Perched on the edge of the rugged Yorkshire moors that inspired Emily Brontë to write her masterpiece “Wuthering Heights”, the quaint village of Haworth has long been a place of literary pilgrimage.

Now the latest big-screen adaptation of her classic 1847 novel – starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi and with a Charli XCX soundtrack – is drawing a fresh influx of visitors.

It was here that Emily and her sisters, Charlotte and Anne, lived and wrote.

More than 150 years after the sisters’ deaths, “the world is still fascinated with their stories,” said Canadian retiree Nancy Marto, adding that being able to visit Haworth was “a dream come true”.

“I think the fact that there is a new version of ‘Wuthering Heights’... speaks to the power of these authors, to Emily, but also to her sisters,” she said.

Two weeks after the release of the film, picturesque Haworth in north-west England with its narrow, cobbled streets and small stone houses, is packed. [...]

Mr Johnnie Brigg, a local tour guide, has been inundated with requests in recent weeks.

“They want to come here and experience the Brontës, the moor, and find their own interpretation of Emily,” he said.

The film would attract a “whole new generation of people” who had not yet read the book but were “completely besotted” after seeing the film, he added.

The parsonage between the village and the moors where the Brontës lived with their clergyman father and brother, Branwell, is now a museum dedicated to their memory.

Emily’s sister Charlotte also wrote “Jane Eyre” here, another classic of English literature.

The museum’s Mia Ferullo, who has been giving talks on “Bronte-mania” for the past fortnight, said “so many people” were “picking up the book for the first time” as a result of the film.

Museum director Rebecca Yorke said 500 people of all ages and backgrounds visited on one Saturday.

Numbers like that were usually only seen in peak season such as during the August summer holidays, Ms Yorke said.

“Everyone is talking about Emily Brontë and ‘Wuthering Heights’.... It’s just extraordinary,” she added. 

Become a Brontë for the weekend in Haworth, West Yorkshire

Heathcliff Cottage – Haworth, West Yorkshire

Sleeps: Six

Price: Seven nights from £565

The aptly named Heathcliff Cottage is a traditional stone-built retreat set in the heart of Haworth, the village where the Brontë sisters resided.

Complete with subtle nods to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, including inspired artwork, it’s the perfect base for fans of the story. Beautiful interiors add depth and character, including exposed wood and stone, as well as luxurious colour schemes.

The Yorkshire Moors, where Wuthering Heights is set, are within walking distance of Heathcliff Cottage, and guests can also explore the independent shops of Haworth before popping into a local pub or café. There’s also the Brontë Parsonage Museum, which holds regular talks, exhibitions, and displays. (Daniel Smith)

We recently mentioned a blockbuster movie based on a classic Emily Brontë novel. Which inspires Jenny Wilson to admit Withering’ Heights.

“I always wondered,” says Jenny, “how much the Heights withered. Was it enough for them to become Lows instead of Heights?” (Lorne Jackson)

The original novel Wuthering Heights was published by Emily Brontë in 1847, but the story itself is set much earlier – beginning in 1801.

Heathcliff’s arrival at Wuthering Heights takes place in 1771, with the new film adaptation wrapping up events in 1784.

But sharp-eyed fans have pointed out that Belgium – referenced in the movie – wasn’t founded until 1830, decades after the timeline in which the story unfolds.

Taking on Reddit, one fan wrote: “In Wuthering Heights, Isabella, when talking to Cathy, boasts about dresses from France, Italy and… Belgium.

“This makes no sense as Belgium did not exist as a state until 1830, almost half a century after the events of the film take place.”

Despite the major blunder, the UK ranks Wuthering Heights among the top-grossing films of the year, with strong ticket sales behind it. (Henna Sharma)

Though a few of the tracks can feel similar to each other at times, Charli’s lyricism and modernized theme bring forth the need for feeling in an epic drama such as this film. Each song focuses on the tensions seen between the two characters, Catherine and Heathcliff, played by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.

