It’s been a month since Wuthering Heights was released in cinemas and the Cathy/Heathcliff fever is still burning. But if Emerald Fennel’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel deviated too far from the original story for your taste, you’re likely to find more to love about Essie Fox’s recent literary reimagining, Catherine.

Shifting the perspective from the original book’s narrators – outsider Mr Lockwood and insider Nelly Dean – to that of Catherine Linton, née Earnshaw, we follow the titular character as she forms a fierce and unbreakable bond with a foundling boy her father rescues from the streets of Liverpool. As they grow older, Catherine and Heathcliff’s friendship evolves into an intense love. But everything changes when Catherine’s father dies, leaving her bitter and pitiless brother as master of the house. Heathcliff is reduced to servitude and Catherine, desperate to save him, turns to her kindly neighbour, Edgar, believing that her marriage to a wealthy heir will free Heathcliff from cruelty. Reader, it does not. [...]

I first read Wuthering Heights almost two decades ago and whilst the specific details of the story have faded with time, that haunting backdrop and the intensity of the characters has stuck with me ever since. It’s a relief to read Essie Fox’s take on Cathy and Heathcliff’s destructive relationship and still recognise the gothic backbone that made Brontë’s story such a seminal novel. Catherine is steeped in the kind of dark and moody atmosphere that makes you live and breathe every part of the book. It helps that the setting is almost a character in itself; Fox captures the rugged, windswept Yorkshire moors with a cinematic wildness that’s both brutal and beautiful.

The same words can be used to describe the story’s central duo too. As children, they’re equally charming in their own ways – Catherine is passionate, spirited and open with her affections, whilst Heathcliff is quiet, compassionate and empathetic. It’s easy to like their younger selves, but much harder to like who they grow up to become. As a woman and a wife, Catherine’s youthful tendency towards immaturity and selfishness is amplified. Heathcliff, on the other hand, has become an entirely different person. Having shed the softness that made Catherine love him in the first place, he’s made himself into a monster purely to torture those who tortured him. And yet, toxic and terrible as they both are, they remain sympathetic characters – which is no mean feat.

By framing the narrative around Catherine’s POV, Fox gives her novel an urgency that really delves into the character’s deep inner turmoil. The book leans more heavily into parts of Brontë’s story that were only hinted at or briefly touched upon, which really ups the tragedy, trauma and emotional torment the characters wrestle with. Wuthering Heights was never supposed to be a romantic love story but there is still love to be found in all the misery, whether it’s housekeeper and mother figure Nelly Dean’s love for the children under her care, or in Catherine’s love for the daughter she never had a chance to know, or the ghost of the boy who deserved a kinder life than he was given.

If you want to read a classic novel with a modern touch, Catherine delivers all the obsessive yearning, eerie chills and untamed insanity you could hope for in a Wuthering Heights reimagining. It’s an absorbing and detailed historical novel that will please fans of the original, whilst introducing new readers to Brontë’s literary genius – which is exactly what retellings should do. (Natalie Xenos)

Grey skies, gravestones and misty moors might not seem like the obvious ingredients for a viral social media post.

Yet since the release of Wuthering Heights, influencers’ and BookTokers’ gloomy content has inspired hundreds to descend upon a village on the edge of the Pennine moors.

There has been an influx of younger visitors to Haworth in West Yorkshire, where the Brontë sisters lived, buying copies of Wuthering Heights and occasionally wearing costumes inspired by Cathy, the story’s female protagonist.

The interest in the village, which is typically busy during the summer but less so during colder months, has filled up car parks and prompted businesses to extend their opening hours.

Brontë-related attractions include the parsonage, where the family lived, the church, where Charlotte and Emily are buried, and the post office, where the sisters posted their manuscripts.

Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse on the moors above, is believed to have inspired the location of Wuthering Heights.

Although Emerald Fennell’s adaptation was not filmed in Haworth, she used locations across Swaledale and Langthwaite in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, now signposted on the Visit North Yorkshire website.

Dani Leigh, 33, a travel blogger from Manchester, decided to visit Haworth with her partner for Valentine’s Day in anticipation of the film’s release that weekend. She said it was busy with other tourists.

