Brexit. JFK’s assassination. That blue and black or white and gold dress. All vaguely impressive sources of debate, but sorely lacking in the drama and volatility of The Independent culture desk’s first few days in a post-Wuthering Heights world. Emerald Fennell’s grass-eating, dough-molesting bodice-ripper – “adapted” “loosely” from Emily Brontë’s literary touchstone – has been the canary in the coal mine for our offices here, helping surface long-standing tensions and sharpening inter-desk rivalries.
No, I kid. We’ve all just really, really disagreed with one another on it, Fennell comfortably reaffirming her position as the most divisive filmmaker currently working. Questions are constant. “Was Margot Robbie supposed to act like that?”; “Jacob Elordi gold tooth – yay or nay?”; “Did I enjoy Wuthering Heights or was there a gas leak in my cinema?”, and so on.
At the insistence of our HR department, we’ve been asked to calmly express our fractured feelings about the film here, and publicly declare that each of our interpretations of the movie are valid. They do not reflect positively or negatively on their respective writers, and no one will be mocked, commended or jeered at for their thoughts on Emerald Fennell. Phew.
I entered the Odeon on a Friday night hoping for one thing and one thing only from Wuthering Heights: a truly excellent Martin Clunes performance. On this count, Wuthering Heights delivered. Is Martin now in his prestige era? Is Doc Martin about to “do a Colman” and go Hollywood? Otherwise, though, the film elicited a big old shrug from me; it was nowhere near as clever and scandalous as Emerald Fennell clearly thought it was. Her tendency to relentlessly aestheticise just ended up stripping out all the emotion and nuance, leaving one of the most strange and fascinating books of all time feeling flat and empty.
It’s easy to get caught up in the hatred of Wuthering Heights because yes, the acting is dodgy in parts and yes, as an adaptation, it really does dumb down Emily Brontë’s classic – but when I feel myself start to give in to the no-fun-having naysayers, I remember that I was actually having a good enough time sitting in the cinema watching the movie. Between the highly stylised Yorgos Lanthimos-lite set, Charli xcx’s soaring soundtrack and all the sexy, silent longing going on, there’s plenty to distract from the film’s obvious pitfalls. Sure, there’s nothing deep or meaningful here, but does there always have to be?
Few directors polarise opinion quite so much as Emerald Fennell. For most, her films are either brilliant or an unmitigated disaster. I thought Wuthering Heights was fine. At its best, it’s a bold, glistening, schlocky melodrama with a Charli xcx score that burrows its way into your ear. At its worst, though, it drags and… isn’t that hot? Best enjoyed with lots of wine.
I loathe this film. I think it says plenty about today’s film industry and its condescending belief that audiences aren’t smart enough for anything other than superficial takes on actual art – perhaps it also says that Emerald Fennell’s Oxford degree in English Literature was wasted on her. Wuthering Heights is a challenging book, perhaps, but that doesn’t mean its central themes – colonialism, destructive love, revenge, religious hypocrisy, class conflict – aren’t entirely relevant today. None of that transpires in her film, though, and instead we have a Charli xcx music video that follows Fennell’s teenage interpretation of Heathcliff and Cathy as star-crossed lovers torn apart by a simple misunderstanding. I have to wonder about the opening scene, too. What was Fennell’s reason for depicting a gormless, lust-fuelled group of villagers led into an orgasmic frenzy at the sight of a hanged man’s erect penis? Way to tell us how you feel about your audience.
Respectfully, everyone needs to calm down. Book adaptations are made all the time, and while this one in particular veers very far away from the source material – I would argue that the only semblance to Brontë’s novel is the characters’ names – this is a wildly entertaining and aesthetically beautiful movie. I walked into the cinema expecting to dislike it, put off by the deafening pre-release discourse and the awfully smutty trailer. But it made me laugh, cry and cringe. I had to cover my eyes on occasion (mainly at the many uncomfortable and squelchy fish-poking, egg-yolky scenes). Plus, the soundtrack does the heavy lifting when you find yourself becoming irritated at the dodgy accents. Watch it with an open mind, and you might just have a nice time.
Expect to see a faithful interpretation of a challenging literary classic, and I’m not surprised you’d sneer at this film – but I don’t think for a moment that is what Emerald Fennell was trying to do. This is “porn” for women, pure and simple; an adaptation that is to Wuthering Heights what Bridgerton is to Pride and Prejudice. It’s actually genius, once you view it through the lens of erotic fan fic that’s taken the essence of what many people (incorrectly) think the book is about – forbidden love ending in tragedy – and thrown in everything that, ahem, gets us going: high production values, sumptuous outfits and romantic leads with all of the sexual chemistry and none of the inconveniently problematic traits of the original characters.
What’s one thing we famously know about the novel Wuthering Heights? It’s a bit much. And what is the one thing we could all confidently say about Emerald Fennell’s big-screen, hugged-by-quote-marks “Wuthering Heights”? It’s a bit much. Almost too much. And that’s kind of why I loved it. Emily Bronte’s only novel has given female artists from Kate Bush to Sylvia Plath the confidence to be a bit much for years now, and there’s something joyful in embracing that artistic maximalism that Fennell grabs with both hands. It’s too bright, too ribald, and everyone is far too beautiful. It’s not faithful to the book (phew, IMO), but it’s faithful to its spirit (the first half, anyway). Sometimes I wanted Fennell to stop getting distracted by pretty things and let the sexual tension simmer between her two doomed lovers, but also, it’s not that kind of film. And who cares when a film is this fun? I’m fascinated and a bit thrilled by the divisiveness. Are we still this gatekeepery about GCSE set texts? Still so unwilling to meet a woman’s artistic vision on its own terms? Wuthering Heights is a bit much – it’s meant to be.