While some of the repeated tempos and lyrics bring some tracks down, the album is still able to shine and makes the most sense when seeing the film, as it creates the world Fennell is attempting to give audiences.

The “Wuthering Heights” soundtrack is a triumphant pivot for Charli xcx, who is only just getting started in her work on films. Its gothic, modern-pop sound marks a new beginning in the singer’s undebated discography, and will push her to new heights no matter what she does next. (Diego Baez)

Bush explained, “When I first read Wuthering Heights I thought the story was so strong. This young girl in an era when the female role was so inferior and she was coming out with this passionate, heavy stuff. Great subject matter for a song. I loved writing it.”

It really is a remarkable performance, and not just because of the palpable emotion that Bush is able to imbue into the song. It’s also because Bush was able to channel those emotions in just a single go: Bush did one take of the song, and that was it. The recording for the song was mostly done in a single night, including taping the guitar solo and mixing the final track. It’s a remarkable feat of efficiency, even 35 years later. “There was no compiling,” engineer Kelly said. “We started the mix at around midnight and Kate was there the whole time, encouraging us… We got on with the job and finished at about five or six that morning.” (Tyler Golsen)

And regardless of what you made of Emerald Fennell’s controversial take on Wuthering Heights, the news that another Brontë sister classic is coming to our screens is surely an exciting one.

According to reports, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is being adapted for TV, with Aimee Lou Wood set to star in the title role. And as someone who loved her warm and witty performance in Film Club (which was also her writing debut), I couldn’t be more thrilled. We know from her previous characters that she can be both bold and demanding, while still tender and gentle. Whether she’s portraying an outspoken schoolgirl in Sex Education or a free-spirited hotel guest in The White Lotus, she’s able to bring so much expression and intensity to her roles that she feels more than well-equipped to play such a steely heroine. [...]

Regardless, I can’t wait to see Wood shine in such a classic role, one I have no doubt she’ll really make her own. (Amy Beecham)

A few days after Emerald Fennell’s film adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” came out, a friend sent me an Onion headline about a bookseller frantically pulling classics off the shelf before Fennell enters the store. No beloved novel could be safe from the dangers of the director introducing anachronistic costumes, original songs by Charli XCX, selectively color-blind casting, and explicit B.D.S.M. scenes for its Byronic hero.

In the case of “Wuthering Heights,” though, there was no further need to worry. The books had already flown off the shelves. In mid-February, Publishers Weekly reported that a hundred thousand copies of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel had sold in the first two months of this year, compared with a hundred and eighty thousand total last year, attributing the increase to book clubs and influencers of all stripes embracing it. People I spoke to who’d never read it before confessed their omission as a sin tantamount to not yet having watched “Heated Rivalry.” My own confession was that I’d never much liked “Wuthering Heights.” The nihilistic attachment between its doomed lovers, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, was too stormy and unruly for my tastes. But in rereading it for my own Substack book club, in advance of the release of Fennell’s film, I came to respect both its discipline and its perversity, though not in the way Fennell’s movie might make you think.

In a certain light, “Wuthering Heights” is a respectable, conservative tale. (Hear me out.) At the beginning of the novel, we meet the cantankerous middle-aged Heathcliff and his two wards, Hareton Earnshaw and Catherine Heathcliff. The relationships eventually become clear: Hareton is the son of Hindley Earnshaw, Heathcliff’s chief childhood tormentor (and the original Cathy Earnshaw’s brother); Catherine is Cathy’s daughter and the young widow of Heathcliff’s son. The novel closes with the news that Hareton and Catherine will marry, united by a bond of true affection. Thus, the Earnshaw line survives and thrives, and the social order remains much the same at the end as it ever was.