She posted videos of her visit, overlaid by Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights and the caption, “If you’re a literature girlie, a dark academia lover or a whimsy traveller, you need to go to Haworth.”

Leigh told The Times: “It was amazing to wander the same streets that the Brontës would have done. With the strong winds, sweeping moors and cobbled streets, I can definitely see how Wuthering Heights came to be written.”

The film, which puts the title of the novel in quotation marks, received mixed reviews from book fans, who criticised the casting of Heathcliff and changes to the original plot. The headline stars and press tour outfits, however, helped the film gross $80 million domestically and over $130 million internationally and brought younger generations to the Brontë story.

Staff at the Brontë Parsonage Museum said they welcomed double the number of visitors this February half-term compared to the same time last year. The shop also sold 388 copies of Wuthering Heights, double the amount it usually sells in a week. 

On Saturday, March 7, the museum welcomed 590 visitors, a figure they would typically expect at the height of August.

“Comments in the visitors’ book reveal that some people have been inspired to visit after seeing the film, and we did spot a visitor last week channelling Margot Robbie’s look in the film, complete with ribbon-braided hair,” Diane Fare, a staff member, said.

Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw in a wedding dress and veil in a film still from Wuthering Heights.

Mark Graham, the operations manager at The Hawthorn restaurant and co-owner of Haworth Old Post Office café, said, “I live opposite the Brontë Parsonage, and therefore I can see the car park … and it’s full every day.

“It used to be the case that it was full in June, July, August, at weekends. Now it’s full when you look out on a Wednesday or a Thursday.

“People are parking outside the village, up on to the moors, on the road and then walking in.”

He said that the Old Post Office recently had a queue outside its door before it opened, while each weekend the café has 70 to 80 bookings a day despite only accommodating 50 covers.

“Haworth used to be coach trips, pensioners, there’s now a lot of younger people, and you’re seeing your sales rise of things like matcha, Valencia lattes,” he said.

He added that the café had been selling 20 copies of Wuthering Heights a week.

Jamila Juma-Ware, 42, co-owns Writers Bloc, a bar which hosts book clubs and serves Brontë Bramble cocktails.

“It’s gone from being almost like a ghost town in January, February, when it’s really chilly,” she said, to “an influx of influencers and people via social media coming to take a look.”

“I don’t think anything of our time has kind of had this much impact in terms of this tourist drive.

“It’s been such a hotly debated topic this film … I think just that kind of talk appeal mixed with social media has created this kind of frenzy.”

Cobbles and Clay, a pottery painting café, noticed the trend online when their social media platforms soared from 41,000 views in January to 98,500.

There was so much interest in a Brontë quote on display in the café that the owners offered visitors free copies of the poem the quote was taken from. In two weeks, the staff said 240 copies have been taken. 

Around 20 minutes drive from Haworth is Holdsworth House hotel, where the cast, including Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, stayed for the final night of filming in 2025.

Chris Meehan, the general manager, estimated the film had boosted his usual bookings during the “quieter months” by around 15 per cent.

“The film is on the tip of everybody’s tongue. Everybody’s either seen it or wants to see it,” he said, adding that more guests had pre-planned visits to the Brontë attractions.

Wuthering Heights? I don’t recall Emily Brontë writing about masturbation

Due to demand, the hotel introduced a Brontë Country Escape package, which includes tickets to the parsonage museum.

AirBnB also temporarily installed “Cathy’s bedroom” on the site, after searches for West Yorkshire Valentine’s getaways increased by 67 per cent among UK Gen Z travellers and 59 per cent globally.

The Tan Hill and Green Dragon inn in a moorland landscape.

Tan Hill Inn

In the Yorkshire Dales National Park, Andrew Hields operates both the Tan Hill Inn and the Green Dragon, near filming locations.

He said they had hosted a “smattering of influencers” at both pubs, including Italians and Germans trying Yorkshire pudding and posing by the fireplace. 

“We always say that if Cathy and Heathcliff ever went on a pub date, they would meet at Tan Hill Inn,” Hields said. (Lara Wildenberg)

In early 2026, a museum employee at the Brontë Parsonage described the weeks after the release of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation as “mind-blowing”. Visitors from America were turning up in numbers the parsonage doesn’t usually see outside peak summer. People who had never read the book bought it on the way in. The cobbled main street filled up on weekday mornings. It was, by most accounts, the most concentrated burst of interest in a very long time.

