That appetite for Emerald Fennell’s bodice-ripping adaptation of Emily Brontë’s yarn of doomed romance is high is not in doubt. Whether it’s high enough to sustain sales for an official Wuthering Heights açai bowl seems less certain.
The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.
Yet this is exactly what is on offer in food aisles across the US, with two bespoke bowls churned up for hungry film fans with the explanatory slogan: “This is what happens when you turn yearning into flavour.”
“Cathy’s bowl is soft, indulgent, and impossible to forget,” promises the blurb for Kiss Me: “Strawberries are her wild sweetness, chia pudding is her composed side, honey is her sweet longing.” Haunt Me, meanwhile, is “dark, intense” like Healthcliff, and also “impossible to forget”. Thus: “Cacao nibs are his bitter soul, goji berries are his broken heart, choc hazelnut is his intense passion, blueberries are his cold restraint.”
Reviews are mixed, with one Instagram account saying “all me and my friend could think was wtf there’s no way someone actually tasted that and approved it” yet the existence of these bowls is proof, if proof were required, that we are now in a golden age of inventive movie merchandise collaborations.
‘Eucalyptus breathes cold across the moors’ … Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in Wuthering Heights. Photograph: 2026 Warner Bros. Ent/PA
Other partnerships for Fennell’s film include luxury leather goods brand Aspinal of London, TokyoMilk perfumers, Bloomingdales tea and Last Crumb cookies.
There are not one, but two lingerie collections, with Hanky Panky releasing a set of thongs and Lounge a whole line inspired by the film. Continuing the theme Slip have a silk pillowcase and eye mask while Maude – Dakota Johnson’s bougie sexual wellness brand – released a “Come Undone” massage candle and body oil. “Eucalyptus breathes cold across the moors,” we’re told, while “cassis and musk linger like mist, amber and sandalwood burn low – memory comes undone.”
Such collaborations are, of course, nothing new, and as witnessed by recent blockbusters such as Barbie, Wicked and A Minecraft Movie, not only is pre-existing brand awareness increasingly a prerequisite of greenlighting films, but ancillary spend on T-shirts, underwear and eyeshadow a baked-in element of the business model.
A movie’s viral cut-through is a complex part of this new algorithm. Just as some musicians long for a 20-second clip that can launch a million TikToks, films are looking for the certain je ne sais quoi that will turn it from simply a story into an all-encompassing aesthetic event and lifestyle experience. To properly experience Wuthering Heights, as trailers suggest, you need to tap into your saucier side – for which you will almost certainly require a thong and maybe a stay in an official Airbnb replica of Cathy’s bedroom.
Quasi-romantic codependency … Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie at the Wuthering Heights UK premiere. Photograph: Stuart Hardy/ABACAPRESS.COM/Shutterstock
This seepage of the obsession narrative can also be seen in the decision to hinge the press tour on pushing the apparently quasi-romantic codependency between its stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, following the template of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo on Wicked’s press tour. Just as audience members are encouraged to ape the film’s theme of obsessional desire by glugging a “Creme undone” cuppa while dunking a “Better with Sex” choc-chip cookie, so too the actors must cosplay wanting to jump each others bones at every opportunity.
So far, so late consumerist desperation. Yet the problem with attempting to curate and peddle an aesthetic of obsession through merchandise is that, unlike the source novel, such efforts have nothing to actually say about obsession; they just show us what it looks like and instruct us how to join in. Unlike the novel, which unpicks the destructive effects of obsessive love, Wuthering Heights’s sale push appears, a bit alarmingly, to ask us to aspire to and purchase obsession.
The bleakness of Brontë’s original vision means this all feels in poorer taste than Wicked hairbrushes. Many of these brand collaborations suggest a reduction of the narrative to its sexuality and an erasure of its wider themes – something Fennell is already under scrutiny for since the whitewashed casting of Elordi as Heathcliff. It’s difficult to reconcile a novel that explores the nuances of class, race and generational trauma with branded hand creams.
The overtly erotic nature of many of these collaborations feels calculated to spin the story into a dark romance ripe for the BookTok audience. Posts from the official Wuthering Heights TikTok account use buzzwords like “yearning” and mention romance tropes popular on the platform such as jealous lovers. The overt sexuality of the trailer, the “Come Undone” body oil and candle made for dripping on to partners, the silk eye mask and lingerie edit with Lounge all lean into a vaguely BDSM aesthetic. It’s a particular take on the story and a way for fans to once again feel as if they are participating in something transgressive but in the most capitalist, and therefore normative, way possible.
To further drive home the BookTokification of Brontë’s novel this all feels reminiscent of an infamous chapter of “romantasy” history when BookTok darling A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas was beginning to get popular. A popular book-themed subscription box created a “book boyfriends” box, complete with a penis-shaped bar of soap. While this was a deliberately absurd and tongue-in-cheek joke gently ribbing the, then, small demographic of readers who rate every book on a “spice” scale, these readers have become a group with potent buying power and clearly willing to spend money on books and bookish merchandise. This is not to say these aren’t valid readers or that it’s not exciting to bring a classic to a new readership. But to say that maybe we’ve lost sight of what a piece of art should be: something affecting which does not demand you turn out the contents of your wallet.