Wuthering Heights
Synopsis: A take on an English literature classic, with the two leads repeatedly expressing their lust for each other.
“Wuthering Heights” : Come for the Classic Story. Stay for the Sex.
In Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, the main characters, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff don’t have sex. Not a surprise that an 1847 English novel didn’t include sex scenes, considering that D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned for obscenity in most of the English-speaking world when it was released in 1930. Too much sex and sensuality in its depiction of an affair between an aristocrat and her country estate worker. It wasn’t until 1960 that an English court sided in favor of the book’s publisher. Quite the victory for free expression and public acknowledgement in Britain of the existence of sex in the human experience.
Screenwriter and director Emerald Fennell does not have the same rigid strictures when composing her take on the legendary obsessive love story between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. In the book, Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship makes up the first part of the novel. In the second part, a subsequent generation continues the legacy of the two Yorkshire estates, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The movie satisfyingly concentrates on Cathy and Heathcliff.
In late 1700’s England Cathy and Heathcliff meet as children. Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) has brought an orphaned boy home, assumingly out of pity. Cathy meets him shortly after she has witnessed a public hanging, accompanied by Nelly (Vy Nguyen), her slightly older servant/companion/ward of the Earnshaw parents. Kids going to view a hanging is definitely a case of television being a good alternative to outdoor activities. Sadly, puppet shows were the only alternative in the Wuthering Heights days. Come to think of it, the puppet shows probably involved plenty of violence.
Cathy (Charlotte Mellington) is intrigued by the quiet and filthy boy. She dubs him Heathcliff (Owen Cooper). Her father jokes that she can make him her pet. Before long, Cathy has cast aside Nelly in favor of Heathcliff. She is determined to teach him to read, but angers quickly when he falters. Embarrassed, Heathcliff runs off, screaming at her as he goes.
Later, the mean, alcoholic Mr. Earnshaw lashes out at the children. Heathcliff jumps in front of Cathy and takes a beating. Sadly, there is not a Child Protective Service that covers the moors, or anywhere actually.
The children are left mostly to their own devices and spend their days exploring the moors and swearing everlasting allegiance to each other. All very Goth. What with all of the strange things that Ms. Fennell thinks up for her movies—the violence and the kink—I was surprised that she didn’t have the sworn bff’s give each other tattoos.
Fast forward to adult Cathy and Heathcliff…
Margot Robbie is Cathy, and Jacob Elordi is Heathcliff. Both of these Aussies look splendid and have chemistry. But, in the book, Heathcliff is described as a “dark-skinned gipsy.” Jacob Elordi can best be described as a fair-skinned white guy. Their tempestuous relationship of the two becomes sexually charged when they are adolescents, around the ages of 16-17 years old, in the book.
Jacob Elordi was 27 years old during filming and Margot Robbie was 34 years old. E. Fennell reports that placing Cathy in her 30’s adds an element of pressure to marry. Her father calls her a spinster. In “Wuthering Heights” Cathy wants to save her family and the estate from financial ruin—not the circumstance in the book.
This is all well and good for Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, but Cathy and Heathcliff’s obsession is set blazing by teenage hormones! And besides Cathy’s borderline personality disorder and Heathcliff’s antisocial disorder, they have the impulsivity and questionable judgement of adolescence. The early scenes of Elordi and Catherine where Heathcliff is sort of awkward and trailing after Cathy like a high schooler? Well, your eyes clock Elordi as the full-on grown man that he is. And Margot Robbie alternately fuming over petty incidents and being silly over her new neighbors like a teen? Can’t buy it, as I can see that she’s clearly a woman in her mid-thirties.
Elordi and Robbie are big stars, so their casting brings viewers. It seems Robbie approached Fennell about playing Cathy. And that was that. When a big star goes for a role that they are too old for, it usually pays off at the box office (see Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia & Roger Moore as James Bond). My dream casting would’ve been –years back – Dev Patel and Scarlett Johannson. Today, maybe Milly Alcock and Abhay Verma.
Back to the action…
As the besotted and temperamental twosome, Cathy and Heathcliff spend long hours walking the moors. He looks like a divine werewolf with his untrimmed facial hair, hirsute arms and long, dark windblown hair. Arrooo… She looks gorgeous with her fresh complexion and voluminous gowns.
Sadly, Mr. Earnshaw burdens Heathcliff with much farmwork. Although he’s called a servant, it seems he’s unpaid. He sets himself up in a combo attic-hayloft room with a partially collapsed roof. Yes, I can see a werewolf wanting to live this way, exposed to nature and a full view of the moon.
Cathy makes use of Heathcliff’s occupation by devising pranks. She puts a pile of cracked eggs in his bed. When Heathcliff discovers them, he knows it’s Cathy’s work. He runs his fingers greedily through the yolks.
Eureka! They have new neighbors. The Lintons are now occupying Thrushcross Grange, about four miles away across the tree-barren moors. Cathy and Heathcliff take to spying on them. In the book, the elder Earnshaws have moved in with their grown children, Edgar (Shazad Latif) and Isabella (Alison Oliver). But here, it is Edgar as lord of the manor and Isabella is his ward. Life expectancy was poor in 1700’s Britain, so this accounts for all of the wards (if you have a rich relative) and street urchins (if your parents were poor).
One day, Cathy hikes on her own to Thrushcross Grange. She spies Edgar and Isabella having lunch in the garden. Isabella is recounting the story of Romeo and Juliet to a patient Edgar. She’s very enthusiastic. We can tell that she has no outlet for her social or romantic needs. The moors really need to have a community center. Anyway, Cathy falls from the garden wall she was perched on, drawing the Lintons’ attention.