None of this was new, exactly. Haworth has been doing this for over 130 years. What’s worth asking is how it started, what it actually built, and whether literary tourism – the kind that rests entirely on three writers who died in their thirties – is a stable foundation or just a very old habit.

There’s a pattern in how people approach places with a strong cultural pull. Whether someone is planning a walk to Top Withens or deciding which casinacho casino to try on a leisure trip, the decision tends to start the same way – with research, with a story someone already believes, with a destination that promises to match an expectation. Haworth has been selling that match for a very long time. The question is whether it still delivers.

How literary tourism in Haworth actually began

The Brontë Society formed in 1893, two years after Charlotte’s biography by Elizabeth Gaskell had already turned the parsonage into a place people actively wanted to visit. Earnest readers were knocking on the door through most of the 1870s and 80s – the Society simply institutionalised what was already happening. In its first year of formal operation, roughly 10,000 visitors came through. By the 1930s, when the parsonage was purchased and opened as a museum, that number had grown substantially.

What the Brontës did to Haworth was not subtle. Before the family arrived in 1820, the village was a working industrial township. Patrick Brontë’s appointment as curate brought him to a place with an estimated 1,200 working handlooms, 13 small textile mills, and public health conditions that would horrify anyone reading about them now. An 1850 report found that more than two in five children died before their sixth birthday. Average life expectancy sat under 26 years. Haworth was not a destination. It was a place people tried to survive.

The Brontës didn’t transform it while they were alive – they mostly just lived there, often miserably. The transformation came after their deaths, when their novels became canonical, their short lives became the subject of biography and mythology, and the physical place they had occupied became somewhere people felt compelled to see for themselves. That process took decades. It never really stopped.

What the economy of Haworth actually looks like now

Today, with a population of around 6,000, Haworth functions almost entirely as a tourism economy. The 2019 Retail and Leisure Study for Bradford District found that the village centre exists primarily to serve visitors rather than residents. Of 55 retail units on the main street, 28 cater almost exclusively to the tourist market – gifts, craft shops, art galleries, second-hand books. The convenience retail that a normal village needs is thin.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum draws between 70,000 and 80,000 visitors annually in ordinary years. The Bradford district as a whole attracts 12 million visitors per year, generating an economic contribution of £696 million and sustaining 14,000 jobs. Haworth accounts for a meaningful slice of that cultural draw, alongside Saltaire and the city’s other heritage sites. [...]

The parts of Haworth that have nothing to do with the Brontës

Here is where the story gets more interesting. Haworth has always had a second tourism strand running alongside the literary one, and it doesn’t involve parsonages or moors at all.

The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway opened in 1867 – six years after Charlotte’s father died in the parsonage, ending the family’s direct connection to the place. The five-mile heritage line has since appeared in The Railway Children, Yanks, Alan Parker’s The Wall, and numerous other productions. It runs its own visitor events throughout the year and draws an audience that has no particular interest in Victorian literature. It attracts railway enthusiasts, film location tourists, families on school holidays.

The annual 1940s Weekend, which fills Haworth’s cobbled street with people in wartime dress, draws coachloads from across Yorkshire. The Christmas Market does something similar in December. Neither of these events connects to the Brontës in any direct sense – they function on the village’s physical character: the stone buildings, the narrow streets, the preserved appearance of a mid-19th century settlement. The Brontës didn’t create that character. The village’s industrial past and the absence of postwar redevelopment did. The Brontës just made people look.

What happened in early 2026

The release of a major Wuthering Heights film adaptation in February 2026 produced the most immediate and measurable spike in Brontë tourism in recent memory. Staff at the Parsonage described visitor interest as unlike anything seen outside peak summer months. People arrived from North America and continental Europe specifically because of the film. The museum ran an exhibition – Haunt Me Then… and Now: Wuthering Heights on the Big Screen – to meet that interest directly.

This is not the first time a film or television adaptation has done this. Every major screen version of the novels produces some version of the same effect. The 2011 Jane Eyre adaptation added a visible peak to parsonage visitor numbers that year. The pattern is consistent: adaptation releases, visitors arrive within weeks, numbers return to baseline after several months. The spike is real. Its duration is finite.

