Emerald Fennell's new feature film is full of teasing, with no pinnacle.
Written by Mariane Tremblay
Known for her provocative approach, Emerald Fennell’s work has always been divisive among the cinema community and industry. From Promising Young Woman (2019) to Saltburn (2023), the reactions were always mitigated. And her newest feature isn’t an exception to that.
"Wuthering Heights" is a fan-fiction-esque adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel of the same name. Hence the quotation marks. Published in 1847, Wuthering Heights is a Gothic tale of intense love, obsession, and revenge. It follows the passionate and destructive bond between Heathcliff, an orphan adopted by the Earnshaw family, and Catherine, the Earnshaws’ daughter. After Catherine marries Edgar Linton, a heartbroken Heathcliff plots a multi-generational revenge to ruin the Earnshaw and Linton families. The novel explores passion, revenge, class, cruelty, and the haunting power of love that transcends death.
Since 1920, several adaptations of the novel have been made: seventeen movies (including Fennell’s), ten television movies, nine series, and that’s without counting opera, theatre, and radio.
Ever since it was announced that Fennell would adapt Brontë’s work, some people have had reservations about it, and even more so when the first images and trailers were released, because this new feature has [apparently] nothing to do with the novel that is so important to so many people. I’ve never read the book; therefore, I have no attachment to the source material (and I still wonder if it was for the best or worst), so when this new adaptation was announced, unlike most people, I was genuinely excited. I love Emerald Fennell, her work, her vision. And I was convinced this would become my new favourite movie.
I think it’s important to mention that, as she stated in an interview, the quotation marks in the title weren’t added without reason. From the beginning, it was clear that Fennell wasn’t attempting an adaptation of Brontë’s novel that was a hundred per cent faithful to the original story; she didn’t make Wuthering Heights, but her own interpretation of it—the version she remembers reading as a teenager in which she wished some things had happened but never did. And after all, as she put it, “you can’t adapt a book as dense, complicated, and difficult as this one.”
Art is subjective. No two readers experience a novel in the same way, and we can never fully know what an author intended unless they clearly state it. By definition, an adaptation can’t be neutral; it is always shaped by the filmmaker’s own memories, vision, and interpretation. Retelling a story inevitably means changing it in some ways. And the problem isn’t that it’s different—the problem is when it pretends not to be. Which is not the case with Fennell's movie. I do believe there’s nothing wrong with making a personal version of a beloved book, as long as it doesn’t claim to be just like the original. What matters is honesty and commitment: fully standing by your vision. And Fennell never claimed to deliver a perfect rendering of Brontë’s story.
But the thing with “Wuthering Heights” is that it leads us to believe that it would be way more provocative. But it felt like Emerald Fennell didn’t fully embrace her fan-fiction-esque approach and instead maintained, in a way, a certain restraint, making the audience go through 136 minutes of teasing without ever reaching the pinnacle. Honestly, I walked out of my screening confused—I genuinely didn’t know what to think of this adaptation, which is strange because I usually love Fennell’s work. A lot. But sadly, her third feature film left me feeling nothing. I can’t say I hated it, and I definitely can’t say that I liked it; I just feel indifferent. And I couldn’t wait to see it; it was one of my most anticipated films of the year. But perhaps that was my mistake, because too much anticipation often ends up backfiring.
Ever since the film was announced and the first images were released, I became obsessed and couldn’t wait for February 13th to come. But I just ended up being disappointed and bored for most of it. Over two hours was too much. Way too much. The movie started strong, then started to drag, and then nothing interesting enough happened to save it (I could have fallen asleep more than once), and it kept dragging until the very end. Through its endless runtime, only a few sequences could've made it spellbinding enough for the audience, but each time, teasing, no pinnacle.
The movie does explore yearning, love, obsession, and desire, but I expected more. More intensity, more sexual tension, more consummation, more of everything. And it’s not just about what I personally wanted and didn’t get—it’s about how the movie was marketed and how it was ultimately perceived, though it’s very subjective.
But one thing is sure: this movie is visually stunning, and the costumes are incredible—Fennell and her creative team always deliver. Linus Sandgren’s cinematography feels like a dream I could lose myself in, mesmerising from the very first minute to the very last. The production design is also an interesting element: the way they built the set felt more like a theatrical version than actual estates, which can throw some viewers off, but I think it added to the overall aesthetic of the movie. And even though they looked rather unconventional for the time, the costumes designed by Jacqueline Durran were all more beautiful than the last. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s pretty much it. "Wuthering Heights" ends up being more for the eyes than anything else. Beyond its aesthetic appeal, the emotional core never seems to reach the same level as its craft. People gasped, people cried, and I just sat there asking myself what the point of it all was.
Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s chemistry might’ve been palpable, yet it’s difficult to truly care about their doomed romance. Their performances are fine, but we’ve seen them deliver far stronger work over the past couple of years. Alison Oliver, on the other hand, portrays Isabella with such unhinged intensity that she ends up being the best part of the entire movie.
And perhaps that emotional indifference is what defines this adaptation for me. Some people say it is Fennell’s best movie to date; I say it’s her weakest. When I finished watching Promising Young Woman, I was angry, and I felt that anger rising during the film, reaching its peak at the end. When I watched Saltburn, I walked out of the cinema in such a high, I think I was even too stunned to speak. But "Wuthering Heights" made me feel nothing at all—I was just ready to leave as soon as the credits started rolling.
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