original IP, and of the original author, but it is not the same work, sometimes not even in the spirit of the original.
So if they do an unfaithful adaptation, or interpretation, they automatically lose a chunk of their target audience, and must then reach out to those who were not fans of the book before. But those are harder to court than the lost fans.
Thank you! It’s really bothering me that we’ve had male directors doing wildly inaccurate adaptations since forever, but a woman makes a film reflecting her relationship to a classic (and bonkers) novel, and suddenly it’s mobs with pitchforks time.
Withering Heights is an extravagantly transgressive Gothic novel. Doing this sort of adaptation is probably being closer to the original spirit of the novel than a historically accurate and respectful version would be.
I’ll slam male directors all the time for inaccurate adaptations, lol. It’s why I dont like Leonard’s Pride and Prejudice from 1940.
I sort of agree. But if it’s just inspired by then don’t call it WH. Call it Heathcliff and Cathy or Obsession on the Moors or something. If you call it WH then you have to deal with the criticisms of adhering to the text.
I’m probably going to see it anyway though. I’ve been waiting for a major movie that doesn’t paint this as a romance. Even as a teen I was like “these people are all horrible”. 😆 Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon were so attractive and magnetic 8n the roles, especially Olivier, that their portrayals became the standard lens through which it was viewed.
Going hors piste here to say that I just appreciate that Fennell is getting deals and movies made as a female director. I feel like Olivia Wilde is in director’s jail.
As for age and casting, this strongly reminds me of the casting of Nobody Wants This, which features actors 45 years old playing characters in their early 30s. It gives a weird under-vibe, distracting.
To me the funniest example is Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia. She was nearly 60 when she played the role (and looked it – I mean, she looks great, she just doesn’t look younger than her age). So Donna would have been having her wild, impetuous youthful flings at age 40 or so, since the daughter was stated as being 20.
I think maybe Meryl loved the musical, wanted to be in it, and the filmmakers decided that if they could get Meryl, that would be a coup. But to me it was just really distracting to have a 60ish actress playing a character who is supposed to be about 40. Changed the whole dynamic of the film.
That really annoyed me. She was way too old to play the role. The character was supposed to be like 45, tops. Young enough that when she got pregnant with Sophie her mother was still in a position to tell her “don’t you dare come home pregnant.” Also, Meryl isn’t a good singer and was literally a musical.
It really threw off that whole vibe. I actually really enjoy the movie, I think its fun and pretty and who doesnt love Christine Baranski. But the cast was too old.
Olivia Wilde is in “director’s jail” because of the bs that went down between her, Shia LeBouef and Florence Pugh on Don’t Worry Darling (where she ended up making a fool of herself over Harry Styles). She’s a duplicitous mess and while she may have some talent, her personal life gets in her way.
Also, can we talk about Jacob Elordi being cast as Heathcliff? The novel itself makes it quite clear that Heathcliff is at the very least mixed race, but we gonna just pretend that that’s not in the novel? That he isn’t described as Romany or perhaps south Asian? We just gonna whitewash this in the year 2025? Sure. OK.
That should probably be the biggest discussion surrounding this film, yes.
It is definitively a problem. It could be deliberate too, because Heathcliff is arguably the worst person in the book, and the film could unintentionally then send the wrong message? It will be interesting if this casting is ever addressed in the press tour.
Dev Patel or Regee Jean are right there.
yeah, that part gets me. I don’t even dislike Jacob Elordi and I’m sure he can do a good moody brooding guy on the moors. But why not keep it a mixed race character? That actually bothers me more than Margot Robbie being older. But I guess that’s one of the traditions that Fennel has actually followed bc many adaptations before hers haven’t seemed to care about that part of the casting. Funny that is one of the areas of continuance that she chose that aligns to earlier adaptations.
This was a big discussion back in the spring (maybe that’s when he was first announced?) and people were really mad about it, justifiably so. (There were articles here on Celebitchy about it too).
The casting director apparently got death threats people were so mad (and of course, death threats are never okay!)…but their justification for casting Elordi over an actor of color was particularly poor. They described how if a text calls for someone being white (their example was, “puts their blonde hair in a ponytail”) and there is no real reason for the character to be white, then they will hire whatever actor is best, regardless of race, so why not do that here with this character?
But that seems to miss the point that Heathcliff’s darker skin was important to the story, othered him in that society, etc. So it’s not just whitewashing, it’s losing a whole dimension of the story.
That criticism seems to have fallen away in recent months to all the *other* criticisms coming out about it, but…it should still absolutely be a main part of the discussion of how this interpretation/take on WH seems to miss some important components of the story.
I agree, even the Bronte museum claim he was of black African descent. Inspired by the slave trade.
https://www.gbnews.com/news/museum-emily-bronte-wuthering-heights-heathcliff-black-african-former-slaves
This novel was controversial when released. The Victorian ladies must have clutched their corsets reading it. I assume Emily was vague for a reason. She described him a few ways IIRC. Maybe that was to get the book published. If she flat out said he was
Black or South Asian – Romani. No publisher would have released it due to the mixed race issue. You just had to read between the lines.
When Cathy said in the book … “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him” I always took it as, she can’t marry a person of color. So Linton it is.
As far as I know the only time Heathcliff was not portrayed as a white actor. Was by James Howson in the 2011 movie.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1181614/?ref_=nm_knf_c_1
I read the book in my early 20’s when dark romance seemed so sexy and dramatic. Now it’s just a tale of generational abuse to me.