Whether the original proposition still holds

The honest answer is yes, but with caveats. Three things keep Haworth’s Brontë tourism working across 130 years where other literary destinations have faded:

The novels are still read and still taught – they are not obscure or dated in the way that drives other literary sites toward decline; Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights remain on school syllabuses internationally.

The parsonage is physically intact and genuinely interesting as a place – the rooms are small, the moorland setting is immediate, the family history is extraordinary enough to hold attention without being dressed up.

Screen adaptations keep arriving every decade or so, each one resetting the cultural clock and sending a new generation to Haworth who might not have gone otherwise.

The village’s second tourism strand – heritage railway, events calendar, moorland walking – absorbs visitors who arrive for the Brontës and then find other reasons to stay.

What does not hold is the idea that literary tourism is self-sustaining or risk-free. The Brontë Parsonage is a charity-run operation that depends on ticket sales, memberships, and event income. When visitor numbers drop – as they did during the pandemic and in poor weather years – the financial pressure is real and the consequences fall directly on the building and its collections.

Haworth as a place is also not without tension. The village centre reads, by Bradford’s own planning documents, as a tourist economy that serves visitors rather than residents. That works when visitors are arriving. It creates a fragile local retail structure when they are not. The butcher and the pharmacy are not the main businesses on Main Street. The souvenir shops are.

What the Brontës did to Haworth was remarkable, durable, and, on the evidence of early 2026, still capable of producing something close to frenzy when the right film lands. Whether that constitutes a solid foundation depends on what you think a foundation needs to do. It has lasted 130 years. It also needs a new film every decade to keep the numbers moving.

Every few years, Heathcliff trends again. A new adaptation is announced, a new actor is cast, and suddenly we are filled with declarations that this is the ultimate love story. Once more, Heathcliff is portrayed as intense, irresistible. Once more, we are invited to fall for him. And I find myself asking the question: did we read the same book?

Heathcliff is framed less as Brontë’s embodiment of obsession and cruelty, and more as a misunderstood romantic hero whose violence is merely the byproduct of heartbreak. The cultural script is familiar: he is damaged, intense, difficult. But he’s redeemable. The question worth asking is not whether the latest adaptation succeeds or fails. It is why we are so determined to rescue Heathcliff from the novel. Because the Heathcliff on the page is not merely brooding, he is methodical in his revenge. He marries Isabella Linton not out of passion, but to punish her brother; he abuses her and hangs her dog before the marriage even begins. He brutalises his own sickly son. He manipulates the young Cathy Linton to extend his resentment to the next generation. This is not moral ambiguity. It is sustained, deliberate harm.

What is often lost in adaptation, and in popular memory, is the second half of the novel. Many versions prefer to linger in the feverish intimacy of Catherine’s death, freezing Heathcliff in a posture of eternal grief. But Brontë does not grant him that romantic stasis. He lives on, not chastened but hardened. He does not simply suffer; he cultivates suffering. Even her death, so often aestheticised as tragic romance, is somewhat darker in the text. Heathcliff begs her ghost to haunt him, he asks not for peace, but for perpetual disturbance. This is not a love that seeks healing. It is not a romantic attachment but a consummating obsession. Modern adaptations keep the windswept declarations and lose the cruelty. “I am Heathcliff” survives, the bruises and manipulation don’t. The result is a softer Heathcliff, wounded rather than monstrous. In a culture obsessed with the “morally grey” man, intensity is mistaken for intimacy. Heathcliff begins to look less like a warning and more like a prototype.

The casting of Jacob Elordi in the latest adaptation makes this shift clear. Elordi arrives already seen as a romantic ideal. He is globally recognisable and algorithmically desirable. But in Brontë’s novel, Heathcliff is described as “dark-skinned gypsy,” a stray of obscure origin whose presence unsettles the household from the beginning. His otherness is racialised and classed. He is seen as foreign, animalistic. That exclusion is not incidental; it shapes both his humiliation and his rage. When Heathcliff is re-imagined as a conventionally beautiful, culturally adored leading man, the dynamic changes. The unsettling outsider becomes an object of aspiration. His persona is aestheticised. We are no longer confronted with a figure whose difference destabilises the social order; we are invited to desire him. And here the algorithm quietly hovers in the background. Contemporary culture is structured around repetition and desirability. Certain faces circulate. Certain archetypes trend. We consume variations of the same romantic template. When an idealised heartthrob plays Heathcliff, we do not meet the character neutrally. We import desire into him. The cultural machinery has already decided he is someone to want.