But, to get there, Brontë enlists some of the ubiquitous tropes of her time—the foundling hero, for example—only to ruthlessly unravel them. The orphan is a Chekhov’s gun of Victorian fiction: if there’s an unattached child, expect an eventual reunion with a long-lost relative, or a sudden serendipitous inheritance that enfolds the orphan into a family line. Both of those things happen in “Jane Eyre,” also published in 1847, by Emily’s sister Charlotte Brontë. Jane stumbles upon three kind people who turn out to be her cousins, and into a fortuitous bequest of twenty thousand pounds from their shared late uncle. Emily Brontë resists such a dénouement for Heathcliff. He is introduced when Mr. Earnshaw, Cathy’s father, deposits him unceremoniously in front of his wife and his two children at Wuthering Heights, having picked the boy up off the streets of Liverpool and bundled him into his coat: “a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil.” (“It,” to be clear, refers to Heathcliff.) His origins are unknown, and they stay that way. There’s no explanation for his heritage, no clarity as to the nature of his darkness. As a young adult, he disappears after Cathy declares her intention to marry Edgar Linton, the son of their wealthy neighbors at Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff comes back three years later a gentleman, in affect and appearance if not at heart. But that time away and the source of his changed fortune also remain a mystery.

There’s no ending for Heathcliff that reconciles him to the cruelty shown to him by Hindley Earnshaw, who hates him from the moment that his father brings him home. (Some fault lies with Mr. Earnshaw, who had favored Heathcliff when the children were growing up but failed to legitimatize him within the family.) There’s no one left in the novel’s closing chapters to apologize to Heathcliff for the abuse that he suffered—Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley, Cathy, and Edgar are all dead—nor does he apologize to those he brutalizes in turn: his wife Isabella, whom he marries to spite her brother, Edgar, and their poor, fretful son, Linton, whom he simply abhors on principle. There’s no language for him to fully acknowledge or profit from the genuine love that his ward, Hindley’s son, Hareton, feels for him. The happiest state Heathcliff can achieve is being haunted by the ghost of Cathy, and when, at the end of the novel, he recognizes her trademark Earnshaw eyes in the two young people of his household (not surprisingly, given that they are her daughter and her nephew), the best he can do is send them out of the room, as they cause him “pain, amounting to agony.”

If Victorian fiction ordinarily treats the orphan as an engine of social mobility, whose path involves finding his place in the world, “Wuthering Heights” asserts that any such progress is temporary. At the end, Heathcliff stands alone and “unredeemed,” as Charlotte Brontë wrote of him in 1850. He destroys all his relationships, such that he can’t think of how to write his will and bequeath all the property he’s spent his life vengefully acquiring. Emily Brontë, instead, writes him out of it altogether. He has nothing to show for all of his actions. His sole biological heir predeceases him, and, once he has gone, the two homes in question, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, will pass to Hareton and young Catherine, who continue the Earnshaw family lineage. By the standards of the Victorian novel, Heathcliff, who leaves neither descendants nor legacy behind him, is a dead end.

In this way, Brontë demonstrates that not all trauma has a resolution, that belonging is a gift that not even the most powerful of novelists can readily bestow. She does not tame, contain, or tidy Heathcliff’s wild energy. It shapes his outlook even in death. When Nelly, the Earnshaw family’s longtime servant, finds his body, his eyes are wide open, with a stare both “keen and fierce.” She says, “I tried to close his eyes: to extinguish, if possible, that frightful, life-like gaze of exultation, before any one else beheld it. They would not shut.” His tombstone reminds us one last time of how little we know him. “As he had no surname, and we could not tell his age,” Nelly says, “we were obliged to content ourselves with the single word, ‘Heathcliff.’ ”

Whenever a fuss arises over the adaptation of a literary text to screen, I think of what James M. Cain told an interviewer for The Paris Review who asked him what he thought of the film that Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler made of his novel “Double Indemnity.” Their version made significant changes to the plot. Cain replied that he didn’t like movies. “I don’t go,” he said. “People tell me, don’t you care what they’ve done to your book? I tell them, they haven’t done anything to my book. It’s right there on the shelf.”

