If you haven’t heard about the latest toxic “romance” film to hit theaters, I envy you. I wish I could go back to simpler times when this movie did not live in my headspace. The recent adaptation of Wuthering Heights, a classic novel from the 18th century, was released less than a month ago, and it’s already one of the most talked about movies of this year. I made an interesting choice to watch it in theaters with close to zero context. I was not blind, however, to the immediate criticism it received from almost everyone I know.
The storyline of Wuthering Heights follows a family in Yorkshire in the late 1800s. In the first act of the film, we meet the main characters, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, as children. We see how the Earnshaw family came to adopt Heathcliff as a worker/son because of his unfortunate family situation. As they grow older, their friendship begins to evolve until Catherine is asked to marry her new neighbor, Mr. Linton, who lives with his sister. Catherine agrees, and Heathcliff decides to leave before she changes her mind about the marriage, since their household is in financial trouble.
The second act, however, does a bad job convincing me that I should continue to care for these characters as adults. Once Heathcliff returns, suddenly rich, Cathy is married to Mr. Linton. The lack of any actual meaningful and substantial dialogue between the characters made me so uninterested in their “relationship,” if we can even call it that. The story made me care deeply about the side characters rather than the protagonists. Cathy becomes the jealous mistress, and Heathcliff turns into a desperate side piece begging for Cathy’s love.
I have not read the book, but I think that if Emily Brontë were alive to see the adaptation, she would be quite surprised as to how her book was interpreted. There will be some minor spoilers ahead for the rest of the review, so be warned. Instead of focusing on both generations of Earnshaws and Lintons, the adaptation mainly focuses on Catherine and Heathcliff’s story. The main characters, as Brontë described, look nothing like Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie. This story was intentionally meant to be an interracial relationship with class differences, but now it is just two white people. In my opinion, the adaptation lacked a general context that could have been provided by cutting down on other scenes.
Critiquing the film from a cinematic perspective, I have to say that the visuals did not disappoint. The colors, the camera work, and the soundtrack were all impeccable and up to the standards that I would have imagined. The wardrobe, although not exactly time-accurate, still managed to portray a sense of “old timeliness” that you get when you watch a film set in a different time period.
Released on Valentine’s Day, this adaptation of Wuthering Heights was advertised as a forbidden love story we should root for. The trailer claimed the film was inspired by the “greatest love story of all time,” but there was an overall lack of emotional depth to the characters. The relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff is based on jealousy, due to Catherine being married, and lust, which simply forces the audience to watch numerous and questionable intimate scenes between our main characters.
To end my thoughts, I have to start by saying that this film was an adaptation of the original 18th century novel. It was addressed by the director that they weren’t going to portray it word-for-word. If you enjoyed this movie or are still curious, I recommend you watch it. The experience was entertaining, and I can’t say that it didn’t keep me interested throughout. To fans of the classic novel, there might be some better adaptations of the original story already released that you may enjoy instead of this one.
Leave a Reply