Wuthering Heights divides critics with Emerald Fennell

Wuthering Heights's 'lewd, exhausting sex scenes' that 'combine Barbie and BDSM' have left critics divided ahead of the movie's release on Friday. 

A selection of film buffs have branded Emerald Fennell's adaptation 'astonishingly bad' and stated author Emily Bronte would be 'rolling in her grave' if she were to see the film, while others praised the 'swoonily romantic' movie.

The eagerly anticipated movie, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, has been met with a slew of one and two-star reviews while the Daily Telegraph has stood out from the crowd with five stars. 

The Times's two-star takedown of the 'self-deflating' movie features an onslaught of fury aimed at Jacob's take on Heathcliff, who is 'plonked in front of the camera' while steamy scenes are branded; 'exhausting sex scenes that overstay their welcome'.

Margot's Cathy, meanwhile, is said to 'combine Barbie and BDSM [Bondage & Discipline, Submission & Dominance]', in a nod to her iconic role in 2023's Barbie movie, while the movie was also said to 'define the poor as sexual deviants'. 

The reaction has not been entirely negative however, with the BBC joining the Telegraph in offering impressive praise, as the former lauded the divisive movie for being 'resplendently lurid, oozy and wild'. 

Margot and Jacob play Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, the moody pair who give Romeo and Juliet a run for their money as literature's most star-crossed lovers. 

Since the movie was announced, Emerald has made it clear the film is not a loyal adaptation of the book - with the Daily Mail's Brian Viner stating: 'Fennell has pared back the story, either tinkering with characters and sub-plots or removing them altogether.'

Despite her candour over the changes, which have included accusations of white-washing the film by casting Jacob as the character who is said to have gypsy heritage, with dark hair and dark eyes, while, at 35, Margot is far older that Cathy.

Alongside a shocking one-star review, The Independent's Clarisse Loughrey states: 'Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s performances are almost pushed to the border of pantomime' and brands Heathcliff a 'wet-eyed, Mills & Boon mirage'. 

In another withering takedown of the movie, The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw stated: 'Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Bronte is an emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire that misuses Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi'. 

Alongside a shocking two-star rating, he went on: 'For Fennell, it looks like a luxurious pose of unserious abandon. It’s quasi-erotic, pseudo-romantic and then ersatz-sad, a club night of mock emotion.' 

The Times's Kevin Maher meanwhile mirrored The Guardian with a two star rating and a branding of Margot as a Bronte Barbie, in the 'vapid' film which 'fails to reflect the complexity of the greatest gothic novel in English literature'. 

WUTHERING HEIGHTS: Reviews 

THE GUARDIAN 

Rating:

Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Bronte is an emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire that misuses Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi but makes the most of Martin Clunes.

For Fennell, it looks like a luxurious pose of unserious abandon. It’s quasi-erotic, pseudo-romantic and then ersatz-sad, a club night of mock emotion. 

It’s all in a frantically, exhaustingly Baz Luhrmann-esque style and the movie begins to resemble a 136-minute video for the Charli XCX songs soundtrack.

THE TIMES 

Rating:

Emerald Fennell’s film fails to reflect the complexity of the greatest gothic novel in English literature — and, chuffing ’eck, the less said about Jacob Elordi the better

THE DAILY MAIL 

Rating:

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi have lashings of kinky sex but it's less Wuthering Heights more Fifty Shades of Grimm. 

Fennell is by no means alone in deciding to adapt a celebrated novel for the screen, then fiddling with the story as if the original wasn't quite up to snuff. Producer Sam Goldwyn famously insisted on a happy ending to the 1939 version starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. 

But that's a much more satisfying film than this handsome but ultimately empty exercise in style over substance, cinematography over soul.

INDEPENDENT 

Rating:

Margot Robbie and Jacob 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. 

 IRISH TIMES 

Rating:

It would have been a nice trick to pull off, because, much rubbished by those who haven’t seen it, “Wuthering Heights”, is, elsewhere, successful at nodding politely to the original text while snubbing its nose at slavish faithfulness. 

The wallowing in sexually suggestive egg yolk. The hilariously phallic architecture. Oliver chained to the fireplace. Better that than another politely reverent variation on Sunday-evening telly. 

EMPIRE

Rating:

This is the first time Emerald Fennell is not working from her own script, although a faithful retelling this certainly ain’t - unless there’s an earlier edition of Bronte’s novel which begins with a hanging man’s member ironically springing to life in front of a crowd of feral spectators

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH 

Rating:

Emerald Fennell’s brazenly unfaithful Emily Bronte adaptation takes Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi to trembling, transgressive depths.

Style over substance? Not at all – it’s more that Fennell understands that style can be substance when you do it right. 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.

BBC 

Rating:

Starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, Emerald Fennell's new take on the classic romance is far from faithful to the original book – but it is 'utterly absorbing' in its own right. 

Robbie's performance is magnificent, making Cathy wild and selfish but with a conscience, and an innocence beneath her sense of entitlement 

COLLIDER

Emily Bronte is absolutely rolling in her grave. It's a Gothic ghost story about revenge, incorporating themes of class and race, set on the wild moors of Yorkshire. Knowing all of this, going into Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights proves a jarring, vapid, and ultimately insulting experience. 

Empire's Beth Webb straddled the fence with a three-star review and notes: 'There is notably more plot to Brontë’s novel than in Fennell’s reimagining...

'While the film doesn’t need a denser narrative, it could benefit from feeling more grounded — especially when Cathy and Heathcliff fight and fornicate like teenagers, ricocheting between lust and loathing'. 

Irish Times' Donald Clarke joined in with three stars while noting the anticipation of aggressively lewd moments, which fall short in the actual telling. 

He writes: 'By the time we learned that Warner Bros was to render the title of Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” within quotation marks, the rumour mill was already awash with suggestions the director had ripped the source apart with a bloody, sexy relish that might have given even Ken Russell pause for thought...

'Remember the talk of an opening execution scene that ended with visible ejaculation and orgasming nuns? Inverted commas surely would not be enough. We’d need bold italics, multiple exclamation points and eggplant emojis. Right?..

'Not so much. We do indeed begin with debauchery at a public hanging, but the scene is carried off with more bawdy mischief than pornographic subversion. It’s closer to Carry on Heathcliff than The 120 Days of Sodom.'

Despite the sea of negativity, The Telegraph was more positive, with Robbie Collin pairing his five star rating with: 'Resplendently lurid, oozy and wild...

'The new film from the director of Saltburn and Promising Young Woman is fixated on its central illicit affair, as conducted by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, to the exclusion of almost all else. It’s an obsessive film about obsession, and hungrily embroils the viewer in its own mad compulsions.'

The BBC's Caryn James writes: 'Fennell's approach is an extravagant swirl: sexy, dramatic, melodramatic, occasionally comic and often swoonily romantic... 

'As Fennell surfaces the sexual desire Brontë could only hint at, she creates a very long tease. Cathy and Heathcliff throw hungry glances at each other...

'Each gets a masturbation scene. When he overhears the practical Cathy say "It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff" – one of the novel's famous lines – he runs away from Wuthering Heights before hearing her add how much she loves him.'

In September, Emerald herself spoke about the sex scenes in the book and how the novel 'cracked her open' when she read the tome as a teen. 

She said: 'I’ve been obsessed. I’ve been driven mad by this book. I know that if somebody else made it, I’d be furious. It’s very personal material for everyone. It’s very illicit. The way we relate to the characters is very private... 

'[It is] an act of extreme masochism to try and make a film of something that means this much to you. There’s an enormous amount of sado-masochism in this book. There’s a reason people were deeply shocked by it.'