“Double Indemnity” ’s plot was reworked, in part, to sanitize the story for screen audiences. The Hays Code, a precursor to the motion-picture rating system that gave Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” an R for its depictions of violence, sex, and death, required that Hollywood movies eschew profanity, obscenity, and other indicators of low morals, and also stipulated that “the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin.” Among other potential issues, in Cain’s ending, the lovers who commit the insurance fraud at the center of the story escape the country, with plans for a double suicide. The film closes, instead, with a confession scene.

It’s hard these days to imagine a situation in which, through a self-imposed agreement among all the major studios, movies and television series would need to be tamer than their source material specifically so as not to corrupt the audience. If anything, in our visual culture, we tend to expect—indeed, anticipate—the opposite. But the impulse behind the Hays Code aligns with a truism of nineteenth-century fiction that its successful writers well knew: that characters who transgress within the pages of a novel could not be allowed to prosper without punishment. It doesn’t take a literary scholar to notice, for example, that adulterous women in nineteenth-century novels—English, French, Russian—meet tragic ends, no matter how sympathetically or charismatically their creators portray them. Even the men must square their accounts. In “Jane Eyre,” Mr. Rochester, Jane’s employer at Thornfield Hall, where she goes to work as a governess, fails in his initial attempt to marry her when the existence of his first wife, Bertha, locked up in the attic, is revealed. He gets Jane in the end, but only after being maimed and partially blinded in a fire set by Bertha, in which she perishes. It’s not exactly an eye for an eye, but it reflects the belief that actions have moral consequences.

“Wuthering Heights” abides by that convention. Heathcliff and Cathy both must suffer and die, lest readers make the mistake of believing it’s acceptable to profess undying love for your childhood companion while you’re seven months pregnant and married to another man (as Cathy does) or to try to kill your wife’s dog (as Heathcliff does), to name but two of their many offenses. The placid romance of Hareton and young Catherine leaves us, superficially, in a peaceful, even hopeful place.

But it is Heathcliff’s passionate declarations and shocking acts that stay in the mind and color our lasting impression of “Wuthering Heights” as strange and uncontainable. They will outlive the blood-red, entertaining raunch of Fennell’s movie, too, in spite of the recency bias that kicks in when we’re confronted with contemporary interpretations of classics. It’s humbling to admit that an isolated nineteenth-century Yorkshirewoman, of whom her sister wrote that “she had scarcely more practical knowledge of the peasantry amongst whom she lived, than a nun has of the country people who sometimes pass her convent gates,” could possibly harbor thoughts as wild or knowing or kinky as we do now. But Brontë’s novel easily checks the first and third of those R-rated boxes. (As for the second, we can make our own assumptions.)

In Fennell’s previous film, “Saltburn,” she cemented her reputation as a provocateur with a sequence in which the main character strips down and humps his former friend’s grave. I see that scene and counter it with this one from Brontë: seventeen years after Cathy’s death, as her husband, Edgar, is being laid to rest beside her, Heathcliff persuades the sexton to open up Cathy’s grave, ascertains that she has not yet begun to decompose (“I saw her face again—it is hers yet . . . but he said it would change, if the air blew on it”), and then bribes the sexton to remove a side from each of their coffins once he is buried there, too, so that they can commingle for eternity. It’s a deliciously subversive image, and diabolically timeless. (Radhika Jones)

When Emily Brontë published “Wuthering Heights,” in 1847, critics were baffled, alarmed, and mostly unimpressed. James Lorimer, writing in the North British Review, promised that the novel would “never be generally read.” Nearly two centuries later, it’s regarded as one of the great works of English literature. In a live taping of Critics at Large at the 92nd Street Y, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the staying power of the original text and the countless adaptations it’s inspired, from the 1939 film featuring Laurence Olivier to Andrea Arnold’s 2011 version. The most recent attempt comes from the director Emerald Fennell, whose new “Wuthering Heights,” starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, reads as a romantic fever dream. The movie has been polarizing in part for the way it excises some of the weirder and wilder aspects of its source material. But what’s discarded—or emphasized—can also be revealing. “It’s an audacious proposition to adapt a great novel . . . I don’t think it needs to be faithful, necessarily,” Fry says. “The adaptation itself becomes a portrait of the time in which it’s made.”

