Let’s get this out of the way from the very start: Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is in no way a straightforward adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel. Anyone expecting a faithful, heritage-drama retelling of the 1847 classic will not find it here. Instead, this is a highly stylised and knowingly excessive re-imagining. It is glossier, louder, occasionally anachronistic (yes, the modern needle drops will raise eyebrows), but also fiercely committed to the raw, obsessive love that has made Brontë’s story endure for nearly two centuries.
For context, Wuthering Heights remains the only novel written by Emily Brontë, originally published under the pen name Ellis Bell. Set across two windswept Yorkshire estates — Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, the film blends Gothic intensity with Romantic tragedy and it’s precisely this emotional extremity that Fennell seizes upon rather than the novel’s period realism.
Her adaptation leans hard into heightened feeling and visual flamboyance. The film’s aesthetic is boldly theatrical, almost feverish at times, with garish colour palettes and grandiose set pieces that feel closer to a dark pop opera than a traditional literary drama. The anachronistic soundtrack and knowingly exaggerated sensuality will split audiences, but there’s no denying the commitment to creating a sensory experience. When it works, it’s intoxicating; when it falters, it veers toward indulgence and silliness. Even so, the film never feels timid.
At the centre of the storm are Margot Robbie’s Catherine “Cathy” Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff, presented less as tragic lovers and more as combustible forces of nature. Robbie leans into Cathy’s mercurial intensity with a fearless, almost feral energy, while Elordi gives Heathcliff a brooding magnetism that borders on mythic. Together they are the film’s most compelling asset; their chemistery is volatile, unsettling and undeniably electric. It’s messy, frequently over the top and occasionally exhausting, but that excess mirrors the novel’s own emotional excesses.
The supporting cast brings texture to this mesmerising story. Hong Chau’s Nelly Dean serves as a quietly grounding presence amid the melodrama, while Shazad Latif offers Edgar Linton (Cathy’s adoting husband) a sympathetic counterpoint to the darkly magnetic Heathcliff. Alison Oliver’s Isabella Linton injects both vulnerability and desperation, and Martin Clunes is genuinely thrilling as Mr. Earnshaw.
Fennell’s direction is a masterclass in maximalist excess, cranking every dial past the limit. The result is a film that is intoxicating, occasionally absurd and perhaps a touch overindulged, with daring flourishes—the BDSM-inspiredelements, for instance— practically engineered to scandalise purists. Yet, these very gambles seem to work.
Where the film truly succeeds is in capturing the visceral essence of obsessive love. It understands that Brontë’s novel was shocking in its own era and leans into that transgressive spirit, presenting romance not as a gentle yearning but as an all-consuming, destructive force. The result is a version of Wuthering Heights that feels less like a museum piece and more like a fever dream.
Is it faithful? Not particularly. Is it memorable? Absolutely. Fennell’s adaptation may divide audiences, but it pulses with a boldness and cinematic confidence that make it difficult to ignore. For viewers willing to embrace a stylised, modernised interpretation rather than a traditional period drama, this Wuthering Heights offers a lurid, provocative and strangely compelling ride, one that captures the novel’s ferocious emotional core, even as it rewrites the rules completely.
