Review: Wuthering Heights

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

There are times when a director of some acclaim or success becomes drunk on their own style and, in the process, goes a little off the deep end. 

Such is the case with Emerald Fennell, whose "Promising Young Woman" was a critical success - and it remains her best film in my opinion - although some have taken aim at the way it portrays justice for survivors of sexual assault. Her second film, "Saltburn," was effectively made, while at the same time making it very clear that Fennell's primary interest is pushing buttons.

Her latest, an adaptation of Emily Bronte's masterpiece "Wuthering Heights," finds her taking a beloved Gothic tale and turning it into a horny harlequin romance - but one that's a bit on the dark side. Yes, it's stylish in the manner of her other films and features a soundtrack by Charli XCX, which is honestly the least distracting thing going on here.

Remember in Bronte's novel when a man on the gallows gives all new meaning to being hung as the crowd giggles at his prominent erection and the executioner shouts, "It's a fucking hanging!"? 

Recall that scene when Heathcliff ties up poor Isabella and makes her bark like a dog? Or that scene when Heathcliff and Catherine watch two servants get randy in the barn? How about that other sequence in which Heathcliff catches Catherine masturbating on a rocky cliff?

Me neither. Before being accused of being a prude or someone who doesn't like to see great works deviate from the text in new adaptations, I must point out that my problems with Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" has less to do with the fact that she is mucking about with a story that has been done better in 1939 by William Wyler and in 2011 by Andrea Arnold, but rather that the film is concerned more with style over substance and button pushing over providing a new perspective on a classic tale. It also conveniently skips over the possibility of Heathcliff being of mixed race.

Both Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi do their best as Catherine and Heathcliff, while Alison Oliver is amusing as Isabella and Hong Chau is an effective Nelly Dean, but it's the material - or rather, the interpretation of it - that fails them.

This is an often visually gorgeous film, and the set design is immaculate, from Isabella's somewhat creepy doll houses to the interior decor at the home of Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), the rich man whom Catherine marries. There are beautiful shots of snow falling and scenic views of the cliffs surrounding the home where Catherine and Heathcliff face a cruel childhood, only to reconvene years later for a fated romance.

The film ends somewhere around the novel's midway point, perhaps because the second half of the novel would have made for a too long and expensive film - or maybe because it lends itself more to being the kind of tragic romance to which the filmmakers seemingly aspired.

I've read in interviews that Fennell said the film was inspired by her reading it as a teenager and how it made her feel at that time. The picture was borne out of her 14-year-old's obsession, apparently, with the novel. This might explain why the film could best be described - to quote the Sex Pistols - as oh so pretty... vacant.