Wuthering Heights review: Emerald Fennell's radical revamp will almost certainly provoke pearl-clutching

Emily Brontë’s gothic romance gets a radical revamp in this sizzling, amusing and stormy new screen adaptation from Saltburn’s Emerald Fennell, who bagged an Original Screenplay Oscar for her attention-grabbing 2020 debut Promising Young Woman.

Casting Hollywood’s hottest properties, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, as her leads, writer/director Fennell presents us with a version that’s unapologetically her own vision, lopping off the second half of the story and sexing things up to the max.

We see how the young Heathcliff and Cathy (Adolescence’s Owen Cooper and Charlotte Mellington) are thrown together when Heathcliff is taken in by Cathy’s father Mr Earnshaw (Martin Clunes), who saves him from being savaged in the street by a man who may or may not be Heathcliff’s own father. It’s not long before the drunken Earnshaw is treating the boy roughly, but Heathcliff and Cathy become thick as thieves, a bond which grows into something all-consumingly romantic as they age.

This connection is severed, apparently for good, when the adult Cathy (now played by Robbie) opts to marry the Earnshaws' affluent new neighbour Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), to rescue the family from financial ruin. In response, a heartbroken, shaggy locked Heathcliff (Elordi) runs away.

Cathy is bereft, but slowly finds happiness in her new situation as her adoring husband and his sweet but somewhat stalker-esque sister Isabella (Alison Oliver) shower her with gifts and affection. When Heathcliff returns five years later as a suave, absurdly sexy and mysteriously moneyed gentleman, sporting a haircut, earring and a tan, Cathy just can’t help herself.

Housemaid Nelly is no longer the story’s narrator, as she is in the book, but remains its witness, with Heathcliff and Cathy’s relationship often judged through her eyes. A woman of colour here (played by the Oscar-nominated American actress Hong Chau) we are told she is the bastard child of a lord and she is initially installed as Cathy’s companion. However, Nelly is spurned by Cathy on Heathcliff’s arrival and is reduced to the role of servant, slave to her mistress’s wild and unpredictable moods.

These changes to the character of Nelly and the suggestion that her background has dictated her ignominious fate go some way to allaying concerns about the whitewashing of Heathcliff’s own character. Described as a “gipsy” amongst other possible ethnicities in the novel, Heathcliff’s ambiguous racial identity undoubtedly plays a part in his mistreatment and romantic rejection.

If this aspect of the character gets lost in translation given the casting of the Caucasian Elordi, the presence of another actor of colour, Latif, as Heathcliff’s rival, the societally superior figure of Edgar confuses things further.

Such lapses of judgement and inconsistencies aside, Fennell’s Wuthering Heights boasts an outrageous, often irresistible sense of fun. Charli xcx soars on the soundtrack and there’s Saltburn-esque parody of upper-class twits in its portrayal of the Lintons (Oliver in particular is a hoot).

And the whole thing is a visual riot, with Suzie Davies’s lavish production design going into overdrive once Cathy relocates from Wuthering Heights to Thrushcross Grange, as the film love-bombs the screen with reds, pinks and whites, like Valentine’s Day on steroids. It also takes a far less restrained approach to the romance than the book (throwing in some BDSM no less, while Cathy and Heathcliff get stuck into a full-throttle affair).

But the sincerity with which the love story is told and performed speaks volumes about Fennell’s own affection for the material. It’s a retelling that captures the depth, passion and destructiveness of Heathcliff and Cathy’s bond and that really stirs things up on screen, while Robbie and Elordi are superbly matched.

Elordi makes a decent fist of Heathcliff’s gruff Yorkshire accent, channelling Lady Chatterley and Sharpe-era Sean Bean, and Robbie brings the sparkling charisma and impeccable judgement she showed in Barbie, giving a fully fleshed, bratty yet tragic turn, amidst the sometimes distractingly fantastical sets. While, as Nelly, Chau is the model of actorly restraint in a simmering performance that sometimes threatens to steal the show.

On one hand the cinematic equivalent of ‘go big or go home’, on the other an emotionally impactful adaptation for the ages, Wuthering Heights is wonderfully flamboyant filmmaking, that will almost certainly provoke pearl-clutching amongst the purists.

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

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