​Love and hate: Fennell goes to ‘Wuthering Heights’

By Greg Carlson

Literature purists who will judge Emerald Fennell’s decadent, gorgeous, horny and high-calorie interpretation of “Wuthering Heights” on the basis of its fidelity to the 1847 novel by Emily Brontë are certainly not the principal demographic sought by the new movie’s exhibitor. And anyone who admired the audacity of the Academy Award-winning filmmaker’s previous two features — “Promising Young Woman” in 2020 and “Saltburn” in 2023 — could have guessed that Fennell would certainly take the kind of wild liberties embraced by artists like Ken Russell and Baz Luhrmann and Sofia Coppola. The result is a personal recital that frequently discharges electric sparks, even if many of Brontë’s complexities and challenges are diminished.

The casting of current Oscar-nominee Jacob Elordi stirred up minor controversy based on Brontë’s descriptions of Heathcliff as a “dark-skinned gypsy,” but Fennell seizes on her “Saltburn” performer’s brooding intensity and stunning beauty. The always untrustworthy publicity machine, planting stories about the strain on co-star and three-time Oscar nominee Margot Robbie’s marriage caused by her steamy chemistry with Elordi, is as classic Hollywood as the physical looks of the pair. Decked out in costume designer Jacqueline Durran’s dazzling frocks and tailored finery that match the swells of Charli XCX’s fantastic songs and the anachronist appointments of an opulent Thrushcross Grange, Catherine and Heathcliff look smart in any state of (un)dress.

Like many of the book’s cinematic adaptations, including William Wyler’s famous 1939 edition and Luis Buñuel’s 1954 “Abismos de pasión,” Fennell entirely skips the second half of the novel, depriving the audience of the relationship that develops between Catherine’s daughter, Cathy Linton, and Heathcliff’s son, Linton Heathcliff. If only Brontë could have seen the havoc wreaked by her naming conventions on generations of readers! The core conflict is intact: Catherine betrays her love for Heathcliff by marrying Edgar Linton. Fennell also capitalizes on the dramatic return of a now-wealthy Heathcliff several years after the wedding, as well as the chaos resulting from the subsequent spite marriage of the broken-hearted Heathcliff to Catherine’s sister-in-law, although for some reason Fennell makes Alison Oliver’s Isabella the “ward” of Shazad Latif’s Edgar, rather than his sibling.

Beyond that, the bets are off. The director goes all-in on a torrid affair between Catherine and Heathcliff that unfolds as between-the-lines and between-the-sheets lemon-shaded fanfic existing entirely outside Brontë’s boundaries. And for many, this will be the modification that makes or breaks one’s embrace and enjoyment of the Fennell variation. While I appreciate the radical and the innovative —“Wuthering Heights” has been brought to the small and big screen several dozen times, so why not try something fresh? — the mighty power contained within the adage “You can’t always get what you want” infuses the original story of the doomed lovers with spectacular energy. On the other hand, Fennell’s onscreen dollhouse metaphor extends to her own cinematic playroom.

In January of 1848, the reviewer published in “Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper” anticipated 175+ years of fascination: “In ‘Wuthering Heights’ the reader is shocked, disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and vengeance, and anon come passages of powerful testimony to the supreme power of love — even over demons in the human form.” Our filmmaker clearly understands at least this much, hot-wiring the toxicity and proximity of so much passion and loathing in a manner that I like to think would amuse Ms. Brontë in many respects.

For Fennell, moor is more.

Reach HPR film critic Greg Carlson at gregcarlson1@gmail.com.