I am sure you have heard the discourse surrounding Emerald Fennell’s now infamous, “Wuthering Heights”: ‘As a fan of the novel I could never enjoy this film,’ ‘This film is a disgrace to Emily Brontë,’ and so on. Dr Claire O’Callaghan, literary scholar and Senior Lecturer in English at Loughborough University, is one of the most qualified people to address these concerns. Claire specialises in the Brontës, being Editor-In-Chief of the official journal of the Brontë Society and even publishing an extensive biography of Emily Brontë herself, Emily Brontë Reappraised. It is safe to say that Dr O’Callaghan is far more than simply a fan of the novel, she is an expert, and here is what she had to say.

Upon viewing the film immediately on the Friday morning of its release, Dr O’Callaghan detailed her initial reaction, ‘I just couldn’t stop laughing’, stating that her overall opinion of the film was that it was extremely entertaining and refreshing in comparison to the myriads of bad adaptations of the novel that exist. Talking of the film’s striking opening sequence, O’Callaghan stated that ‘it was just so tongue in cheek, setting the tone for the whole film’ being a ‘visual feast for the eyes’ that she was still processing when I came to speak to her the following Wednesday after the films release.

One of the most divisive elements surrounding Fennell’s adaptation is the issue of casting. Dr O’Callaghan stated, ‘I have read and written about a million spin offs of ‘Wuthering Heights’, I don’t take them in this very pure way that people seem to, particularly with the Brontës…people get very protective over it and their Cathy and Heathcliff is the only Cathy and Heathcliff…I went in with a really open mind.’ Despite this open mindedness, on the issues of race surrounding the casting of Heathcliff, Claire stated that she can definitely see why people are upset, ‘In the book he is described by and large ambiguously but as a person of colour, that is what the commonality is between the descriptions of him.’ Claire suggested that the public reaction to the casting of Heathcliff is reflective of the time in which we are living and she agrees that there have not been enough diverse representations of Heathcliff on screen.

On the widely shared viewpoint that Fennell’s film disgraces Emily Brontë herself, Claire stated that she believes that making that comment in and of itself is slightly disrespectful taking Emily’s name in vain due to one’s own dislike of a film adaptation. O’Callaghan, also being a scholar of the Victorians more broadly, suggested that one of the reasons for people’s strong reactions towards the adaptation is people’s views of the Victorian era as strictly puritan even though elements like what is included in Fennell’s adaptation were encoded within the original work.

On the more provocative elements of the film, Claire stated that the fish scene was the only thing that made her feel sick, all the rest between Cathy and Heathcliff got repetitive, however getting to listen to the Charlie XCX soundtrack overlayed in the background made it all worth it. To conclude on her opinions surrounding the strong reactions to this adaptation, Claire stated, ‘It’s a kind of echo…of how horrified the Victorians were about this book…there’s a complete correlation between what we are seeing now and what we were seeing then and that’s what is fascinating.’

Another topic that fans of the novel have been divided by is the representation and different interpretation of such beloved characters. Claire remarked on Isabella’s characterisation, ‘Isabella was interesting…I have got some research that’s not published…on representations of Isabella on screen…she has always been presented as this naïve character…Fennell does this…’ however she also stated that she ‘kind of liked the fact that Fennell gave agency to Isabella…it was really different…I was left a bit like, I’m not sure what to think here’. On the character of Cathy, Claire approved of Margot Robbie’s performance stating that ‘she really brought out the kind of brat like Cathy.’ The main issue that O’Callaghan shared surrounding the film was to do with the characterisation of Heathcliff, ‘The only thing I didn’t like about this film is that we are told in the book that Heathcliff is a man who will love and hate in equal measure, his emotional engine is grief, misery and sorrow but I felt that in the film he was a bit more of a romantic…that’s less interesting than something a bit more emotionally complex’. Claire also stated that so many adaptations cut off the second part of the book as well as moving around and condensing characters, ‘I think it’s really hard to adapt a complex, layered book like ‘Wuthering Heights’, it moves about in time… it’s hard to do that.’ She went on to suggest that ‘Wuthering Heights’ is full of ‘competing plotlines and ambiguity … with screen, adaptation can’t deal with ambiguity, it has to disambiguate,’ this being the reason for many of Fennell’s choices to condense elements of the novel.