What cannot be so easily re-framed, however, is the extremity of Brontë’s original vision; a man who hangs dogs, terrorises children, and clings to his own resentment as a form of identity. That version resists romantic branding. It is too abrasive, too uncompromising, too uninterested in redemption. So, we adjust him. We explain his violence as trauma. We disguise his obsession as devotion. But Wuthering Heights offers no redemption arc. Heathcliff does not apologise, evolve, or transcend his bitterness. He persists in it until it consumes him. The novel’s bleakness is structural, not decorative. Love here is not glorified. The moors are not a backdrop for swooning romance but a symbol of emotional extremity.

So why do we keep re-writing him?

Perhaps because the idea of an unredeemable man is intolerable. It is easier to imagine that cruelty hides vulnerability than to confront the possibility that some forms of love are simply destructive. We want the aesthetic of darkness without its implications. Maybe the real discomfort of Wuthering Heights is that it refuses to reassure us. Heathcliff does not become better, love does not fix him, time does not soften him. The novel leaves us with a man who chooses bitterness again and again, and calls it devotion. Each generation produces its own Heathcliff. In doing so, we reveal less about what Brontë intended and more about what we desire.

The question is no longer whether Heathcliff is redeemable.

It is why we need him to be. (Lola Mandalaoui)

   

Lingua Franca X "Wuthering Heights"

New York-based luxury knitwear brand Lingua Franca — celebrated for its hand-embroidered cashmere pieces and literary sensibility — partnered with Wuthering Heights 2026 for a limited-edition capsule collection launched in January 2025, timed to the film's Valentine's Day release.

The collection was on display at the movie's junket in Los Angeles, where Jacob Elordi himself was spotted admiring the logo Maxine Sweater and even asked to purchase one. The collection comprises 15 pieces across three silhouettes: the iconic Maxine Sweater (a cotton-cashmere relaxed crewneck), the Women's Crewneck in pure cashmere, and the Classic Cardigan — all rendered in diferent colours: Black, Cream, Navy, Pale Pink, Oatmeal, Sea, and Smoke.

Each piece is hand-embroidered with phrases pulled straight from the soul of Brontë's story and the film's script:

• "be with me always — take any form"
• "so kiss me again"
• "come undone"
• "drive me mad"
• "forever after"
• The Wuthering Heights logo motif

And now, the podcast: 

Cannonball with Wesley Morris

There’s Nothing Sexy About ‘Wuthering Heights’

Valentine’s Day weekend is over, and we’re left with a new film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” Audiences are hot, bothered and swooning. Can you blame them? The trailer had promised — and the film delivers — a stunning Margot Robbie, a seductive Jacob Elordi and a lot of sticky substances (like, a lot.) Wesley Morris knows sex and shock to be the director Emerald Fennell’s specialty, and this flick is no different. But where’s the actual substance? To confront his suspicion head on, Wesley takes a movie buddy, the culture editor Sasha Weiss, to see the film that’s got everybody and their lovers in knots. 

   

The world premiere of Lucy Gough’s adaptation of Anne Brontë’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ will be performed at Aberystwyth Arts Centre this month.

Theatr Gymunedol Aberystwyth Community Theatre present Gough’s version of Brontë’s novel on Friday, 20 March at 7.30pm, and on Saturday, 21 March at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. [...]

Commenting on the novel, Aberystwyth writer and director, Lucy Gough said: “Anne Brontë wrote a brilliant novel and I have worked with Aberystwyth Arts Centre Community Theatre to bring this to life on stage.

“It has been an exciting journey, from novel, to script and now stage. I hope people new to the novel will be stimulated to read and enjoy it and those who know it find the play opens up fresh ways of understanding it.”

This is the second time that Lucy’s love of ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ has resulted in a new production.

