Emerald Fennell is very much aware that her adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is going to anger and upset Brontë purists. In fact, the title of the movie is technically “Wuthering Heights” – quotation marks and all – to denote that this is something different.
The director ditches major characters and changes many plot points. Charli XCX songs dominate the soundtrack, and costumes look like they came from a deranged child’s dollhouse. Perhaps the biggest difference between Fennell’s and the original is that, in the new version, Cathy (Margot Robbie, also a producer) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) consummate their forbidden love. A lot. They have torrid sex. He licks her face and sucks her fingers.
At the same time, Wuthering Heights is still Wuthering Heights, and the latest is an example of one of Hollywood’s favourite hobbies: adapting classic novels about women in the 19th century over and over.