Wuthering Heights (15)

Catherine Earnshaw is raised by her alcoholic father at Wuthering Heights with Nelly Dean as a constant companion. Mr Earnshaw "acquires" an orphaned boy named Heathcliff during one of his gallivants and gifts the waif to Cathy as her pet. The children become inseparable and Heathcliff puts himself in harm's way to protect Cathy from booze-fuelled beatings. As they grow up, Cathy and Heathcliff continue to yearn for each other, painfully aware that he cannot provide financially for her future.

LondonNet Film Review

Wuthering Heights (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Wuthering is a lyrical and underused word outside of Emily Bronte’s canon, referring to the roaring strength of a wind or a place at the mercy of a gale. The winds of change that blow through Saltburn writer-director Emerald Fennell’s sexy spin on the 19th-century romance are certainly wuthering and spatter almost every conceivable bodily fluid across a visually stunning tale of doomed childhood sweethearts on a collision course to heartbreak. Fennell blows any cobwebs away with gleefully puckered lips in a grotesque opening scene replete with visibly stiffened anatomy to introduce headstrong young Catherine Earnshaw (Charlotte Mellington). She is raised by her alcoholic father (Martin Clunes) at Wuthering Heights with Nelly Dean (Vy Nguyen) as a constant companion…

Mr Earnshaw “acquires” an orphaned boy named Heathcliff (Owen Cooper) during one of his gallivants and gifts the waif to Cathy as her pet. The children become inseparable and Heathcliff puts himself in harm’s way to protect Cathy from booze-fuelled beatings at her father’s hands. Deep scars on his back are a lasting reminder of his sacrifice. “I named him. He is mine,” spits Cathy. As they grow up, Cathy (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) continue to yearn for each other, painfully aware that he cannot provide financially for her future.

She seeks a romantic match with local landowner Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), who is guardian to his ribbon-obsessed younger sister Isabella (Alison Oliver) at nearby Thrushcross Grange. Nelly (Hong Chau) silently resents the bond between Cathy and Heathcliff, which has always trumped her own friendship, and she enacts a plan to drive a wedge between the soulmates with only a slim chance of reconciliation.

Wuthering Heights is quite unlike any previous rendering of the source text, punctuated with demonstrations of primal sexual desire and cruelty that may leave some Bronte purists feeling lightheaded and in urgent need of smelling salts to survive the dramatic turbulence of an excessive 136-minute running time. The two leads are soaked to the skin more than once but still look radiant in the gloom thanks to Linus Sandgren’s impeccable cinematography. Jacqueline Durran’s exquisite costumes create striking tableaux including a wedding dress with a bountiful train that undulates like rippling water over the moors. It’s glam up north.

Oliver’s finely calibrated comedic performance relishes the naivete of a virginal lamb being led to her own slaughter. Fennell unleashes a wrecking ball through any lingering sympathy we might have for Robbie’s heroine in a bile-soaked second act, and she adds kinky barbs to Elordi’s tortured paramour to convince us that he deserves a share of the blame. His accent is impeccable, if geographically adjacent to Adolescence star Cooper’s younger incarnation of Heathcliff.

– Jo Planter