Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
When it comes to the Brontë sisters, I was always Team Charlotte. But there’s no movie version of “Jane Eyre” that’s as revered and famous as William Wyler’s 1939 version of “Wuthering Heights.” That one starred Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Cathy. The doomed romance of these childhood friends is told by Nelly, a servant in Cathy’s home. With its ghost story trappings, gothic Gregg Toland cinematography, and brooding performance by Olivier, the film was an Oscar-nominated hit in the same year as “Gone With The Wind.”
Jacob Elordi in “Wuthering Heights.”Warner Bros. Pictures
Since then, it appears that every big screen adaptation has tried to live up to that version, from the G-rated 1970 Timothy Dalton version made by American International Pictures (the first version shot in color) to the more recent 2011 film by Andrea Arnold. Like all the versions I mention, Fennell’s take eliminates the second half of Brontë’s novel. At least Arnold listened to the author and cast an actor with the darker skin Heathcliff is described as having in the novel.
Casting Elordi and Robbie is a definite mismatch, as evidenced by the earliest scenes in “Wuthering Heights” where their characters are played by Owen Cooper (an Emmy winner as the star of Netflix’s “Adolescence”) and Charlotte Mellington. Cooper’s Heathcliff is taken in by Cathy’s drunkard of a father, Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes). When not barfing all over town or on the floors of his estate, Wuthering Heights, Earnshaw spends his time beating and abusing Heathcliff. The two youngsters’ bond grows deeper as the time passes.
After standing up for Cathy, and earning the most brutal of his beatings, Heathcliff tells Cathy, “I will never leave you, no matter what you do.” It’s not meant to be romantic — these are kids — but Cooper is so sincere, and Mellington is so accepting of that sincerity, that I bought their connection.
Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights.Warner Bros. Pictures
When Fennell swaps in her adult actors, the cracks start showing immediately. While strikingly attractive on their own, Elordi and Robbie have zero romantic chemistry. Even their appearance on the film’s poster looks awkward in its positioning. As she did with “Saltburn,” Fennell uses supposedly provocative (but actually laughable) sexuality to spice up her film. It doesn’t work.
The longing for romance angle doesn’t work either. The adult Heathcliff is secretly in love with Cathy, and apparently the feeling is mutual, but Nelly tells Cathy she cannot marry below her station. Besides, the Earnshaws are broke as hell and Wuthering Heights is in severe disrepair, so Cathy curries favor with her far richer neighbors, the Lintons. She becomes a fixture at their estate, Thrushcross Grange, and marries their son Edgar (Shazad Latif) after considering his proposal and realizing the money she’d get to help save her father and his house.
Hong Chau in Wuthering Heights.Warner Bros. Pictures
Through Nelly’s machinations, Heathcliff overhears Cathy say that she loves him but can’t be with him, driving him away to seek his fortune in London. Once he returns, Cathy is already married. While pregnant with Edgar’s child, Cathy starts an affair with Heathcliff. Fennell treats their couplings like softcore Cinemax movie outtakes and unwisely tries to inject noir elements into this soap opera plot.
Eventually, Cathy cuts off the affair. As revenge, Heathcliff marries Isabella, Edgar’s sister, whom he abuses and remains with solely as a means to make Cathy jealous. Nelly interferes here, too, and since the other half of Brontë’s book is missing, none of her retaliatory actions make any sense.
At least Chau looks like she belongs in this era and this setting. Despite a great performance in “Frankenstein,” (which takes place at about the same time as this film), Elordi fails to convince as a 19th century noble savage. In her admittedly impressive gowns by Victoria Boydell, Robbie is used more like a Barbie doll than she was as a literal one in “Barbie.”
Jacob Elordi in “Wuthering Heights.”Warner Bros. Pictures
Fans of Charli xcx should know that she provides the songs here. Fans of windswept moors and hilly vistas will have a field day with Linus Sandgren’s cinematography.
In the 43 years since I first came in contact with “Wuthering Heights” in Mr. Phillips’ English class, I’ve never once thought to look up the definition of the word “wuther.” Webster’s informs me now that “to wuther” means “to blow with a dull roaring sound.” This adaptation does exactly that.
★1/2
“WUTHERING HEIGHTS”
Written and directed by Emerald Fennell. Starring Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau, Alison Oliver, Owen Cooper, Charlotte Mellington, Martin Clunes. At AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 136 min. R (sex, nudity)
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.