Cathy indicates that her ankle is sprained. (In the book, she is attacked by a dog!) Well, I guess no horses are available to bring Cathy home because she spends the next six weeks at Thrushcross Grange. Maybe people of that time thought that moving a lady with a sprained ankle could result in death. Naturally, peasant women would be working through injuries and childbirth.
Cathy returns to Wuthering Heights, happy to see Heathcliff and acting superior after her time with the Lintons. Hurt and angry, a shirtless hay bale-tossing Heathcliff shouts to Cathy that they are not children anymore and he has no time for foolishness.
Vexed, Cathy can’t help but miss Heathcliff. She also finds herself fetishizing the scars on Heathcliff’s strong back. Soon, she’s becoming undone with lust for Heathie. She’s triggered by the sensuality of food and its preparation. When she’s watching the kitchen maid kneading dough, her lips part and her forehead becomes dewy with perspiration. Even the sight of snail mucus on a window pane looks erotic to her. Eeessh, she really needs sex but only has food or ick porn.
All of her sexual frustration is about to break the dam. Shaky, she makes her way across the moor, arriving at a stand of boulders. She masturbates, braced against a rock. Wouldn’t you know it- someone comes looking for her! Maybe she should’ve locked herself in her room for a bit, but the wind-swept moors call to her. Also, Heathcliff is calling to her. How embarrassing. All flushed, she makes a break for it, nearly running into Heathcliff’s arms. What ensues is part of a pattern: they yell at each other, she pummels him, he grabs at her, and they accuse each other of this, that and the other. She also shoves a handful of grass in his mouth. Wow, their relationship is really toxic. Just like there is no community center, the moors lack a counseling service or health clinic. So, expect the fury to continue.
Okay, so, Edgar Linton is infatuated with pretty Cathy. He decides to propose. She accepts. Why?! Well, it is the 1700’s, so not really knowing each other and the girl barely become a woman was no impediment to marriage. Cathy immediately regrets accepting. Too bad she didn’t have ‘studying for A-levels’ as an excuse. Back home, alone with Nelly (Hong Chau), she says she can’t marry her goth soulmate Healthcliff because to do so would degrade her. I’m not sure if she means it would degrade her socially and/or financially. In the book, she was probably also alluding to his dark complexion. But in the movie, he’s a white guy. In any event, no one would blame her for marrying someone so stunning.
Unbeknownst to her, Healthcliff has been eavesdropping. This often happens at manors, if books and shows are to be believed. Heathcliff hears her opinion of him being a loser and rushes away, mounts a horse and leaves. What he didn’t hear: Cathy confiding to Nelly that she loves him. When Cathy learns that he’s left, she’s distraught. She puts off her wedding to Edgar, hoping Heathcliff will return. When he doesn’t, she weds Edgar and moves to Thrushcross Grange.
The house! It’s like Alice in Wonderland. There are walls splashed in blue with embedded clear crystals and a chandelier suspended by what looks like an umbilical cord. One expansive room has lacquered red floors (slippery) and a fireplace mantel covered with dozens of white plaster casts of hands that stretch up the wall. Cathy’s bedroom is the pièce de résistance: the walls are painted to resemble her flesh tone and include recreations of her veins and moles. (It would make me sick with body dysmorphia. I’d be wanting to remove any unsightly pores or color patches.)
Even though they never have any guests, Cathy is always decked out with blood-red gowns and gobs of jewels. She, Edgar and Isabella dress for mad tea parties in the garden. No sign of a rabbit with a stop watch though. Speaking of mad, it seems that Isabella is on the verge. When the newly married Cathy came to Thrushcross Grange, Isabella presented her with a doll. It’s you, she informs Cathy. I used hair from your hairbrush to make a wig. Okayyyy…
A few years pass by. Maybe Cathy will settle into married life with the man she doesn’t love. Maybe not.
Late one night she feels called to head into the misty moors, venturing by the faint light of the moon. Dear God, it’s Heathcliff! The divine werewolf has transformed himself into a swoon-worthy gentleman, shaven and dressed impeccably. And it seems he’s done a Gatsby. He’s now a rich man, rumored to have made his fortune in the underground economy. Who knows? At least he’s not a slave trader. Maybe he’s put his magnetism to use, making money as an early influencer, paid to make appearances at coffee and tea shops throughout London. I bet even King George III would pay attention.
Cathy and Heathcliff go right back to driving each other mad. And having sex. Lots of sex. The actors have opted not to go fully nude, so many of the shots are closeups of their ecstatic faces and sections of their writhing, joined bodies.
When they aren’t having sex, they argue and try to make each other jealous. Heathcliff toys with Isabella’s affections, telling Cathy he’ll marry the young woman who is disastrously under his spell. Cathy insists that she and Edgar have a great sex life. When she’s fantasizing about Heathcliff, anyway.
I was waiting for stuff to get supernatural, but the movie is focused on the carnal. It also doesn’t shy away from the gross or brutal. Emily Brontë did not give AF about making Cathy & Heathcliff likable.
“Wuthering Heights” takes lots of liberties with the book. If you’re a purist, you may not like it. But the mood, style and chemistry do enough to make the film satisfying. But not as satisfying as the sex Cathy and Heathcliff have in the barn, and the moors, and the carriage, etcetera.