Captivating chemistry or a hollow misfire? Wuthering Heights splits critics
Emerald Fennell’s hotly anticipated reinvention of Wuthering Heights, starring Australian A-listers Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, has divided film critics ahead of its release this Valentine’s weekend.
Emily Brontë’s gothic tale of passion, obsession and revenge follows the affair between the free-spirited, wilful Cathy and the tortured but cruel Heathcliff.
The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw described the new screen adaptation as an “emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire” in a two-star review.
But there was much more enthusiasm from the Telegraph’s Robbie Collin, who awarded a maximum five stars, lauding it as “resplendently lurid, oozy and wild.”
The movie has been attracting attention and some controversy since it was first announced, over its casting and apprently BDSM-inspired scenes.
Set in the late 18th and early 19th Century, Wuthering Heights stars Elordi, 28, and Robbie, 35, as famous literary lovers Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw.
The film is being marketed using quote marks – “Wuthering Heights” – to imply that this is Fennell’s personal take on the famous novel, while Brat singer Charli XCX has written an accompanying album soundtrack.
The Guardian’s Bradshaw said Fennell “cranks up the campery” with her reinvention, which he describes as “a 20-page fashion shoot of relentless silliness, with bodices ripped to shreds and a saucy slap of BDSM”.
The Telegraph’s Collin anticipated criticism from some that the movie might lack depth, but issued a robust defence of the film.
“Style over substance? Not at all – it’s more that Fennell understands that style can be substance when you do it right,” he wrote.
“Cathy and Heathcliff’s passions vibrate through their dress, their surroundings, and everything else within reach, and you leave the cinema quivering on their own private frequency.”
Publisher Mills & Boon was referenced in more than one review, with the Sun’s Dulcie Pearce suggesting the film had replaced chunks of Brontë book with pages from the romance novels.
“This over-stylised drama is fierce and fun – but unfortunately it is also sex over substance,” Pearce wrote.
Clarisse Loughrey of the Independent gave the film just one star, writing: “Emerald Fennell’s astonishingly bad adaptation is like a limp Mills & Boon.
“Robbie and Elordi’s performances are almost pushed to the border of pantomime, while Fennell’s provocations seem to define the poor as sexual deviants and the rich as clueless prudes.”
Other critics were more flattering, with the Financial Times’s Danny Leigh giving it three stars.
“As the sexual tension cranks, the mood feels like an arthouse Carry On, with lingering shots of gloopy egg whites,” he wrote.
“The rest of the movie grabs the attention so hard, Charli XCX does the soundtrack and you don’t even notice.”
Leigh wasn’t the only critic to compare Wuthering Heights to a Carry On film.
In a three-star review, the Irish Times’s Donald Clarke noted that “the surprise for many will be how closely this supposed deconstruction sticks to the shape of Emily Brontë’s original narrative”.
He pointed out that the opening scene was “closer to Carry on Heathcliff than The 120 Days of Sodom”.
There was another three-star review from Empire’s Beth Webb, who described the film as “undeniably expertly crafted”.
“Fennell throws everything at this fever-dream adaptation, which massages the senses while showcasing Elordi’s ever-growing star power,” she said. “If only its electrically erotic energy was sustained to the end.”
The The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney praised the chemistry between Elordi and Robbie.
“The leads are captivating and their chemistry sizzles,” he said. “Robbie is in full bloom, walking a tightrope between infuriating recklessness and devastating regret.
“Fennell’s overhaul flirts with insanity, and if you can let go of preconceived notions about how this story should be told, it’s arguably the writer-director’s most purely entertaining film.”
There was more praise for the pair’s on-screen relationship from the Standard’s Vicky Jessop, who gave the film four stars, writing: “Robbie and Elordi have bags of chemistry in this unashamedly high-camp adaptation of Emily Bronte’s book.
“Emerald Fennell serves us full-throated, filthy maximalism,” she added.
But Kevin Maher of the Times wasn’t sold, awarding the film just two stars.
Referencing Robbie’s star turn in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie blockbuster, he described Robbie as a “Brontë Barbie” and argued that Fennell has “doomed Elordi with a fatally shallow characterisation, recasting Heathcliff as pouty man-candy with a shaky Yorkshire accent.”
Other reviews ranged from a two-star take from Brian Viner in The Daily Mail to Therese Lacson of Collider’s view that Brontë “is absolutely rolling in her grave”.
Elsewhere, the Atlantic’s David Sim opined that this was Fennell’s “best film to date – a heaving, rip-snortingly carnal good time at the cinema”.
Wuthering Heights opens in the UK on 13 February.
