They Ruined Wuthering Heights. It Was Spectacular.

It’s especially interesting to watch the new adaptation of Wuthering Heights in a country where the book is part of the school curriculum. I’m not sure how I would have reacted to watching erotic adaptations of Anna Karenina or War and Peace (they existed, right?), but if you make peace with yourself that you’re going to see a film that doesn’t claim historical accuracy or faithfulness to the source material, then it’s a very pleasantly spent two hours.

The story itself is as old as time, and there’s no point analyzing it: Cathy became a prisoner of her own cruelty. If the main characters had known how to communicate like normal people, none of this would have happened — but then we wouldn’t have a masterpiece of world literature. Talking through your feelings out loud isn’t exactly romantic-dramatic.

The film’s recipe is straightforward: take a talented costume designer, sprinkle in the most beautiful people on earth as the leads, steep a dramatic story in the breathtaking landscapes of England, and layer Charli XCX tracks on top. Release into cinemas and watch the reviews split evenly between outrage and delight. But this is a film that was asking for it: from the very beginning it aimed for eccentricity and never pretended to be anything else.

There’s been a lot of debate about whether there’s chemistry between Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. I think there is, and I genuinely blushed at certain points. Worth noting that for Emerald Fennell, passion, sex, love, and death always walk together: the sexual tension between the characters ignites both on Cathy’s father’s grave and beside a butchered carcass. Elordi clearly inspires the director. No complaints about the cast at all: Isabella, who seems almost pleased to be married to a “monster,” is a touching boy from the series Adolescence. Elordi himself is a mix of Frankenstein, Euphoria, and Saltburn, glinting with a gold tooth. And Margot Robbie is, at times, quite a good comedic actress — and even with painted bruises under her eyes, blood, and unwashed hair, she looks phenomenal.

There’s always something compelling about watching a toxic relationship: the characters hurl grand proclamations of eternal devotion at each other, cut to BDSM scenes in the stables. Cathy masturbates to memories of Heathcliff, and an egg yolk in Elordi’s hands looks erotic. The implausible costumes earned their own share of hate. Personally, I think they’re beautiful — again, only if you stop looking at this as a historical adaptation and start seeing it as an auteur interpretation. The latex dress, the “gift” wrapped in cellophane on the wedding night as though Cathy is offering herself. Doll-like outfits, doll-like houses, doll-like glasses, and that longed-for bow-filled room she had admired earlier. She lives out the life of Antoinette under the song “Prison,” and even the wallpaper in her room is her own skin — veins and moles included. Very extravagant, very spectacular. It feels like we’re watching Barbie again, but the doll got angry.

The moral of the story: learn to express your feelings out loud and choose your staff carefully. We all know that in real life, love isn’t actually that complicated or that dramatic. So let’s leave the film alone and just enjoy the beautiful. And if it makes even one more person pick up the book — that’s really not the worst outcome.