Shadows on the Wall | Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

Review by Rich Cline | MUST SEE

dir-scr Emerald Fennell
prd Emerald Fennell, Josey McNamara, Margot Robbie, Rosie Goodwin
with Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau, Alison Oliver, Shazad Latif, Martin Clunes, Charlotte Mellington, Owen Cooper, Vy Nguyen, Ewan Mitchell, Amy Morgan, Jessica Knappett
release US/UK 13.Feb.26
26/UK Warners 2h16

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Emily Bronte's essential 1847 novel gets the full Emerald Fennell treatment, as the singular writer-director slims down the plot and wrestles out the simmering primal urges. This is bold filmmaking with maximalist design work and intensely brooding performances that often brim over into teary passion. It also cleverly echoes the novel's mesmerising darkness, so it's impossible to look away from these messy, often unlikeable, but eerily sympathetic characters.

In the late 18th century, the drunken Earnshaw (Clunes) lives in Wuthering Heights, an imposing farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors, with his daughter Cathy (Mellington) and servant Nelly (Nguyen), an aristocrat's cast-out love child. He also takes in a feral boy (Cooper), whom Cathy names Heathcliff, and they grow up together. Knowing she can't marry the lowly Heathcliff (now Elordi), even though she loves him, Cathy (now Robbie) marries local landowner Edgar (Latif). And Nelly (now Chau) accompanies her to the grand Thrushcross Grange. Years later, Heathcliff returns as a wealthy gentleman, turning Cathy's head.

Yearning fills the screen, as Cathy and Heathcliff are kept apart by social issues, pride and bad timing. In this telling, when they do get together, things get very steamy indeed, as sweat mingles with ever-present mist and rain. Fennell playfully adds additional kinks, such as a couple of randy servants (Mitchell and Morgan) frolicking in the stables. Or when Heathcliff takes out his frustrations on Edgar's ward Isabella (Oliver), who isn't exactly unwilling. All of this adds a heady blast of lustiness that echoes in the luxuriantly expressive sets and costumes.

While the casting seems odd, the excellent actors have bracing internalised honesty. Robbie's Cathy is a striking mix of callous selfishness and underlying longing, creating a twisted inner struggle. She may cause her own troubles, but her feelings are true. Elordi gives Heathcliff a swarthy presence, bolstered by his earnest expressions of love. So when she betrays him, his reaction has a real kick. Chau is also extraordinary, finding nuance in a difficult role, while Oliver and Latif add their own intriguing angles.

While the novel's themes about class, loyalty and temptation are here, Fennell highlights the self-sabotage. "I have not broken your heart," Heathcliff tells Cathy. "You have broken it, and in breaking it have broken mine." This is an unusually tortured on-screen romance, and it's continually livened up by Fennell's wonderfully deranged imaginative flourishes, including eggs, voodoo and a bit of puppy play. It's probably truer to Emily Bronte's story than we dare to admit.

themes, language, violence, sexuality 9.Feb.26

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