Wishful Thinking - Line Holtegaard

Danish , b, 1980 -

I spent the last week watching various versions of Wuthering Heights so that I could end the week at the movies, and see the new adaptation on the big screen.  A  Wutheringstravaganza, if you will.  I chose three versions to watch at home, based on actors I like and some online recommendations. 

If an adaptation that you prefer is not mentioned here, that means I didn’t choose it for my film fest, and have never seen it.  Right now, I am all Wuthered-out; this project is complete, as far as I’m concerned. 

I should say I have indeed read the book, just not recently.  I picked it up when I was in my twenties and enjoyed it enough to read it multiple times over the years, but the last time I cracked its spine was in the late nineties or early thousands, and that was a while ago.  I have no desire now to read it again. 

That being said, I started with the classic, 1939’s William Wyler production starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier.  I understand why this is the gold standard, and a much-loved classic, but overall, I didn’t care for it.  I couldn’t get past the incessant score, which at this point in time sounds badly dated.  I know that was the fashion back then—to drown movies with soaring, orchestral strings, but it was too much for me. Olivier was good, and I thought Cathy came off as schizophrenic in her toying with Heathcliff’s affections, but aside from that, this movie didn’t make me care about the characters.   

Then I watched the 1970 version with Timothy Dalton, and while I liked it better than 1939, I could have taken or left it.  Timothy Dalton was super-pretty, but that horrible pageboy haircut they gave him didn’t do him any favors.  At the end of the sixties, some higher power must have decided to just suck the color out of life and make everything brown: clothing, furniture, film stock, food… just—brown.  If you’re of a certain age, you’ve got old family photos from the decade that are overwhelmingly shit-colored.  I know I do.   And this movie looked like the seventies, which is to say, earth-toned and hazy.  Kind of like a visual cross between a Carpenters album cover and one of those old Massengill douche commercials. 

I ended my home viewing with my favorite version thus far, the 1992 Wuthering starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche.  Yes, I am biased.  This was the first film version I saw back in the nineties, and it swept me off my feet then.  Binoche is, in turns, charming and infuriating as Cathy, especially when she says shit like “I am Heathcliff,” but then marries Linton.  After watching these three adaptations, Ralph really brings his A-game for smolder and internal conflict.  …But it’s Ralph Fiennes, and he brings his A-game for everything.  Did I mention I’m biased?

Which brings us to the newest, Emerald Fennel version of Wuthering, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.  There’s a lot to unpack here, but let me frame it by stating that when I watch something, I want to be entertained, and maybe look at some hot actors in various states of undress.  The new version delivers both, although I could have done with some more shirtless Heathcliff.  I went into this having already read some of the criticism, and it is not unfounded.  However, I liked the film.  I did not leave the theater wishing for my two hours and ten dollars back. 

Visually, the movie reminded me of some weird David Lynchian styling, à la Blue Velvet; and even had elements of Cronenberg freakiness, what with the closeup shots of slimy liquids, garish blood, dripping sweat, etc.  Thematically, the movie is saturated, almost literally, with sex and death, and the opening scene serves up both in one brief and memorable shot.  I saw a review somewhere on the great wide interwebs that said the Fennel take felt like a porny fanfiction version of the story, which I can definitely see.  But I’m gonna throw ‘fairytale’ in there as well; it’s a porny fan-fiction fairytale retelling, and that was key for enjoying it.  Jacob Elordi’s hairy, sweaty, heaving chest and gorgeous face also helped.  I appreciated Fennell’s choice to include some hot and heavy scenes of the two primaries kissing and making out; being sexual.  It was always a bit much for me to accept (in many period dramas) such aching, passionate connections, but never seeing evidence—just claims of souls mating while maybe—maybe—the star-crossed lovers hold hands. 

Once you let go of the rabid need for faithful depiction, you can sit back and experience the vision that this director is giving us.  And her vision included, (once he comes into his money), a pimped-out Heathcliff, complete with a lacy cravat, a shiny gold tooth, and an alluring hoop earring.  Margot Robbie was done up in pink flounces and shiny ruffles like my 1980s Barbie dolls, but she never began to even approach likability as a character.  And that’s to her credit.  I thought she was a good Cathy, who is not a sympathetic character.  Did I care that she was blonde?  No.  That she was older? No.  But I was living for the bizarre costuming. 

There were unconventional sets as well—a steampunk-ish, Orwellian, modern-exterior-old-interior building used for Wuthering Heights, itself.  Huge, glossy black rock formations flanked the home out on the moors, and one of these structures even jutted into the parlor, with the whole house done in stark black, white, and red.  

Fennel definitely had a point of view for her film, and she’s said as much in interviews.  She first read the book at the tender age of 14, and this is her attempt to film what she imagined—what she saw in her mind—as she read the story.  She takes some great liberties with the plot, such as erasing certain characters, but overall, it is more or less the same story we all know and love (or hate.)  I can’t be bothered by the weirdness… if I was a hot director, and I had people throwing money at me for a beloved passion project, where I could cast whomever I wanted, and maybe I’d make some money off it, of course, I’d do it. 

There were parts that I laughed at, but I believe the director wanted to inject some dark humor into her retelling, and I’m glad she did.  The woman who played Nelly Dean had some great zinger-lines to lob at Cathy.  And the depiction of Isabella as a horny, slightly-touched-in-the-head womanchild was highly amusing.  There were also some very beautiful shots and scenes.  After Cathy makes her choice to marry Linton, Margot Robbie practically floats through the landscape in a flowing white gown, her sheer veil billowing behind her for yards and yards.  Maybe these images just speak to me as an artist and photographer—I’ve always been a highly visual person.  I like to LOOK at things.  It sounds stupid, but I derive great pleasure just from seeing. 

Much of what the director included, both symbolically and visually, highlights her age, in particular.  Fennel is forty.  This isn’t a judgement.  I mention her age to make a point.  She’s old enough to know who David Lynch and David Cronenberg are, and to have borrowed from their stylistic vocabularies; old enough to have lived through the era when music television—any brand of it—was a big part of pop culture; old enough for her oeuvre to reflect the post-punk sensibilities of her youth.  All of this comes from a very specific period of time, and all of it informs her work. 

The great thing about a story that has reverberated as strongly as Wuthering Heights has is that, in 2026, we have access to so many different versions.  More than a hundred years on (1920 saw the first screen adaptation) it’s kind of like the Baskin Robbins of film: there are flavors for everybody, so if you don’t like one, you won’t go hungry.