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An early test screening for her adaptation of Emily Bront\u00eb’s Wuthering Heights<\/em> \u2014 starring Margot Robbie (Barbie<\/em>) and Jacob Elordi<\/a> (Euphoria<\/em>) \u2014 has reportedly received mixed reviews, and even a significant amount of negative reactions.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Out<\/em> Newsletter<\/a> to keep up with what’s new in LGBTQ+ culture and entertainment \u2014 delivered three times a week straight (well\u2026) to your inbox!<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Director Emerald Fennell hooked her audiences with her first two films: Promising Young Woman<\/em> and Saltburn<\/a><\/em>. While the former may have received an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, the latter pushed the envelope<\/a> even further, to the point that her audience now expects it.<\/p>\n A blog titled World of Reel<\/a><\/em> reported that it spoke with some of the attendees after the screening. One person at the screening said the movie was “aggressively provocative and tonally abrasive,” and that “leans hard into Fennell\u2019s now-familiar brand of stylized depravity.” According to this attendee, the movie was a “deliberately unromantic take on Bront\u00eb\u2019s novel, stripped of emotional nuance and full of salacious detours that serve shock value.”<\/p>\n Fennell’s “stylized depravity<\/a>” comes in the form of multiple scenes that seemed to be included for shock factor. “The film opens with a public hanging that quickly descends into grotesque absurdity<\/a>, as the condemned man ejaculates mid-execution, sending the onlooking crowd into a kind of orgiastic frenzy,” the blog writes. ” A nun even fondles the corpse\u2019s visible erection.”<\/p>\n But it doesn’t stop there, according to the publication, there was a BDSM-tinged encounter with a woman tied up in horse reins, several masturbation scenes, suggestive scenes including egg yolks, bread kneading, and a slug.<\/p>\n Attendees also told World of Reel<\/em> that the unbalanced movie couldn’t even be saved by either Robbie nor Elordi. The two actors had great chemistry, the writer explains, but “the characters they portray are so cold and unlikable that even strong acting can\u2019t create a point of connection. And I ask in return: isn\u2019t that precisely what Bront\u00eb intended?”<\/p>\n\n