Aussies, bad reviews and Charli XCX: Is Emerald Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ doomed?
Sorry for the spoiler for a story that’s been out for 177 years, but by the time Cathy dies in Wuthering Heights, she’s only 18. “I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free,” the Yorkshire-born young woman utters in her final moments, and immediately, it’s pretty impossible to imagine Margot Robbie, a 35-year-old Australian woman, carrying that off.
Since the announcement of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation, and her decision to cast Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, that point has been made over and over again. Since that first revelation, people have wondered what business these two actors have coming anywhere close to these iconic characters. How could they possibly, in any world, be the right fit?
Cathy is essentially a child, and that’s the point. She represents the limitations of a woman’s life back then as she moves from her family home in the remote landscape of the peaks, into her husband’s home, as she’s prompted to marry young and marry up. Heathcliff represents the flipside to that. At once, he’s both the object of Cathy’s desire as she wails things like, “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
But more so than that, the horror that plays out between Cathy, Heathcliff and then those left behind that he torments further, represents a bigger story about class and social rules. Canonically, Heathcliff is not white, so racism also comes into play as the two leads are torn apart by a world that expects them to be tame and follow the fates of their gender, class and skin tone, with Heathcliff becoming evil in rage at that. Jacob Elordi isn’t the person to tackle that.
Adaptation must be allowed freedom, I get that. Fennell has to be, and should be, afforded her own creative space with this story, but with a text as sacred as Wuthering Heights, and the importance it holds as a piece of literature that not only saw Emily Brontë break into the male world of gothic, but also get the gothic world to consider real-world issues, certain markers must be hit. And so far, with each revelation from the film, each is being missed.
Now, with the trailer finally being released, has the film served its final blow or been given its life-line? As the first teaser clips begin, so too does Charli XCX’s ‘Everything Is Romantic’, a track from her 2024 star-making album, Brat. With that, it was revealed that XCX has performed a series of original songs for the movie.
It’s splitting camps. On the one hand, the further modernisation feels confusing. In early on-set photos of the cast, people were quick to point out that the elaborate costumes Robbie and Elordi were wearing weren’t era-accurate for the story, leaving people to wonder if Fennell’s adaptation isn’t set in 1800s Yorkshire at all, and maybe she’s thrown the entire rulebook out. Some people were furious at that, others cautiously excited by the idea of a whole new take, or an interestingly avant-garde contrast between modern music and an old story, or an old story told through a new lens with an unexpected soundtrack.
But with the trailer now released, it appears that this is still a period piece, just a hammed-up and inaccurate one. Obviously, that won’t be for lack of research or lack of access to information, given Fennell’s status, so it must all be coming down to vision – although the vision remains confusing and the question is still there: why are Charli XCX and two Australians being tasked with telling this story? Where are the true Yorkshiremen? Where is the respect for Brontë’s legacy, with so much being brushed off in favour of Fennell’s view?
In early reviews, it didn’t leave much room for hope. Initial viewers called it “aggressively provocative and tonally abrasive”.
However, there’s one thing we have to consider – Saltburn. Whether you liked it or loathed it, Fennell basically already made Wuthering Heights when she made 2023’s gothic flick, Saltburn. Proving her ability to play around with class and make a movie full of luscious gore and incredible tension, it’s that prior film that continues to deliver the slightest glimmer of hope for this questionable new adaptation.
As those same early reviews mentioned a shocking scene in which a “condemned man ejaculates mid-execution”, perhaps there is a potential here yet. Any time I doubt her vision, I simply remind myself of Barry Keoghan fucking the fresh soil of a new grave, and I have to trust that Fennell can take on this classic gothic masterpiece and truly honour the insanity and obsession of Cathy and Heathcliff, even if her casting choices feel painstakingly wrong, and even if Brat is soundtracking them.
One thing we can be sure of, though, is that all of this is smartly arranged for some degree of success. Here we are talking about the movie, and the conflicting feelings towards its will ensure seats are in chairs, meaning it’ll be a victory for Fennell either way.
