{"id":2282404,"date":"2026-02-15T00:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T00:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2282404"},"modified":"2026-02-15T00:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T00:09:09","slug":"wuthering-heights-review-fennells-bold-horny-adaptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wuthering-heights-review-fennells-bold-horny-adaptation\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Wuthering Heights’ Review: Fennell’s Bold, Horny Adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In \u201cDying for You,\u201d Charli XCX sings, \u201ccause you\u2019re the poison I drink, I drink you twice to be sure.\u201d The song is on her new album, \u201cWuthering Heights,\u201d and was written for Emerald Fennell\u2019s screen adaptation of Emily Bront\u00e9\u2019s 1847 novel about the toxic love that binds Catherine (Margot Robbie) to her father\u2019s ward, Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi). <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fennell\u2019s adaptation \u2014 styled \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d in quotation marks to connote that it is not a strict interpretation of the gothic text \u2014 was inspired by the \u201c<\/span>profound connection<\/span><\/a>\u201d the director felt to the book as a teenager. With the film, she<\/span> \u201cwanted to make something that was the book that I experienced when I was 14.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fennell\u2019s version of the classic story feels exactly like the kind of ruinous love someone would ruminate in their childhood bedroom while listening to angsty music and imagining that romantic love is supposed to hurt to be real. Put another way, Fennell purposefully sets aside some of the story\u2019s larger themes of gender, class and race to distill it into one of childhood infatuation that evolves into adult devastation. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie in “Wuthering Heights.”<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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The result is that viewers looking for a straightforward adaptation of the book are sure to be disappointed, especially since it ignores over half of the source material. However, if you\u2019re like me and open to a cinematic experience that feels like an amorous 14-year-old\u2019s fever dream about a disastrous love story full of irreverent longing that is symbolized through viscous objects like egg yolks and gelatinous fish mouths, then this is the movie for you. Because, like such a dream, it\u2019s visceral and hard to look away and makes you feel everything.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fennel also makes no attempt to hide that this is exactly what she\u2019s doing. Hence, the title\u2019s quotation marks, which are felt before the first image even appears on screen. The movie opens with moans and grunts. At first, it sounds like sex, but when the scene appears, it is a man being hanged in front of a crowd. As soon as his neck snaps, the crowd below becomes titillated by his visible erection. This scene, which subverts audience expectations by juxtaposing the horrible and the horny, immediately sets the film\u2019s tone. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even though this moment appears nowhere in the book, it reminds me of the novel\u2019s opening page in which Heathcliff\u2019s estate on the cold, windswept Yorkshire Moors is paradoxically referred to as a \u201cmisanthropist\u2019s Heaven.\u201d It\u2019s a fitting description for both the opening scene and the poisonous love story that is about to unfold. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cathy and Heathcliff meet as children when her father, Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes), takes him in as a random act of charity. Together, they suffer the abuse of the drunk and erratic man, mistaking the way they cling to each other for survival as a connection. The pull between Cathy and Heathcliff becomes even more complicated once they are older, and he is capable of using one hand to lift her by the corset to his lips. Suddenly, a sexual undercurrent is made explicit.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However, the chemistry between Cathy and Heathcliff is no match for the reality of poverty. After Mr. Earnshaw drains the household coffers, Cathy is compelled to accept the marriage proposal of her wealthy neighbor, Edgar (Shazad Latif). Even though she knows she loves Heathcliff, she can\u2019t \u201cdegrade\u201d herself by marrying him. In response to her decision, Heathcliff rushes away from Wuthering Heights on horseback and disappears for five years. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Margot Robbie in “Wuthering Heights.”<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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While he\u2019s gone, Cathy moves into the lavish and anachronistically stylized estate next door where she passes the time with Edgar\u2019s sister, Isabella (Alison Oliver), and her companion since childhood, Nelly (Hong Chau). Eventually, Heathcliff returns as a wealthy man with the gold tooth and gold earring to prove it, and Cathy can satisfy her longing. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She begins a torrid affair, proving to both Heathcliff and herself that, as Charli XCX sings, he is the \u201cgun to my head,\u201d \u201cwound to in my chest,\u201d and \u201cfavorite jewelry worn just like a noose \u2019round my neck.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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From here, there is Heathcliff\u2019s mutually manipulative marriage to Isabella and Nelly\u2019s traitorous act to ensure that the ending is never in question. Cathy is going to die, and she is going to leave Heathcliff unmoored.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That death will be a direct result of the ugly ways the people in this story treat each other, but there was never any pretense that this eventual cruelty would come to pass. Cathy \u201ccan\u2019t escape the storm\u201d of Heathcliff, and he will always be left begging on his knees for her to \u201cplease rub the salt in my wounds.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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By the time the gothic melodrama ends, the movie is everything Fennell promised that it would be. From the hauntingly grotesque chemistry between Robbie and Elordi to Charli XCX\u2019s anguished songs to Linus Sandgren\u2019s sweeping cinematography to Suzie Davies\u2019 unsettlingly unrestrained production design to Jacqueline Durran\u2019s bold, fantastical costumes, the story feels as heightened as any 14-year-old\u2019s imagination. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ultimately, it\u2019s unnnerving. It\u2019s overly dramatic. It\u2019s incredibly horny. And it\u2019s a reminder that a toxic love like Cathy and Heathcliff\u2019s was never intended to be romantic; it was intended to be captivating. Fennell\u2019s adaptation and Robbie and Elordi\u2019s performances ensure this holds true. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWuthering Heights\u201d is playing in theaters.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n