Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” is a mess of a film, filled with poor mistakes and a fundamental misunderstanding of the source material it attempts to adapt.

Fennell said in an interview that instead of adapting the book, she took what she could remember and made an interpretation of the novel.

“I think the things that I remembered were both real and not real,” she explained. “So there was a certain amount of wish fulfillment in there, and there were whole characters that I’d sort of forgotten or consolidated.”

It shows very negatively.

Not only are multiple characters forgotten about, but so are many important plot points.

In Brontë’s novel, it is almost a psychological horror telling how classism, generational trauma, and mental illness lead to someone, mainly Heathcliff, ruining all the lives of the people around him, and the struggle of breaking those habits.

Instead, the film erases most of that in an attempt to make Heathcliff almost an anti-hero, which makes certain plot points kept from the book incredibly confusing.

For instance, in the novel, Heathcliff marries Catherine’s sister-in-law, Isabella Linton, to stay close to Catherine and to punish her and her husband, Edgar Linton. 

Heathcliff kills Isabella’s dog, physically and psychologically abuses her, abuses their children, and finally, she runs away to escape the abuses she was forced to endure.

In the movie, while Heathcliff has the same reasons for marrying her, their relationship is instead shown as a consensual BDSM relationship.

Through that choice, it erases a major point of the novel: The classism and abuses Heathcliff faces turn him into a monster, but they are an explanation, not an excuse.

Yes, this new adaptation is marketed as a more erotic version of the novel, but adding in some fully-clothed sex scenes and light BDSM is a slap in the face to the very real realities of abuse in the book.

If anything, it feels like Fennell was too scared to actually do anything groundbreaking, as the eroticism shown is significantly more tame than even Fifty Shades of Grey, another book adaptation from 10 years ago.

Also, there is a second half to the book after Catherine dies. No, the movie goes nowhere near any of that, even though the second half is just as important to the book as the first half is. 

Though, in her defense, most previous film adaptations also went nowhere near the second half of the story.

The second half of Wuthering Heights is where Catherine and Heathcliff’s children not only fall in love, but also work together to break the cycle of abuse.

Catherine dies in the film before she even gives birth, so Fennell not only ignores the second half’s themes, but she apparently forgot that the book is more than 200 pages.

Moving away from the differences between the book and the movie, many of the technical aspects had poor choices.

The acting from Margot Robbie as Catherine and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff both felt like they were simply going through the motions.

Robbie is very subdued, which is the opposite of Catherine, who is very loud and emotional.

Same with Elordi, whose acting in Euphoria would make a more convincing Heathcliff than the stoic, barely emotive Elordi in the film.

Alison Oliver as Isabelle has the most interesting acting, but her scenes are so brief that it’s a shame Isabelle wasn’t written in more just to explore her character.

Costuming was horrible, with the outfits being far from historically accurate and many of Robbie’s dresses looking like they were bought off Temu.

However, while the Thrushcross Grange set was a little too empty, the cinematography and set design were fantastic.

Scene composition itself was brilliant, with one of the best moments in the movie being when Catherine asks Isabelle to enter the room because she knows she’s listening, and in the very far right corner, Isabelle can be seen shuffling into the room.

he soundtrack provided by EDM and pop artist Charli XCX is fantastic and suits the film very well.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like the editors knew how to use her music because only a few songs off the full album were actually utilized and the scenes that did use it were montages that felt like visualizer music videos.

Overall, this movie is horrible if you read the book. If you didn’t, it’s just a somewhat tame, but very brooding romance. Nothing groundbreaking or interesting.