The latest adaptation of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë’s classic novel about two star-crossed lovers, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, has sparked criticism over its casting and spicy teaser trailer released this week.
Plot-wise, Wuthering Heights takes place in 18th-century England, set in the stormy Yorkshire moors. It follows the middle-class Earnshaw family, who own a farmhouse known as Wuthering Heights, and the upper-class Linton family. Mr. Earnshaw brings home orphaned Heathcliff from Liverpool and raises him like one of his children, alongside his son, Hindley, and daughter, Catherine.
Hindley mistreats Heathcliff after their father’s death, reducing him to a servant. While Catherine forms a deep bond and loves Heathcliff, she marries a wealthy Linton to preserve her social status, driving Heathcliff away, but he returns years later seeking revenge.
Here’s what else to know about the upcoming adaptation and the controversy surrounding it.
Who is in the cast of ‘Wuthering Heights’?
Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. (Warner Bros./Youtube)
The central cast includes:
Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw
Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff
Charlotte Mellington as young Catherine
Owen Cooper as young Heathcliff
Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton
Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton
Who is the director?
Emerald Fennell is the director, writer and producer of the movie. The Oscar-winning director acted alongside Robbie in Greta Gerwig’s 2023 film, Barbie, and also worked with Elordi in the psychological thriller Saltburn, which she wrote and directed.
What’s the controversy surrounding the movie?
Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. (Warner Bros./Youtube)
One of the biggest controversies surrounding the upcoming film is Heathcliff’s portrayal by a white actor, Elordi. Heathcliff’s exact ethnic origin isn’t stated in the novel, but scholars believe that Brontë didn’t intend for the character to be portrayed as white.
“I feel quite strongly that Emily’s intention was that he was either Black or mixed-race, and there are lots of clues in the text to suggest that,” Michael Stewart, the director of the Brontë Writing Centre, told the Telegraph.
The character is described in the novel as a “dark-skinned gypsy” with “black eyes” and a “lascar,” a 19th-century term for sailors from India or Southeast Asia.
Fennell’s adaptation of Brontë’s novel comes after a 2011 film adaptation directed by Andrea Arnold, which cast a Black actor for the first time. James Howsen portrayed the role of Heathcliff, following actors such as Laurence Olivier and Ralph Fiennes in earlier productions.
Claire O’Callaghan, editor in chief of the academic journal Brontë Studies, told the Telegraph she feels that the casting of a white man in Fennell’s 2026 adaptation overlooks the ambiguity surrounding Heathcliff’s abuse as an outsider, which can also be interpreted as racist abuse.
“That’s part of the horror of that first part of the book is that Emily Brontë shows the kind of abuse of the outsider, and it’s for that reason that he has been written about, both in fictional terms, as Black… and, of course, in Andrea Arnold’s adaptation,” Claire O’Callaghan said.
Along with the casting of a white actor, some fans are also criticizing the erotic marketing of the movie adaptation and are calling it overly sexual.
The teaser trailer for the movie was released on Sept. 3, 2025. It’s set to Charli XCX’s song “Everything Is Romantic” and flashes between scenes of Robbie as Catherine lusting over Elordi’s Heathcliff. It also previews moments of Catherine’s relationship with the wealthy Edgar and Heathcliff’s envious rage over their relationship.
In a post on X that has received over 89,000 likes as of Friday afternoon, one user wrote, “not to be that one friend who is too woke but bleaching the class and racial otherness out of wuthering heights to sell a horny whitewashed romance genuinely pisses me off.”
Another user wrote on X, “emily bronte is rising from her grave as we speak because why did they turn wuthering heights into fifty shades of heathcliff and cathy.”
The casting director for Wuthering Heights, Kharmel Cochrane, told Deadline in April that there are “definitely going to be some English Lit fans that are not going to be happy” with Fennell’s artistic interpretation of the novel. Cochrane added that “you really don’t need to be accurate. It’s just a book. That is not based on real life. It’s all art.”
When will ‘Wuthering Heights’ be released, and where can I watch it?
The movie will be released in theaters on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, just in time for Valentine’s Day.
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