Overall, Dr Claire O’Callaghan shared a viewpoint that I myself am inclined to agree with, ‘If you’re going to do an adaptation…you can’t just keep doing the same thing…this is hopefully opening up a whole new world of readers to that book…take it with a pinch of salt and just enjoy the madness for a couple of hours.’ (Malise Johnson)

But Emily has had historical payback after those disapproving reviews. “Wuthering Heights” stays reliably in print, thanks to people like me, who teach it, and thanks to the film makers, who periodically boost it lucratively into the headlines.

The new film beckons. But I hope that moviegoers will turn again to the book: a real Gothic shocker, which entertains while inviting us to ponder the dangerous and wonderful strength of human feeling, to consider the possibility that individual human identity is permeable, and that we may really be able to live in each other’s hearts and minds – perhaps forever. (Rosemary Haskell)

As a great and eternal admirer of the Brontë sisters, with the novel “Wuthering Heights” in my heart, I went to the cinema to watch the 2026 film “Wuthering Heights” expecting nothing other than “an Emerald Fennell”: a film by the director of “Promising Young Woman” and “Saltburn,” a mad, transgressive, decidedly pop film. I entered the theater expecting crazy costumes and a more exciting-than-ever Jacob Elordi. I entered the theater expecting a very sad love story, but also slightly ironic and mischievous. I entered the theater expecting to laugh and mock and not think for a couple of hours. The result is that I left the theater satisfied to have rediscovered the characters of one of my adolescent novels, to have visualized them more beautiful than I had imagined them, to have amusingly confirmed my belief that Jacob Elordi is as tall as he is, let’s say, still learning; I left the theater with beautiful shots and set designs in my eyes and in my head several thoughts about the general difficulty of living love fully. I left that cinema having seen a film that entertained me, without killing a single neuron.

A film, in short, a “phenomenon” in the best sense of the word: saturated colors, iconic costumes, quotable, parodyable, and ultimately shareable by women and men who can equally ask themselves: “I wonder if they will manage to love each other (I wonder if we will manage to love each other?).” (Maria Luisa Fasano)

Overall, this movie is well worth watching. Local Wimbledon resident Ada Onur comments that: "This movie skilfully conveyed the ambiguous darkness of Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' through a new and modern angle, making it fast-paced and gripping. Despite the unexpected nature of certain scenes, I enjoyed the movie immensely!" (Marisa Shand)

Don’t get me wrong, Fennell’s cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking. But an abundance of style can only compensate so much for what is an utter dearth of substance. 

Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” uses the guise of interpretation as an excuse to circumvent grappling with the actual issues of what is otherwise one of the most emotionally fraught and bleak stories ever written. Vaguely referencing a couple of plot points and throwing in some direct quotes isn’t enough to capture the colliding forces of class, race, gender, recurrence, civilization and nature at the core of the novel. 

The only thing tragic about this story is that it takes 136 minutes to realize there isn’t one. (Isabella Garcia)

“Wuthering Heights” is neither a good adaptation nor a good film. It is a confusing, erratic and gratuitously sex-filled disaster that does no justice to Brontë’s masterpiece. However, if you want a dumb movie to watch with friends, Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” just might be for you. (Augusta Cooper)

The aesthetics and visual symbolism become increasingly absurd as the film progresses — in one scene, comically high stacks of empty green liquor bottles indicate the depths of Mr. Earnshaw’s alcoholism. Choices like these emphasize the importance of hedonism and over-indulgence in Fennell’s characters. I’ve seen criticism that her characters, especially Heathcliff and Catherine, are lacking in depth, and while I think this is fair, I worry it misses the rather blunt thesis Fennell presents about humanity as a whole: every person is essentially amoral and even cruel in the pursuit of pleasure. To this end, her characters do not require individuality or even unique motivations, since it is taken for granted that they are all driven by the universal primal instincts. 

