Wuthering Heights (2026) - Review 

Rating: 3 out of 5

FOR all the heat surrounding Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, there’s something curiously missing emotionally.

Billed as a sweeping love story/tragedy about repressed desire, and released cinematically to coincide with Valentine’s Day, the film instead feels like a classics baiting exercise in stylistic excess over anything of genuine substance.

It’s not a bad film, per se. But it’s also nowhere near as good as it thinks it is.

Fennell’s decision to make sweeping changes to the source material may be partly to blame, needlessly offending die-hard fans of the novel. But I have to admit, at this point, I have not read the novel (although I am aware of how different it is to this film).

Perhaps the biggest problem, therefore, is Fennell’s decision to embrace provocation and style, rather than really dissect the elements of the story she has chosen to focus on.

A lot of the novel has been stripped away, not least its second half that focuses on the generation that Cathy leaves behind and Heathcliff comes to abuse. But also transformed is Heathcliff’s ethnicity which, while never formally identified in Bronte’s text, was certainly not white.

The ramped up sexuality on display here, courtesy of an extended sequence of romps, is also is at odds with the repressed sexuality of the original (Cathy and Heathcliff don’t consummate their relationship in the novel), as are some of the sado-masochistic elements, not least in its portrayal of Heathcliff’s relationship with Isabella.

Again, that’s not to say that Fennell doesn’t explore some big themes. Abuse and how the abused often become abusers is highly prevalent, not least in Jacob Elordi’s depiction of Heathcliff. His actions are informed by abuse: whether at the hands of Cathy’s father (an excellent Martin Clunes), who rescues him from the streets as a boy, or even to a certain extent from Cathy herself, who certainly treats him as something of a pet at times.

But therein lies another of the film’s emotional problems. Margot Robbie’s Cathy is sometimes too spoilt, too playful and too petulant to truly be someone worth rooting for: the product of an upper class prone to getting its own way. True, she falls into poverty but is rescued by her marriage to her neighbour Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif).

Hence, the class struggles that also were uppermost among Bronte’s original themes feel somewhat muted here. They’re touched upon but not in any lasting or relevant way.

Where the film attempts to be provocative, it’s more for provocations sake, rather than with any biting social commentary (contemporary or historical). Lingering shots of characters sticking their fingers into mouths (human and fish), an extreme close up of a slug trail or blood from a slain pig, or even a sadomasochistic game played out between two servants (observed by Cathy) and the sight of Robbie self-pleasuring don’t add anything to Bronte’s text (which was risky and risqué for its day, but also timeless).

With this in mind, there feels like an opportunity missed.

And yet Fennell’s film isn’t a waste of time either. It is undoubtedly stylish and grips by virtue of its striking visual design. There’s Gothic atmosphere in the scenes on the moors, as well as something more akin to CS Lewis and Alice in Wonderland in the gardens of Linton’s home.

The bold use of colour is also impressive, pending the film a distinct visual aesthetic that feels very modern.

The performances are also good, with Elordi suitably tormented and foreboding as Heathcliff, Robbie suitably seductive yet spoilt as Cathy, and Clunes perhaps stealing the show as Cathy’s tyrannical father. There’s also good work from Adolescence’s Owen Cooper as the young Heathcliff, Alison Oliver as the hopelessly naive Isabella (even though it feels wrong to have her be so complicit In her own abuse and degradation) and Hong Chau, as housekeeper Nelly Dean, who has a pivotal role in proceedings.

On the subject of Chau, though, it’s worth noting that her character doesn’t feel as fleshed out or nuanced as she appears in the book, again her motivations not really being given the time they deserved to add that complexity.

The combined shortcomings of the film as a whole therefore fail to deliver the type of heart-breaking climax that viewers may have been anticipating, despite the fact that events do conspire to create a tragedy.

Fennell’s film doesn’t want for ambition and deserves praise for some of its achievements. But it comes nowhere near to hitting the classic heights of Bronte’s book, or adding contemporary resonance to a timeless tale, or leaving the same kind of lasting legacy.

It’s too much style and too little substance; a sexual tease that climaxes too early.

Certificate: 15

Running time: 2hrs 16mins