I saw a theory by a Tik Tocker that it’s not a straight telling of WH but possibly about a modern day woman who is going crazy and fantasizing that she’s Cathy after having read the book. That would explain Margot being entirely the wrong age and the modern clothing that keeps popping up, especially in this new trailer. And now this new trailer saying “Inspired by.”
Either way, I’m going to watch the film because I read the book a million times as a teen and young adult. I love the Olivier film even if it’s an abridged version in the wrong time period. I liked the Tom
Hardy BBC series too.
I really like this theory.
Well, that would be interesting?
OK. I don’t hate this as much as I hated the first teaser trailer. At least it’s not all TikTok bait moments and images.
Margot Robbie is still too old and her hair looks too bleached and styled. I know she’s a natural blond but that’s not her real color, and products and tools were used. Cathy is supposed to have dark hair and it’s the mid 19th century. It’s not the biggest deal but I still find it distracting and it kills the vibe.
Elordi looks like he’s doing a decent job, actually. But he still shouldn’t be White.
I know it says “inspired by the greatest love story” but it’s still suggesting “Wuthering Heights” is a love story, which it isn’t. I don’t think any of the works of either Austen or the Brontes can really be called love stories. “Jane Eyre” depicts a great love but it’s really a bildungsroman with Jane as it’s heroine. There are like ten chapters about her as a child at the Lowood school that have nothing at all to do with Rochester.
I will probably watch this just because I will watch any adaptation of these classics. I am always curious to see what the director does with them. I thought Saltburn was pretentious and I’m no fan of Fennell as a person but fine. Let’s see how it is.
Ugh I totally agree. She’s way too old and blond. I like her, but not in this.
Did I see sunglasses on Margot/ Catherine…okay…
If people are interested in a deeper dive into what WH is “about,” maybe check out the Legend of Angria stories Brontë was influenced by as her siblings were creating their elaborate make believe world. All of the children were fairly obsessed with issues of colonialism and empire throughout their lives. Given the age and heavy censorship of what was published, Brontë had to tread carefully around the aspects of race and colonialism that are pretty clearly at the heart of the book, setting the whole revenge narrative in play, so the context clues for Heathcliff’s origins are a little purposefully muddled, but most of them point to him being of Black African mixed race heritage. So yeah, once again Heathcliff is whitewashed in casting. I suppose the film industry wants to sell a “love story” with a matinee idol more than an allegory for white British historical anxiety around race. Which is too bad as I would find the latter a lot more interesting. I mean, I don’t really need another “dark romance” version of this. Interestingly ironic that a mixed race actress (Merle Oberon) actually plays Cathy in the 1939 version.
I am thoroughly convinced that folks who adapt the book into film have never actually READ the book. For one: it’s NOT a love story. At all. Secondly, the insistence on casting white actors as Heathcliff completely ruins the major point of the story and makes everything else that happens make no sense. The way Heathcliff is described in the book is that he is either Romani or a free Black man. Which is why he is not able to own property or have any access to upward mobility. And it’s why he is so reviled by her family – her brother specifically.
To be fair the novel ends on a good note. The cycle of abuse end with two others. And Heathcliff goes where he really wants to be with Cathy. It’s a not love-love story.
The book isn’t called Cathy and Heathcliff. It’s called Wuthering Heights it’s spans across generations.
So yes, the 20 year old in me in my 50’s is defending it. I’m sorry, I can’t help myself. I loved this book when I read it.
Also, many of the retellings skip the last part of it. The one I saw that mostly covered the book was the 90’s version with Ralph Fines and Julie Binochet. Also two people woefully miscast for their older ages. But they had such chemistry. I loved it (also has a cameo by Sinead O’Connor).
Off my soapbox now 🙂
Probably won’t see this in the theaters but will stream it. I love Margot Robbie and agree she’s underrated. After seeing Frankenstein I have a new respect for Jacob Elordi’s talents and not just his looks (though I recently found out he’s problematic as a person, sigh, always the pretty ones). I’m glad Fennell added “inspired by.” This isn’t going to be a straight adaptation so our expectations should be different I think.
It looks unwatchable.
Well, if the romance was stripped from it, thank heavens for inadvertent small favors. Wuthering Heights is not a love story and in continuing to refer to it as such, we continue to socialize people to accept the notion of obsessive love based in cruelty and abuse as aspirational.
It’s really a story of racism, classism, and physical & emotional abuse. While Heathcliff is a victim of racism/classism and abuse, and Catherine is, to an large extent, a victim of social expectations, both are cruel, manipulative and abusive. Their relationship isn’t a romantic love that transcends separation and even death, it’s a relationship rooted in possession, vengeance, and emotional domination—not mutual care or growth
That’s why the last part of the book is so important. The cycle of abuse ends. Even I forget sometimes. Since movies/tv shows don’t cover it. Since it’s not the ‘sexy part’ .
The version with Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley (his wife now) deals with the second part of the book, the next generation that ends the abuse. I really liked it, even if his wig is dreadful.
I have no problems with directors taking liberties with source material and it looks like this one centres around the themes of obsession and perversions (which I guess is her thing).
But with this casting a lot of interesting themes that could have been explored are, well, whitewashed.
Dev Patel, Henry Golding, Regé Jean Pagé…so many great nonwhite Brit actors to choose from. Let’s start a list go!
Jacob Anderson, my messy Louis de Pointe du Lac.
OH MY LOUIS!!!
At least he is the same age as Margot.
Dev Patel would’ve been amazing. I wouldn’t even care about the age.
Based on what I’ve been hearing about this movie for a while now, I’m probably not going to watch it, but Lordy I LOVE that poster! It looks so 1940’s – 1950’s Hollywood to me. Great design.
Totally plagiarizes the Gone with the Wind poster, as noted above.