Literally Toxic
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Emerald Fennell trolls us with her idea of a date night movie. Brava.
Wuthering Heights
Director: Emerald Fennell • Writer: Emerald Fennell, based on the book by Emily Brontë
Starring: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau, Alison Oliver, Shazad Latif
UK / USA • 2hrs 16mins
Opens Hong Kong February 12 • IIB
Grade: B+
Not going to lie. Everything I know about Wuthering Heights I learnt from Kate Bush. I preferred her four-minute art-witchy pop to Emily Brontë’s OG 1847 book. At the risk of losing my 1) woman card and my 2) feminist card I never really got into the Brontës and the Austens. Which, regardless of what the intertoobs is likely already shrieking about, director Emerald Fennell probably did, and it could be some of the reason she re-worked the beloved (why?) novel into a totally wrong romance about two awful co-dependents for the 2020s. And I am here for it. If you revel in the prose as it stands, or you’re from the school that believes adaptations should be faithful to their source material, or that some cows are mos def sacred, this Wuthering Heights isn’t for you; a lot of them wouldn’t be (Laurence Olivier is a no more “Lascar” looking Heathcliff than Jacob Elordi). So out are extra siblings, ghosts, fireside reminiscences, next generations and land ownership disputes. In are vulgar townsfolk, gaudy finery, a hilariously horned up little sister, manipulative and/or pro-bondage servants and a contemporary soundtrack by Charlie XCX. Fennell takes a huge fuckin’ swing here, and she doesn’t always hit, but major props for trying. The last thing anyone needs is more of Mr Darby coming out the pond and looking all flustered and “delicious.” Even Hugh Grant’s gotten over that shit (and yes, I know it was Colin Firth, but point taken). This is a gorgeously shot, clever, frequently funny (which may clang for some) and a little sexy (though it doesn’t clear the new Heated Rivalry bar) spin on a 175-year-old text. It can handle some fiddling.
Kate Bush about to have a moment
Since making huge waves with her first feature, Fennell of course has been the target of all sorts of backhanded “Well, her films are actually a bit…” You can fill in the blank with anything from “not as smart as it thinks it is” and “uninformed” to “derivative” and “confused”. She’s made three features – three, and I promise you very few filmmakers find perfection by #3 – and hardly anyone said that about noted Paul Dano shit-talker Quentin Tarantino. His version of derivative was somehow “homage”. Whatever; moving on. Not many have stopped to think that Fennell may like pulpy, OTT, heightened reality button-pushing; that she chose to do that. Promising Young Woman’s pat ending could be considered a cop out for some, but there’s no denying how many women need to die to get justice for sexual violence and how satisfying the closing frames are. Kind of like the maybe not needed but toally fist-pumping machine gun finale in Sinners. Ditto for Saltburn, which has more than a whiff of working class wish fulfilment/revenge to it. Plus, if you don’t find Barry Keoghan’s naked jig to “Murder on the Dancefloor” awesome in its giddiness you have no soul.
Once again tapping her fascination with class, gender, sexuality and power dynamics, Fennell turns Wuthering Heights into a moody toxic romance complemented by scheming staff and young women discovering the joys of BDSM. Most of us know the story but in short: The spirited (they’re always spirited in these kinds of stories) Catherine, the privileged daughter of a vicious man with a gambling addiction makes best friends with an urchin adopted by her father for reasons, who grow up to be the obsessive, nay addicted, off-on-off again lovers Cathy (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (sexy Frankenstein Elordi). Their non-starter of a romance is complicated by Cathy’s string-pulling tutor/lady-in-waiting Nelly (Hong Chau, amazing), and the arrival of textile magnate Edgar Linton (Star Trek: Discovery’s Klingon sleeper agent Shazad Latif) and his ward Isabella (Alison Oliver, the underrated The Order). Cathy marries Edgar because he’s rich, Heathcliff marries Isabella because he’s pissed, Nelly makes sure it happens, Cathy dies of sepsis. See? Toxic.
Suffice it to say there’s much more to the story than that. Fennell, who also wrote the script, begins Wuthering Heights with a public hanging and the mob mania it inspires – the crowd gleefully points out a stiffie – hinting that she’s going to lean into the grottier 19th century vibe of the book, and maybe its campier bits. She centres Cathy, as many modern literary theorists do, makes Heathcliff look like a petty, butt-hurt brute and gives Cathy more agency in her decision to marry Edgar because she wants a life of comfort despite her feelings for Heathcliff; she makes a choice. And yeah, Fennell is more overtly sexual than some other adaptations but no matter how hard Warner spins it, it’s sadly not that dirty.
Is it revisionist? Maybe. But it’s also a lot of fun, and is a masterwork of visual storytelling. The production and costume design by Suzie Davies (Conclave) and Jacqueline Durran (The Batman) draw vivid lines between Cathy’s life at the Heights and the one at Edgar’s home at Thrushcross Grange, the former draped in deep greys and dark corners, cold and decrepit. By comparison Grange is all gardens and flowers and colour, and both estates and, especially, the Yorkshire moors that separate them are exploited for maximum effect by DOP Linus Sandgren (First Man, La La Land, taking over for Greig Fraser Dune: Part Three) – be it mist or rain or a blood red sunset. It’s early but Oscar needs to remember this next year at this time.
If there’s a knock on Wuthering Heights, and it has its wobbly bits (it doesn’t need to be over two hours), it’s that Robbie never really rises above serviceable as Cathy, even with a script that allows her to be a bitch. Elordi is fine doing a dirtier (as in grime and, erm, dirt) version of Nate from Euphoria, blessed as he is with a physicality ideal for the role. Thankfully Chau and Oliver are on hand to really spice things up. In this version, Nelly is a fabulously shady puppetmaster whose machinations move the plot along as much as Cathy and Heathcliff’s “But we musn’t!” dramatics. Oliver makes Isabella a besotted, grossly manipulated wonder, and it transforms Isabella/Heathcliff and their whole clusterfuck into a brazenly watchable weirdo B plot. It’s an untapped rich vein, the film’s high point, and every scene Oliver’s in has an ambulance-chasing quality to it that just makes you want her back whenever Fennell focuses attention back on the Cathy/Heathcliff A plot. If Fennell really wants to freak out the purists she’ll make a sequel about Isabella. She’s already off book.