Wuthering Heights: Bad Press or Pressingly Bad?

From gothic tragedy to bodice-ripper, Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” strips the original text of any complexity, moral ambiguity or intrigue to leave a threadbare, ravished film wearing nothing but the name. And incredibly, we need not even watch the film to discover this, the marketing does her job for her. Fennell’s stylized quotation marks are designed to invoke the golden age of Hollywood, but I believe more accurately predict the film’s insulting charade of a greater story.

It is no great surprise to me that prior to even the trailer, rumours swirled around on the internet trying to make sense of (and in turn, defend) the film’s costuming, casting and possible avenues of adaptation. The theories about dual timelines and a carefully conscious daydream of the Victorian turned out to be wishful thinking but I believe can be credited to the goodwill harbored towards Emerald Fennell for her incredible directorial debut, Promising Young Woman. 

Since then however, there seems to be a steady downward trajectory in public opinion.

Her shocking and salacious follow-up ‘Saltburn’ (2023) faced allegations of classism and ‘style over substance’ but was also reliably defended by Tiktok editors infatuated with Jacob Elordi. It might be fair to suppose that Fennell hoped the same tactic would work once more as she creates a “Wuthering Heights” so far removed from the source material it is unrecognisable to anyone but herself.

Yet I’m afraid this “benefit of the doubt” well has run dry. What Fennell failed to realise is that tackling an adaptation of a classic as monumental as Wuthering Heights is not a feat for the light-hearted. Crucially, she might have saved herself a lot of heartache by simply changing the title. But more on that in a moment.

Regardless of the movie’s performance and reception, it is worthy of beginning to untangle and critique the hopeless press tour to see where it all went wrong. There is a rather loud desperation in the marketing strategy of this film. Piggybacking on “booktook” tropes for social media posts alongside some lazy Gen Z slang to try and generate excitement for a film that simply does not understand its intended audience. From Fennell’s own admission, the most appropriate spectator for this movie is a private screening for herself alone where she can puppeteer a white Heathcliff and blond Cathy (a lazily disguised self-insert) for her own amusement.

It is also mildly insulting to the public’s intelligence to prop Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie up on this press tour as “co-dependent emotional support co-stars” when their chemistry is so orchestrated you can practically see the conductor’s wand in Fennell’s hand. In truth, Robbie does her best to maintain the illusion of tension and giddying romance on and off the scene – but to no avail. Meanwhile Elordi seems determined to carry himself with all the nonchalance and charm of Hero Fienne Tiffin’s monotone delivery from the Harry Style’s Wattpad book turned movie ‘After’ (2019). Ironically, this film also features a bastardisation of Wuthering Heights, hijacking the novel’s most famous line “Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same” to apply to a petty college romance.

Crucially though, it might be Elordi’s half-hearted indifference to the film and his performance that has potentially saved him from more pushback over his acceptance of the role in the first place. Much has already been said about the media’s propensity to critique female directors and actresses disproportionately to their male counterparts, but in this instance it is not merely Elordi’s gender that absolves him but his notable good-looks.

The meta-critical irony is that Elordi has all the charms, advantages and assets that Heathcliff is repeatedly denied due to his social status and racial ambiguity. Even under a layer of 42 prosthetic appliances in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, Elordi struggled to be perceived as monstrous. Heathcliff, on the other hand, is assumed a villain and “savage” creature first due to his race and Bronte poignantly extends an invitation of sympathy, compassion and humanity not often afforded characters like his in 18th century England.

Whilst the purity culture of book to movie adaptations can be a little daunting and demanding at times, this does not mean artistic freedom is out of the question.

Elordi himself, and others, may argue that “art is subject to interpretation” but the romance and social commentary of ‘Wuthering Heights’ are irrevocably and fundamentally inextricable. Fennell’s decision to white-wash Heathcliff reads less as “creative liberty” and more as the deliberate erasure of POC voices out of laziness. There is a foundational paradox in the premise of a movie designed to recapture a 14-year-old’s version of “Wuthering Heights” registered as rated-R. The adolescents that would conceivably enjoy such a romanticised recollection cannot even buy a ticket to see the film.

While the purity culture of book to movie adaptations can be a little daunting and demanding at times, this does not mean artistic freedom is out of the question. Many sins can be forgiven if the title is changed. We saw this in the early 2000’s with the spectacular string of Shakespearean plays turned romcoms and coming-of-age masterpieces. No one could feel outrage at Heath Ledger’s Australian accent whilst portraying a version of Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew because he was not parading around Verona in ruff and tights. Vitally, the anachronistic and aesthetic differences were taken into account when reconstructing the narrative of the story. Ignoring Cathy’s age and Heathcliff’s race in this version while laying claim to the same title as Bronte’s novel is akin to sticking a cherry on yoghurt and calling it a sundae. 

It resembles what it should be if you squint and ignore the sour taste. 

With a viral soundtrack thanks to Charlie XCX, I’m sure the press is bound to attract a decent number of curious audience members – even just as a “hate watch”. Yet there is only so far antagonism and bad press will carry you. The youtube essayists will seize the opportunity and create some more flurry of interest, think-pieces such as this article will revel in the chance to verbally assault such a disappointment. 

But the failure is more bitter because the hypothetical potential was so enticing. The people yearn for a biblically accurate Wuthering Heights- as this press tour might have phrased it. When approaching such a beloved classic there are truly only two options that will satisfy everyone: stick so closely to the source material that you can smell the ink on the screen or demolish everything and leave only the ghost of the original as an homage.

But Fennell does neither. She replaces Cathy’s ghost for the ghost of her childhood nostalgia and expects us to not notice the difference. And in the end, we are left driven mad like Heathcliff by the whisper of a familiar name but only the poor imitation in its place. 

It might have been easier if she had simply named the whole film ‘Laidley Heights’, set in a rural town outside of Brisbane Australia, let Robbie keep her accent and cast Elordi as Hindley instead. (Whose conspicuous absence from the film is a testament to its literary negligence.) 

Regardless, if this film manages to sell tickets — and more crucially, win over critics — it will do so not because of Fennell, Robbie, or Elordi, but in spite of them. Any success will stand as a testament to the lasting trust in and enduring power of Brontë’s sensational legacy.