In 18th-century England, we follow childhood friends turned obsessed lovers, Catherine and Heathcliff, as their passion for each other turns vicious and they manipulate the people around them.
My biggest compliment for the movie is the director’s (Emerald Fennell) visuals. She strikes that perfect balance of using real luscious landscape locations and very stylish sets that feel like a mix between a dollhouse and a Tim Burton movie, not to mention her use of strong colors like red, green, gray, and white. From start to finish, the entire film was visually striking and always held my interest in what striking image was going to come up next.
I quite enjoyed Margot Robbie’s performance; at first it’s a little more comedic, with her acting almost like a bratty child, which is juxtaposed well against the aristocratic melodrama of the story. It kind of feels like The Favourite (2018), but she also nailed the dramatic scenes, and she has a lot of nuance and layers to the character.
Jacob Elordi is good as Heathcliff; the actor brings a lot of pathos and charisma to the character, and like Robbie’s performance, the character is multifaceted, and audiences will have many emotions about him, and Elordi writes that line very well.
I was pleasantly surprised with Anthony Willis & Charli XCX’s score for the film; it was a nice mix of classic folk, ballads, and high-tempo, more modern music, and usually when modern music is played in films, that usually takes me out of the story and setting, but I never really found it with this film, which I always appreciate.
While a more subdued performance, I liked Shazad Latif's performance as Cathy’s other love interest, Edgar. While most of the other characters are very big and over the top, his acting is more down to earth and realistic, so the approach definitely added a nice variety to the acting.
The story takes place between two different houses in the Yorkshire moors, and I appreciated how Fennell differentiated the two houses. As previously stated, one is very bright and idyllic in a strong artificial way, and the other is very moody and damp and almost always messy; it was a good visual distinction between the two and helped fit the mood of the piece.
Hong Chau was a nice surprise as Cathy’s childhood friend Nelly. While the character doesn’t have as much importance to the story as she does in the book, Hong fits very well into the Victorian melodrama and has a lot of subtle and nuanced acting choices that give her character a lot of depth and, like most of the characters in this movie, make you feel very mixed emotions about their motives and actions.
Linus Sandgren did a great job with cinematography. I was especially impressed with his use of shadows in natural lighting; it really gave the film a striking and elegant look, and given the locations, it really helped the images pop.
Alison Oliver plays Isabella, Edgar’s naïve Ward. I have to give serious credit to Oliver because she was in the director’s last film as a more voracious and snarky party girl, which is the complete opposite of Isabel’s almost childlike, naïve persona, so I have to give the actress serious credit for her range and to the costume department because I did not recognize her until looking her up in the credits after the movie.
I will say at the end of the day this story is quite the melodrama, and all the characters do something dirty or mean-spirited to another character at some point, so by the end, it’s hard to root or care about any of these people since it feels like they all brought a lot of their problems on themselves, but on the other hand, I don’t need to necessarily root for a character to find the story engaging, and that may be true for some people, but for me personally, the characters' pettiness and inability to get over their own egos made it hard for me to connect with this film.
I will say, I think the most interesting performance was Martin Clunes as Mr. Earnshaw (Cathy’s father); the character seemingly starts out as a loving and sweet father but throughout the film gets more seedy and shady and has some of the ugliest teeth you've ever seen in a movie lol. The character still acts refined and dignified despite his harsher actions, so it gives an interesting dynamic to him and the characters around him.
The film also infuses the reoccurring theme and motif of BDSM and more "kinky sexual imagery and scenarios," which definitely wasn’t in the original story lol. But it wasn’t as effective as it could have been. I can see it working as a metaphor for the tension between Catherine and Heathcliff, plus it’s something the director has explored in her previous films, so it just might be a recurring motif she likes exploring, but it doesn’t really move the plot forward in any major way besides one bit towards the end to highlight Heathcliff’s cruelty and trying to get back at Catherine, but that part is more sad and emotionally upsetting for the characters, so it's not as sensational and intriguing as the filmmakers and the marketing trying to sell the movie.
Also, the very first scene has a very odd depiction (very light spoiler here)… of a hanging. I understand what the director was going for and how it affects the main character and her worldview and actions later on, but as an introductory scene and how to set the tone for the rest of the story, it felt unnecessary, and you’re not really sure what the filmmakers were trying to convey with it.
There was also a strange continuity moment I noticed; one scene takes place on Christmas Day, and then in the next scene two of the characters are out in the garden playing on a swing, and it feels like this scene should be taking place a few days after the last one. Except in the scene, the grass is green, the trees are full, and everything is sunny like it’s a June day, but the last scene clearly took place during Christmas, so well within the context of the story, it should feel like a few days later, but the visuals show like it’s six months later, so that was confusing for a second, but the set they were on was very lavish and stunning, so I kind of gave it as a creative choice since this film does have a dreamlike quality in the first place, so it wasn’t too distracting, but it was a head-turner when I first saw it.
The film also leaves out a good part of the original novel, and I don’t need every adaptation to be a one-to-one remake, and I don’t necessarily mind the changes since it does fit the story Fennell was trying to tell, but I do think the story would’ve been more nuanced and given the characters more of a payoff if they had included more of the book, but honestly, it didn’t affect the final product too much. That being said, I thought the ending was this kind of "eh." Like it reaches a climax, but it feels more like the story, cut off and a satisfying ending
While I enjoyed the visuals and tone of the film, the lack of a relatable character and strong melodrama made this film a little hard for me to connect to. The director said she wanted the film to feel like what it was like to read Wuthering Heights for the first time as a teenage girl, so I can say that the film might find an audience with those kinds of people, but for everyone else, I’d say it might be more than a mixed bag. I give the film a low three stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️, and that’s mostly for the performances and the overall filmmaking.
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