Critic Reviews

Style over substance? Not at all – 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.

Although "Wuthering Heights" remains a deliciously horny film, it does summon a certain degree of pure romance, especially in the few moments when its leads are able to see past their misunderstandings and actually connect.

Even if this doesn’t wind up being your favorite version of the film, it’s worth seeing Fennell’s updated take.

Fennell’s adaptation takes some liberties with Emily Brontë’s original 1847 Victorian-era novel but unless you’re a devout superfan, you likely won’t be too mad. The Oscar-winning British filmmaker crafts a sumptuous bad romance that’s quite haughty, darkly hilarious and ultimately heartfelt.

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.

Fennell leans into excess not as provocation, but as emotional truth, letting obsession swell until it becomes the only language the film speaks. The feeling cuts here not as poetry, but as pressure—barbed wire wrapped tight around a heartbeat. In all its wildness, Fennell seals the film with an embrace and a bruise, then lands the kiss like a sudden dagger to the ribs.

Starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, Emerald Fennell's new take on the classic romance is far from faithful to the original book – but it is "utterly absorbing" in its own right.

For purists, this approach may be considered sacrilegious. For others, it will be exhilarating. There is no denying that Wuthering Heights will inspire fierce debate. But there is also no denying its craft, ambition, and emotional conviction.

For nearly two centuries, Brontë’s book has been a romantic fantasy for readers. Fennell treats it as an erotic one as well, leaning into all that is sensual.

Fennell has streamlined the book’s narrative, yes, but not its white-hot melodramatic core—and she understands it well enough to create a worthy swoon-fest for the ages.