Wuthering Heights film review: Modern ghost(ing) story
Emerald Fennell portrays an obvious love for the original text as her in-your-face adaptation sizzles, scars and simmers
Sexual awakening and savagery intertwine with irreverent humour in Emerald Fennell’s sumptuous interpretation of Emily Brontë’s gothic romance. Purists will surely recoil at the changes she makes to the text (this adaptation exists solely in the book’s first part), yet through a blend of macabre fairytale imagery and immaculately judged performances from all involved, Fennell amplifies the haunting scars of trauma with fierce emotional resonance. This is an expressionistic and modern reworking that summons up the mood of the book with in-your-face visuals, potent ballads from Charli XCX and a lingering score by Anthony Willis.
Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are perfectly matched and share great chemistry in both the lighter and darker sequences as Cathy and Heathcliff. Owen Cooper (Adolescence) as young Heathcliff brings real gravitas to the role. In fact, the supporting cast all shine: Hong Chau’s Nelly is a simmering presence, Alison Oliver as Isabella is a hilariously perverted book nerd, Martin Clunes turns in a grubby performance to play Mr Earnshaw, and Shazad Latif as Edgar holds his poise wonderfully until he comes undone by Cathy and Heathcliff’s nonsense.
Fennell clearly has a deep affection for the novel and even when some of the comedy borders dangerously close to Carry On levels of winking sauciness, there is a truthfulness to the depiction of the horrors and passion of love. The production design by Suzie Davies is made up of many contrasting textures and genres, as are the costumes by Jacqueline Durran. BDSM, body horror and vampire symbolism are juxtaposed with jolly clandestine fondles. Though this can occasionally be tonally jarring, Fennell has crafted two well-defined terrains: Wuthering Heights is brutal and unforgiving while the pleasures of Thrushcross Grange become a gilded cage displayed with a meticulous snow globe beauty.
A powerful transition scene, which shows the switch from childhood to adulthood, highlights the tragic nature of Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship; they are suspended forever in a moment where violence bonds them. The director translates all those complicated feelings and captures the essence of their petulant, arrested development with wit and a moving sincerity. Like love and lust, Wuthering Heights is all fun and games until it suddenly isn’t and reality creeps in. Fennell reflects the eventual demise of these doomed lovers with painterly melancholy as they appear like looming spectres on the foggy Yorkshire Moors and blood red saturated skies. This is a disquieting and highly stylised ghost(ing) story for a new generation.
Wuthering Heights is in cinemas from Friday 13 February.