Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights first reviews unleashed as early Rotten Tomatoes score finally revealed

Ever since the release of its first trailer, Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights adaptation always seemed destined to be met with an extremely divisive response – and so it has proved.

The review embargo for the film lifted yesterday evening (Monday 9th February) and so far the verdict has been highly polarised, with major publications awarding everything from 1-star pans to 5-star raves.

At the time of writing it sits on a total score of 70% on Rotten Tomatoes (from 70 reviews), meaning that the overall consensus is skewing positive, while on Metacritic the score is slightly lower, at 60.

Perhaps the most positive review so far has come from The Telegraph's Robbie Collin, who dismissed claims that the film was style over substance in a 5-star write-up, explaining: "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."

At the other end of the spectrum entirely, The Independent's Clarisse Loughrey awarded the film just one star and called it an "astonishingly bad adaptation" that was "like a limp Mills & Boon."

She added that the lead performances from Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as Cathy and Heathcliff "are pushed almost to the border of pantomime" and remarked that the film had "a fetishistic view of class that categorises poor people as sexual deviants and rich people as clueless prudes."

Elsewhere, the film received 4-star notices from both The Standard and the BBC, three stars from The Financial Times and Empire and two stars from The Guardian and The Times. So a very broad spread.

As for the major American publications, trade outlets Variety and The Hollywood Reporter were both mainly positive in their reviews, while The New Yorker was among the outlets to lean negative.

Meanwhile our own review came down very positive – giving it four stars and calling it a "radical revamp" that was "sizzling, amusing and stormy" with "an outrageous, often irresistible sense of fun."

All this to say, your levels of enjoyment for the film will depend almost entirely on your own individual tastes – it certainly isn't for everyone.

Wuthering Heights will be released in cinemas on 13th February 2026.

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