Introduction to Wuthering Heights
Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of the classic novel Wuthering Heights, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, is a bold and daring take on the original story. With a healthy amount of sex scenes and a significant departure from the Victorian-era source material, this film is not for the faint of heart. The movie has a running time of 136 minutes and is rated R for some violent context, sexual content, and language.
Deviation from the Original Story
The film deviates from Emily Brontë’s 1847 book with abandon, changing plotlines, chopping characters, and streamlining the cast to less than 10. The costumes are also not period-accurate to the 19th century, and a song by Charli XCX is featured in the movie. However, this deviation is not necessarily a bad thing, as the original story is 179 years old and complicated, making it difficult to adapt into a good film.
Fennell’s Direction and Style
Emerald Fennell’s idiosyncratic style brings a fresh perspective to the classic tale, making it a sexy, funny, ravishing, and dark revision. The film keeps Heathcliff’s frightening obsessiveness, emotional toxicity, and sadism intact while contorting the tale into a decadent, modern, yet still distinctly gothic romance. Fennell’s direction makes the viewer care about the star-crossed leads, even when they behave like monsters.
The Cast and Characters
The film features a talented cast, including Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. The two leads have undeniable chemistry, and their performances bring depth and complexity to their characters. The supporting cast, including Charlotte Mellington as young Cathy and Owen Cooper as young Heathcliff, also deliver impressive performances.
Themes and Tone
The movie explores themes of love, obsession, and toxicity, with a tone that is both dark and humorous. The film’s use of music, costumes, and production design adds to its unique atmosphere, making it a sweeping romance that is both enthralling and disturbing. The comedy in the film is misdirection, and soon enough, the movie turns heartbreaking, leaving the viewer with a powerful tug-of-war between rooting for the leads and knowing they shouldn’t.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is a bold and daring adaptation that brings a fresh perspective to the classic tale. With its talented cast, unique direction, and exploration of themes, this film is a must-see for fans of romance and drama. For more information, read the full review Here.
movie review
WUTHERING HEIGHTS
Running time: 136 minutes. Rated R (some violent context, sexual content, language). In theaters Feb. 13.
Teachers won’t be playing this movie in English Lit class anytime soon.
Not unless their kink is angry emails.
For one, Emerald Fennell’s R-rated “Wuthering Heights” has a healthy amount of sex scenes — far more, anyway, than the novel’s zero.
And that’s not the only bold departure from the Victorian-Era source material.
If high school students were to watch the film starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi to study for final exams, they’d have to repeat sophomore year. Fennell’s telling deviates from Emily Brontë’s 1847 book with abandon.
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Plotlines get changed or chopped, the cast of characters has been streamlined to less than 10, the costumes are as period-accurate to the 19th century as a Honda Accord and there is a song by Charli xcx.
You know what? That’s great. Have at it. “Wuthering Heights” is 179 years old and much too complicated a story — both psychologically and structurally — to faithfully adapt on-screen into anything resembling a good time.
And, as far as pairing a literary classic with this director’s idiosyncratic style, nobody goes to a movie by Fennell, the devilish mind behind “Saltburn” and “Promising Young Woman,” for a stuffy BBC miniseries from the late ‘80s.
Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie smolder in “Wuthering Heights.” ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
This is a sexy, funny, ravishing and dark revision that keeps Heathcliff’s frightening obsessiveness, emotional toxicity and sadism intact while ably contorting the tale into a decadent, modern, yet still distinctly gothic, romance.
And much more so than in her previous two movies, which were clever puzzles, Fennell makes the viewer care about her star-crossed leads, a lot actually, even when the duo behave like monsters.
They first meet as children, when a quiet orphan boy is taken in by the owner (Martin Clunes) of a chilly estate in north of England — Wuthering Heights. The man’s daughter, bossy, chatty Cathy (Charlotte Mellington), names her shy new plaything Heathcliff, after her dead brother.
By happenstance, Fennell cast 16-year-old Owen Cooper, the breakout star of Netflix’s “Adolescence,” as the young buck before his TV show exploded and he replaced his soccer trophies with an Emmy and a Golden Globe. Cooper proves himself a rising star once again, as every word is spoken with the conviction and passion of an actor far beyond his years.
When he so intensely tells Mellington’s Cathy, “I will never go away. I will never leave you. No matter what you do,” it’s as chilling as the misty moors of Yorkshire.
Robbie plays Cathy, who’s infatuated with Heathcliff from childhood. AP
In adulthood, the two are inseparable but tempestuous. Cathy (Robbie) is unmarried and has a tomboy streak. Wearing a long dress, she casually trots right through the blood of a recently butchered pig. And Elordi’s long-haired, scruffy Heathcliff is so dirty you can smell him through the screen.
He’s also unpleasant to be around — “rough, wild and wicked temper,” as Cathy puts it. Yet his norms-be-damned rogueness only feeds her infatuation.
When, manipulated by downcast housekeeper Nelly (Hong Chau), Cathy decides to wed a wealthy, kindhearted neighbor named Edgar, Heathcliff flees in a fury for five years, only to return rich, spiffed-up and ready to torment her some more.
Heathcliff (Elordi) stars in Cathy’s life even after she marries Edgar Linton. AP
For anybody worried that Elordi and Robbie wouldn’t spark, well, they positively self–combust. When newly madeover Heathcliff came back to Wuthering Heights through a cloud of dense fog, the woman next to me gasped like she’d just received a marriage proposal.
Heathcliff and Cathy brood and fight and whine and drag everybody else through mud. And by some miracle we still like them.
That’s because both Robbie and Elordi find unexpected charm in all the cruel manipulation and borderline barbarity. When Scary Met Nasty.
Elordi and Robbie find the charm in cruelty. ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
The most recognizably Fennelly touches are in Edgar Linton’s luxe manse, the color-popping opposite of dank and dreary Wuthering Heights. There are long halls with sultry red floors, a fireplace of plaster hands and a topiary garden out of “Alice in Wonderland.”
Bright as his home is Shazad Latif’s sweet and vanilla Edgar. He’s perfect, but the safe choice. So Cathy’s mean disregard for her husband as Heathcliff thrusts himself back into her life is both horrific and gets the go-ahead from the audience.
And humor is introduced by the superb Alison Oliver as Edgar’s weird ward Isabella. Her creepy, nosy doll collector with a giggly crush on Heathcliff is a scream
Image Source: nypost.com
