Review: Wuthering Heights – Let me in your window
Directed by Emerald Fennell
Starring Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Shazad Latif, Martin Clunes
9/10
Out of the sixteen film adaptations there have been of the Emily Brontë classic novel over nearly the past century from many different countries, this one may be the zaniest (and sexiest). It does not let any kind of morality or good taste get in the way of how much it bares of the enduring characters of Cathy and Heathcliff. Keep in mind, this is “Wuthering Heights” stylised in quotation marks—it appears to take liberties with not just the story but with the tone of the novel as well.
Although Cathy (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) have been close since they were children, Cathy doesn’t believe it to be financially sound to marry him, especially given the increasingly dilapidated estate of her alcoholic father, Mr Earnshaw (Martin Clunes), who displayed a mixture of charity and abuse to Heathcliff when he adopted him into the family as a child.
Instead, Cathy marries the wealthy Edgar (Shazad Latif), living in his mansion with his easily enamoured sister Isabella (Alison Oliver), causing a secret resentment in Heathcliff. But as the years pass, Heathcliff returns, now with some money to his name, and the tension between the married Cathy and the obvious love in her life causes much grief for all.
This rather modern-feeling adaptation can be accused of being so ridiculous, overdramatic, overly sexualised, hysterical, crass, and even a tad soap operatic. But it can also be called completely self-assured of all that it wants to be. It allows the heightened emotions of its two romantic but longing characters and applies them to the film, making it look as frenzied as a romance is between a young couple. There are so many scenes of characters looking on longingly in the pouring rain. It never misses a chance to be so damn dramatic, but it works for this film, as it never stumbles in tone.
Director Emerald Fennell had introduced into her directorial oeuvre a taste for the sensual with her second film, Saltburn, with close-ups of what her characters touch (particularly certain bodily fluids). She goes even harder with displaying the sensual here, where watching someone kneading bread is enough to send Cathy into sexual ecstasy.
Perhaps other adaptations of this classic novel could be accused of being boring, stuffy, or stiff, but you couldn’t claim that about this version (the only thing that’s stiff in this film is… well, you know, you’ll actually see it in the film’s opening first minute). As early as when its first trailer was released, the film appeared to have split the room, its unashamed sexiness of this classic literature either turning people on or away. Hopefully, for you and your significant other, you can be swept away by its stunning, over-the-top, often funny, and ecstatic portrayal of doomed love.
DAVID MORGAN-BROWN