Updates are fine for some stories. Not this one, though. Moving the action to a contemporary urban setting is akin to fitting a fairy with cement boots.
This is a sexy, funny, ravishing and dark revision that keeps Heathcliff’s frightening obsessiveness, emotional toxicity and sadism intact while ably contorting the tale into a decadent, modern, yet still distinctly gothic, romance.
Issues millions of people face everyday are addressed cleverly and poignantly, and never without a hint of humor. Wilde isn’t really interested in sentimentality, either, and her movie hits harder for it.