Emerald Fennell’s recent cinematic venture, an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights, has hit screens with a bang, immediately igniting a firestorm of debate. It’s shaping up to be a strong contender for the most divisive film of the year, having already fractured opinions among critics, audiences, and even within the cultural commentary sphere. The film’s bold, and some might say, “bodice-ripping” approach, along with its departures from Brontë’s original text, its casting choices, and what some have described as “pantomime-esque” performances from its lead actors, have all contributed to this widespread disagreement.
However, the most significant schism caused by Fennell’s interpretation of Wuthering Heights is occurring within the global community of devoted Brontë enthusiasts. For many of these superfans, the film is so far removed from their beloved novel that they refuse to even engage with it.
A Tempestuous Reception Online
Ever since the film’s suggestive first trailer debuted in September, literary aficionados have been flocking to online forums and social media platforms, particularly TikTok, to voice their thoughts. While a segment of these fans expressed an openness to Fennell’s hyper-sexualised take on the story, a substantial group, including prominent BookTok influencer Kylee Smith, have urged for a complete rebranding.
Smith, a 30-year-old creative based in Ohio and a long-time admirer of Wuthering Heights since her teenage years, believes the film’s title is at the heart of the controversy. “I think this conversation wouldn’t be happening if she just called the movie something else,” she stated. “I would probably see a movie that had Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in beautiful outfits on the moors.”
Casting Controversies and Missed Opportunities
For Smith and many other dedicated fans, the casting of Margot Robbie, 35, as the tempestuous Cathy and Jacob Elordi, 28, as the brooding Heathcliff has proven to be a major sticking point. This frustration is particularly acute concerning Heathcliff’s ethnicity. In Emily Brontë’s novel, Heathcliff is described as a “dark-skinned” foundling, a detail that many feel has been overlooked or deliberately ignored in Fennell’s adaptation.
Eliza Goodpasture, an art historian and Brontë enthusiast who is currently preparing a new edition of Wuthering Heights, expressed her disappointment at the lack of any discussion around race within the film’s narrative. “Him being described as not white in the book is so unusual in Victorian literature,” she commented. “The total lack of engagement with that is definitely a missed opportunity to do something interesting and more meaningful. Similarly, Cathy is supposed to be a teenager so it was an interesting choice to cast someone who is so much older. It felt just weird.”
Character Reinterpretations Spark Outrage
Beyond the casting of the central figures, Fennell’s alterations to other characters have also ignited significant debate among fans. The decision to omit Cathy’s antagonistic brother, Hindley Earnshaw, from the narrative has been a point of contention. Furthermore, the portrayal of Isabella Linton, a character who endures significant brutality in the novel, has been reinterpreted as a submissive figure to Heathcliff, even depicted wearing a collar.
Emie Grimwood, another TikTok influencer and avid Brontë fan, voiced her strong reservations about these changes. “Isabella is a powerful character in the book – she escapes her abusive relationship with Heathcliff and moves to London to raise her son,” Grimwood explained. “In the film, she’s written as this submissive. It feels like Emerald Fennell took a domestic abuse victim and turned it into a BDSM dynamic. I don’t think that was appreciated at all by people who loved Isabella in the books.”
Grimwood continued, lamenting the lost potential: “She had potential to make Isabella this incredible character [by the standards] of that time, and an empowerment figure of this time. But she didn’t. That was quite disappointing.” Kylee Smith echoed this sentiment, stating, “I think the way that Isabella is treated as a consenting enthusiastic participant in her abuse and then framing that abuse as kink is a really poor choice. It’s upsetting.”
Defending Artistic Licence vs. Literary Fidelity
Emerald Fennell has defended her directorial choices regarding Isabella and Heathcliff’s relationship, suggesting that the original text’s depiction was “so shocking to people” at the time of its publication. In response to a scene where Isabella is shown chained at Heathcliff’s feet, Fennell told Entertainment Weekly, “I visually added some things to that scene, but it is almost all Brontë.”
However, many fans remain unconvinced, believing that Emily Brontë would not have approved of what they perceive as a “bastardisation” of her 179-year-old novel. “Politely, I don’t think she would have liked it,” Smith asserted. “She would have hated having the title attached to it. It flattens Heathcliff and Cathy’s relationship into a spectacle of two toxic people who hurt themselves and all the people around them. There’s more to the meat of Wuthering Heights than just that.”
Goodpasture further elaborated on the thematic discrepancies. “A lot of the major themes of the book are about death, grief and loss, and that was central to Emily Brontë’s life – she lost her mother and two of her sisters. That wasn’t very present in the film because it was so focused on the romance,” she observed. “There wasn’t that sense of grief and gothic haunting and I think Emily would have missed that.”
Despite these criticisms, Goodpasture acknowledged that Brontë might have appreciated some of Fennell’s more “radical” directorial decisions, given that her own novel was also highly controversial and divisive upon its release. “When her book was published, it also made a huge stir and was incredibly divisive. I would love to hear her take.”
Grimwood speculated that Brontë might have at least watched the film, appreciating its aesthetic qualities and interpretation. “She would have appreciated the visual beauty of it and the interpretation of it,” Grimwood suggested. “But, like a lot of us, she probably would have hated the fact that it claimed to be Wuthering Heights.”