This is one of the reasons I struggle to take the film’s romance seriously, and I almost wonder whether, through no intention of the director's, it could subvert the romance genre entirely. Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship perfectly demonstrates the kind of emotionally hollow but sexually driven and possessive ‘romance’ that is so archetypal at the moment. In this way, the film seems to agree more with the work of the more moralistic Brontë sister, Charlotte (I say that as someone who prefers “Jane Eyre”) than the nuanced character examinations of Emily’s novel.   

There are, however, two scenes that challenge this reading. In childhood, Heathcliff lies beside Catherine as she pretends to sleep, and he swears that he will always love her. Later, Heathcliff lies over a dead Catherine and begs her not to leave him, to ‘haunt’ him even in death (this does come from the book). These instances of tenderness might imply that the real tragedy of their relationship is that, beyond pleasure-driven and destructive exchanges, there was an unselfish love that was never fully realized. (Virginia Frau)

The movie left me with a heavy heart and intense sadness. It broke my heart that their love story was doomed from the start.

If you’re in the mood for a devastating love story with hints of disturbing gothic literature, this is still worth a watch or two. Just know it has some weird scenes littered throughout. (Yosselyn Garcia Rodas)

I have so many conflicting feelings about “Wuthering Heights” that it’s hard to know whether I even liked it or not. Visually dazzling, emotionally inert. Maximalist production, minimalist writing. Prurient and chaste. Decadent, but hollow. Messy and mannered. I know I was entertained, but I’m not sure it’s actually a good movie or says anything about romance, obsessive love, or the human condition.

The film is like a deceptively shallow pool. You’ll break your neck trying to dive in because the water looks refreshing and sure seems deep from far away. But maybe you’ll die with a smile. (Jared Rasic)

OAKBERRY x “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”

A collaboration inspired by romance and obsession.

A love you can taste 

Haunt Me limited edition bowl

Oakberry açaí: Granola; Choc Hazelnut
Spread; Goji Berries; Cacao Nibs; Blueberries

This is what happens when you turn obsession into flavour 🖤 Heathcliff’s bowl is dark, intense, and impossible to forget.

Kiss Me limited edition bowl

Oakberry açaí; Chia Pudding; Granola; Honey; Double Strawberries.  Cathy's bowl is soft, indulgent, and impossible to forget

And now, the podcast: 

KIIS Presents iHeartLIVE with Margot Robbie & Jacob Elordi for “Wuthering Heights” 

February 13, 2026 • 21 mins

A first of its kind, exclusive, intimate fan event hosted by Smallzy celebrating the Aussie exports turned Hollywood superstars & their highly anticipated new movie.

The film abandons literary fidelity to become something entirely new. The quotation marks do their job – this isn’t Brontë’s story – and Fennell’s central point lands with full force, women remain trapped by the structures men built.

“Wuthering Heights” is messy, gorgeous, infuriating and unforgettable. Though it fails as an adaptation to honor the original story’s vision, the film traps viewers in its surprising beauty and makes the cost of desire impossible to ignore. (Alexis Coffee)

Overall, the movie is more of a lust story than a love story. The film received so much hype and popularity before its release because it features two attractive actors in the lead roles, reflecting marketing that prioritizes star power and physical appeal over narrative depth. Today’s audience is enticed and captured by films that feature attractive and famous actors, whether or not the movie itself is good.  Wuthering Heights is proof that beautiful people brooding in dramatic lighting still need something to do.

