Well, that was neither especially interesting nor titillating.
Catherine, born into delusions of standing, has hidden affection for her childhood friend and servant Heathcliff. When she decides to marry into the household of a wealthy man, relationships strain to breaking point.
Warner Brothers produced, directed by Emerald Fennell (Saltburn) this is the newest adaptation of Emily Brontë’s masterwork of the same name. Starring Margot Robbie, (Barbie) Jacob Elordi, (Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein) Hong Chau, (The Whale) and Martin Clunes. This adaptation as been through the wringer with some critics, and I personally have no familiarity with the original story at all.
Perhaps a scholar will read my review and learn something of how wayward (or perhaps otherwise?) this adaptation is. Because I’m under the impression this isn’t very good.
The film opens with Catherine and Heathcliff as children. They meet when Catherine’s father (funny man Clunes being terrifying) takes the boy from his troublesome father and puts him to work. The two become protective of each other in light of her father’s rage, and a bond develops over time.
But when a wealthy family arrive nearby, Catherine spurns Heathcliff’s affections to instead solidify a financially stable marriage with the other family’s head.
The film starts salaciously enough, with moaning and creaking. But this is not love, but in fact death. Someone is being hanged, much to the joy (and arousal) of the peasants. This opening is perhaps the most striking and interesting moment the movie has; everything slowly goes downhill from there.
The film has a surrealist nature within a period drama’s skin. Bold colours, stark use of shadows. Landscapes can have natural appearances, and yet can also be so surreal they might be from a Disney live action movie. The titular Wuthering Heights, Catherine’s childhood home, is made of black brick and crushed between massive black monolithic stones. Her future suitor, makes her bedroom wallpaper a replication of her own skin. If that isn’t a red flag, I don’t know what is.
There are some intensely obvious theatre and cinematography going on. Green for envy. Red for lust. Washed out greys and whites for ennui and grief. Yet the soundtrack is bombastic and with new age sensibilities. Which might rub fans of the story the wrong way (err, pun intended?) but these elements are probably the most memorable aspects of the movie.
Yes, no, the romance and the sex are not memorable. For a film with a suggestive trailer, there ultimately wasn’t much excitement here. It is mostly two people making baffling decisions to keep drama happening. “I love Heathcliff, so I will never see him again.” “I love Catherine, but she said something, so I will never see her again,” “Oh, it would be really inconvenient if I returned for no reason. So I will return.” The performances from Robbie and Elordi are good, but it feels like the material they have is of petulant teenagers. I came away from the movie thinking: So Heathcliff is a home-wrecker, and Catherine is an idiot?
It is a little hard to tell, for me, if the issue lies in the outmoded text that our society has left behind, or simply poor screenplay writing. But something is not landing here. The story certainly feels truncated; there are pieces missing. I am a sentimental soul, and movies can make me cry or at least feel something. But there was nothing, despite all the drama on show. I just saw bumbling idiots stumbling into one social faux pas after another.
I think one example had me realise nothing had worked. Without spoiling anything: the two locations are readily described as “neighbourly”, and we see Catherine walking between them easily. Then, later, when the plot demands haste and expediency, Heathcliff on a horse, takes forever to cover the same distance.
I felt nothing.
It has style and flair sometimes, but crucially little substance. The most cutting comparison to be made: romantic montages here sometimes reminded me of George Lucas’s disastrous Attack of the Clones. Minus the silly space cows.