In 2024, loosely inspired by Brontë’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’, Lucy’s then new play called, ‘The Wild Tenant’ explored the complexity of a relationship overwhelmed by someone with addiction. (Julie McNicholls Vale)

Margot Robbie starrer R-rated romance drama collected $3.7 million at the domestic box office on its 4th three weekend. It lost 709 theaters in North America and is now running on only 2512 screens. On Monday, the film added another $332k at the box office in North America. It dropped by 46.5% from last Monday.

According to Box Office Mojo‘s latest data, Wuthering Heights’ domestic total has hit $79.06 million cume in 25 days. After its 4th weekend, the film’s overseas total has reached $134.9 million, bringing the worldwide total to $213.9 million. It is the second-highest-grossing film worldwide in 2026.

Worldwide collection breakdown

• Domestic – $79.0 million
• International – $134.9 million
• Worldwide – $213.9 million (Esita Mallik)

The movie Pegasus 3 has become the big box office phenomenon of 2026, accumulating a global total of 529.6 million dollars, making it the highest-grossing film of the year.

Directed by Han Han, the film follows the story of Zhang Chi, a veteran car racer who leads a team in an international rally. Released in China on February 17 and in other markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia on February 23, Pegasus 3 has surpassed the previous leader, Wuthering Heights, which had achieved 192 million dollars. (Jesús Bosque)

   

It's Mother's Day in the UK this Sunday and so The Telegraph and Argus recommends a tour and afternoon tea at the Brontë Birthplace as a treat.

Timed for Mother’s Day, the birthplace in Thornton is hosting a guided tour and afternoon tea in the house where the Brontë children were born.

Thomas Haigh, marketing and IT lead at the Brontë Birthplace, said: "Visiting the historic house where the Brontë children were born is not just a unique gift but also meaningful for anyone with an interest in history or literature.

"It is the perfect way to honour mothers, grandmothers, and mother figures as well as being a thoughtful and memorable way to spend time together on Mother’s Day."

The tour explores the rooms where the Brontë children spent their early years and highlights the influence of their mother, Maria Brontë.

As part of a fundraising effort, the Brontë Birthplace is also selling limited edition framed beam segments taken from the house.

Each piece comes with a certificate of authenticity and a brief history of its origin.

The event includes a one-hour guided tour and a 90-minute afternoon tea in the birthplace’s tearoom.

Funds raised from both the Mother’s Day event and beam sales will support the birthplace’s continued operation as a museum and education centre. (Harry Williams)

I should preface this with the fact I haven’t read Wuthering Heights yet. Thus, my experience of the characters is informed entirely by Emerald Fennell’s controversial movie adaptation. Criticism of the film focuses on the lack of chemistry between Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi), casted as a white man to play an originally non-white character in the novel, the gross historical inaccuracies in the costuming and overall set decoration. However, no one seems to be discussing the characterization and treatment of Nelly Dean (Hong Chau). [...]

I assume in the novel, Cathy and Nelly’s characterizations are treated with respect, showing  how both women are flawed in different ways. However, Fennell’s adaptation treats neither character with the dignity of complexity, instead relegating Cathy to the constantly validated protagonist and Nelly to the villain.

Although definitively not an angel, Nelly’s portrayal in the narrative as an almost Judas-level betrayer is incredibly unfair. Her status as an illegitimate lord’s daughter prevented her from both a childhood and a life, forcing her into a role she must remain in until Cathy dies. Additionally, Cathy's continual behavior as a spoiled and unlikable person who frequently looks down on Nelly leaves her justified in her resentment. 

Nelly is many things, but she is not the main villain. There is no villain. They all suck. (Kate LaGatta)

Since it is a milestone of classic literature, the novel has inspired numerous film and television adaptations. These range from early English versions such as A. V. Bramble’s “Wuthering Heights” (1920), William Wyler’s Academy Award-winning 1939 adaptation, and Peter Kosminsky’s “Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights” (1992), to reinterpretations across many languages: the Hindi films “Hulchul” (1951) by S. K. Ojha and “Dil Diya Dard Liya” (1966) by Abdur Rashid Kardar and Dilip Kumar; Jacques Rivette’s French “Hurlevent” (1985); Luis Buñuel’s Spanish “Abismos de Pasión” (1954); Yoshishige Yoshida’s Japanese “Arashi ga Oka” (1988); and the Filipino film “The Promise” (2007), among many others.