Apparently, love may be eternal, but plot development is optional. (Lucia Rose and Niya Desai)

I do applaud the ability of “Wuthering Heights” to take us beyond the bounds of character Nelly Dean’s narration and place the viewer in the estate itself. And we wardrobe admirers were able to get a good look at Jacqueline Durran’s handiwork, the saving grace of the entire production.

I imagine that when Brontë conceptualized her masterpiece, Fennell’s interpretation was not at all what she had in mind. However, I encourage you to forget that the movie is an adaptation and give in to the fantastical world of beauty dressed by Durran and brought to life by Robbie and Elordi. There is something for everyone to admire. (Grace Schuringa)

Overall, “Wuthering Heights” is an entertaining watch that maintains its entertainment value.  This movie has remained divisive among audiences, but if you’re someone who enjoys melodrama and period romances, this movie could be for you. (Sage Mullins)

The result is a directionless experience that leads only toward confusion and irritation for its viewers, with the exception of those who are satisfied with well-composed images of beautiful people getting touchy amid beautiful backdrops. Stripped of most of its social context, these glamorous scenes of yearning and suffering for forbidden love are little more than moving pictures.

There is aural beauty in this film. The original soundtrack album provided by Charli XCX is truly atmospheric, and conveys most of what little vision and intention the film possesses. It is the most original aspect of the film, but it also can’t make up for the overwhelming lack of substance or direction that permeates the rest of “Wuthering Heights.”

The visuals fall into the same sort of purgatory. The costumes are aesthetically appealing, and it is no detriment per se that they obviously stray away from period-accurate fashion. Yet despite their intentionally evocative bodice-ripper romance novel aesthetic, every one of Earnshaw’s decadent dresses may as well be generated by artificial intelligence in its attempt to simulate intention that just isn’t there. 

The film’s leaning into physical passion is not the source of its lackluster storytelling either. It could have been ripe with meaning, as explicit imagery avails itself to a large array of critical commentary that could bear fruit. (Julie Huang)

When you watch Wuthering Heights, are you going to get a movie that makes you feel good about love? About the realities of the class war? About Emerald Fennell as someone you want to have a beer with? No, probably. But you will leave with a new appreciation for how gnarly and revolting Wuthering Heights is as a text — and for the price of a dozen eggs. (Caroline Colvin)

Essentially, the film lacks detail and purpose. A thrilling, gothic story is canned in favor of a cowering, sexually inept, “modern” retelling. Fennell could have made a freaky “Wuthering Heights” if she so pleased, and also have been semi-true to the novel at the same time. Or, she could have made an entirely different movie, which she clearly intended to do anyways.

Instead, the movie relies on shock value and odd euphemisms to deliver the macabre “twist” on the source material. It is crude, but passionless. They could maybe get away with that if it wasn’t being marketed as “the greatest love story of all time.” 

While watching, my main thought was: how is this adaptation so much, yet too little at the same time? How is this film aiming for ultra freaked-out and still landing upon clunky and juvenile? Why did this cost $80 million dollars to make?

I’ll level with you — I was thinking the above thoughts while silently crying in my seat. So, it accomplished something. 

It’s not a true adaptation, and it’s not even a good half-adaptation. This may be a film I only recommend to select groups of people: the hate viewers, the Elordi and Robbie fans and the overly emotional. (Ava Brescia)

The “Wuthering Heights” soundtrack album is a perfect example of what it means for the standards of creation to be sky high, as they currently are for Charli xcx. It certainly justifies this expectation — just listen to “House featuring John Cale,” — but it also represents the pitfalls of catering to a wide variety of demands, with unique sounds suffering from an ensemble average of tastes that push them into sameness. (Alessandro M. M. Drake)

Charli XCX has done it again. Though “Wuthering Heights” is a complete diversion from 2024’s “Brat,” its full string arrangements, miserably romantic imagery and cinematic production makes the album not just a collection of songs, but an immersive experience that will make you want to run dramatically through the English moors. (Julia Vetsch)

“Wuthering Heights” is a satisfying listen as well as a canny solution to the problem of how to follow up a breakthrough record. (Mark Richardson)