"Wuthering Heights"

The internet essentially imploded the second the casting sheet for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights leaked. You saw the tweets; I saw the tweets. The collective outcry that Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi were "too beautiful," "too polished," or "too Australian" to play the dirt-streaked, soul-crushing inhabitants of Yorkshire’s most miserable hill was deafening. It felt like the ultimate Gen Z-ification of the Brontë sisters—a Saltburn (2023) coat of paint slapped onto a literary titan. But after sitting through 136 minutes of howling winds and emotional wreckage, I realized that Fennell wasn't trying to make a BBC-certified museum piece. She made a movie about how being hot and toxic is a literal death sentence.

I watched this at a Tuesday matinee where the only other person in the theater was an elderly woman who loudly shushed me when I adjusted my puffer jacket, which felt incredibly appropriate for a film about people who are perpetually annoyed by each other's existence.

The Aesthetic of Obsession

Let’s get the "pretty" problem out of the way: Margot Robbie’s Cathy isn’t a Victorian porcelain doll. She’s a frantic, jagged edge of a woman. Robbie plays her with a manic energy that reminds me why she’s the most bankable star of our current era; she’s not afraid to look genuinely unhinged. And Jacob Elordi? If you thought he was a menace in Euphoria, his Heathcliff is basically a black hole in a designer greatcoat. He doesn’t just walk into a room; he haunts it before he’s even entered.

The cinematography by Linus Sandgren (La La Land, No Time to Die) ditches the grey, muted palette we usually see in Brontë adaptations. Instead, the moors look lush, vibrant, and dangerously tactile. It’s an interesting pivot for contemporary cinema—moving away from the "gritty realism" of the 2010s toward something more heightened and operatic. The 18th-century setting feels less like a history lesson and more like a high-fashion fever dream, which is exactly the kind of maximalist swing we’ve come to expect from LuckyChap Entertainment.

A Masterclass in Supporting Spite

While the central duo gets the billboards, the secret weapon here is Hong Chau as Nelly. In this version, Nelly isn't just a passive narrator; she’s the weary witness to a generational car crash. Chau brings a dry, almost modern cynicism to the role that grounds the more melodramatic flourishes. When she looks at the camera (or just off-pixel), she’s effectively all of us wondering why these people don’t just go to therapy.

Alison Oliver also deserves a massive shout-out for her portrayal of Isabella. After her breakout in Conversations with Friends, she’s carved out a niche for playing characters who get emotionally pulverized, and here she makes Isabella’s descent from a naive socialite to a broken shell feel genuinely tragic. Shazad Latif plays Edgar Linton as the ultimate "nice guy" who is fundamentally ill-equipped for the hurricane that is the Earnshaw family. The chemistry—or rather, the intentional lack thereof—between Latif and Robbie makes the marriage feel like a slow-motion claustrophobic nightmare.

Stuff You Didn't Notice

The Saltburn Connection: This is the third time Emerald Fennell and Margot Robbie have worked together (after Promising Young Woman and Barbie), and the shorthand shows. The film feels like a culmination of their shared interest in subverting feminine archetypes. Weathering the Storm: Apparently, the production refused to use rain machines for the climax. They waited for actual Yorkshire storms to hit, which led to Jacob Elordi reportedly catching a brutal flu that shut down filming for a week. He looks genuinely feverish in the final act because he probably was. The Score: Anthony B. Willis uses a lot of discordant strings that feel more like a horror movie than a romance. It’s a deliberate choice that mirrors the "Come Undone" tagline—this isn't a "love conquers all" story; it's a "love destroys everything" story. The Casting Backlash: Fennell actually addressed the controversy in a pre-release interview, claiming she wanted actors who looked like "idols" to emphasize how much the characters worshiped their own reflections in each other.

Ultimately, this version of Wuthering Heights works because it understands that the source material isn't a romance—it’s a ghost story about two terrible people who happen to be soulmates. Fennell leans into the "contemporary gothic" vibe, making it feel relevant to an audience raised on social media posturing and "dark academia" aesthetics. It’s loud, it’s gorgeous, and it’s deeply uncomfortable. Whether you’re a Brontë purist or just here for the Elordi smolder, it’s impossible to look away.

It's the kind of film that makes you want to go home, lock your doors, and be very glad you aren't a 18th-century landowner with an obsessive streak. It doesn't quite reach "instant classic" status because some of the pacing in the second half feels a bit rushed—likely a casualty of the streaming-friendly 136-minute runtime—but as a piece of bold, high-budget filmmaking, it’s a total win. Go see it on the biggest screen possible, if only to see the Yorkshire fog look that expensive.