Each of them is an improvised version of how the director interpreted the novel. Somehow, it snatches the Brontean aura away. They either failed to reach the intensity of the original work or exaggerated the narrative. For example, in Wyler’s version, the story concludes after Catherine’s death and shows her ghost and Heathcliff roaming around the Moors. Both Andrea Arnold’s and Timothy Dalton’s movies end with Catherine’s death as well. “Arashi Ga Oka” or “Onimaru” succeded to portray the gruesomeness a little. The Japanese Jidaigeki film takes place in the Muromachi Period. The era setting does justice to Gothic Literature. It showed Onimaru (Heathcliff) played by Yusaku Matsuda, desecrating the grave of  Kinu (Catherine) played by Yuko Tanaka, to be with her.

The director portrays the second generation through Onimaru, whose cruelty toward Kinu (Cathy), played by Tomoko Takabe, carries an unsettling sexual undercurrent. Hence, the Japanese culture is sculpted into the novel’s essence. When anyone adapts this novel, they need to realise that the novel is not only about tragic love, but also about revenge. There is a role of fate that etches Catherine and Heathcliff as the star-crossed couple in the history of literature. from the abandoned boy of Liverpool to the owner of the estates, from the boy who kept track of being with Catherine, on almanack, to the boy who hanged Isabella’s dog, Fanny-  it is a whole journey.

Catherine is an impulsive character, but her character faces major twists twice in the plot: one when she stays at the Lintons’ and is bedazzled by their wealthy, lavish lifestyle; two, is when Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights. No wonder it is an extremely complex plot, where the characters, the generations, timelines, and narrators are intertwined. Even on the crust of the novel, the names of the characters can be confusing for the reader- there is Catherine, Cathy, Heathcliffs, Lintons, and Linton Heathcliff. [...]

Everything is very extravagant; the actors did a great job. But following Theseus’s Paradox, if a director replaces the contents of a Novel to adapt it, does that remain the same work? Amidst censoring the main plot, characters, and changing the characters, where is Emily Brontë? Among many things that make “Wuthering Heights” (1847) unique is the yearning. The audience craved for the characters to be unified, but Brontë brutally sets them apart till they die.

Fenell messed with this important part and united them physically. She laced the plot with sadomasochism, clandestine sex, and, as I mentioned before, sitophilia. Brontë provided two narrators, which made the plot even more intricate. Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean both narrate the story, and it is affected by their personal preferences. Fenell debarred Mr. Lockwood, which messes with the audience’s perspective.

To conclude, I will repeat, as an admirer of “Wuthering Heights” (1847) and a movie buff, its adaptations do not do justice to it. While I discussed this point, referring to other works, the major focus here is on recent work by Emerald Fenell. The novel does not define hate, love, obsession, or revenge. It is totally upto the audience how they decide to fill the silence. In the future, maybe there will be more adaptations, and they’ll be the versions of the directors. As an audience member, I eagerly wait to see when someone actually portrays Emily Brontë’s version on screen. (Shivangi Thakur)

After completing nearly a month in theaters worldwide, Oscar-winning writer-director Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights has passed what will likely be its final major box office milestone. The movie opened to divisive reviews around Valentine's Day, and rode a wave of controversy to bona fide blockbuster success. It has surpassed its reported break-even point after accounting for the exhibitor–studio revenue split. [...]

With around $80 million domestically and another $130 million-plus from overseas markets, Wuthering Heights has grossed $213 million worldwide so far. (Rohan Naahar)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is a literary mainstay today, but it sparked a bit of a scandal when it came out. The book was criticized for its perceived feminist themes and was considered “coarse” and uncouth by Victorians at the time of its publication. One particular review, published in the Quarterly Review, accused Brontë—then writing under the male pseudonym of Currer Bell—of “moral Jacobinism,” or essentially trying to spark a revolution. At the time of the review's publication, rumors that Bell was a woman had begun to swirl, and the critic claimed that if this was the case, Bell had “forfeited the society of her own sex.”

The book was not actually formally banned in England, though it did face harsh criticism and attempts to censor it, particularly among young women. It was, however, censored by the Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution along with many other Western texts, when it was deemed to have the potential to influence and corrupt young people. (Eden Gordon)