"Wuthering Heights"

Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” has been one of my most anticipated movies of 2026 ever since that intoxicating “fall in love” trailer dropped, though not without a few asterisks. Fennell truly drives me mad as a writer and director. Promising Young Woman was such a promising start for a brand-new filmmaker, headlined by an outstanding lead performance from Carey Mulligan, a screenplay that always felt one step ahead of its audience, & a bold, distinctive directorial voice unlike anything we’d seen before. However, her next film, Saltburn, was the exact opposite experience for me. I found Barry Keoghan to be massively miscast as our lead: very unlikable, very repelling, & not really hitting the narrative beats you would want from a character like that. But you could also place a lot of the blame on the screenplay, which felt messy and quite derivative. That blandness also extended to the direction. Overall, it was a massive miss for me… outside of Jacob Elordi’s supporting performance, who was very charming. Elordi has shown over the last few years that he’s often the best part of whatever he’s in. We just had Frankenstein, where he could potentially win the Oscar as the standout in a very technically impressive film, and he also brought a whole new depth to the King of Rock in Priscilla. So while I was slightly skeptical of this film solely due to Fennell’s inconsistent track record, I was thrilled to see how this story would unfold with her at the helm and Elordi finally in a leading role. And truth be told, “Wuthering Heights” is a film that feels like the full embodiment of Fennell as a filmmaker. It is a primal epic that takes the highest of highs of her previous work & combines them with the lowest lows. 

Many people are heading into “Wuthering Heights” with some negative energy built up, whether it is due to Fennell’s track record, this provocative take on a literary classic, or even the casting of the two leads. The latter seems to have garnered the most ire, as I have seen complaints online that Robbie is not the right age to play Cath—in the novel Cath is just beginning her adulthood—and that Elordi is not the right race to play Heathcliff, who is traditionally depicted as a person of color. I would be interested to see another filmmaker’s more focused take on this story with more novel-accurate casting. However, the film we have is not without its merits.

To begin with the positives. Fennell clearly has an eye behind the lens. Whether it is in the dreamy, dollhouse-like sets or the fairytale visual aesthetic of the cinematography, “Wuthering Heights” is a gorgeous film to look at. Your eyes yearn for the grand spectacle in full force… but at the same time, your mind is oh so tempted to drift elsewhere. Because just like Saltburn’s messy plotting and Promising Young Woman’s lack of characterization to anyone outside of our lead, “Wuthering Heights”’s bare-bones script does not allow you to care about a lot of these characters. 

Cath & Heathcliff are very compelling as children, but once they age into our main stars, their dynamic feels a little off. Yes, Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie are two unbelievably beautiful human beings who look as perfect as this film does, but their chemistry fails to fully resonate. I found Cath to be a fairly annoying protagonist: constantly whining, making the wrong choices, and hurting everyone close to her. On the other hand, Heathcliff remains a mystery. I know that is kind of the point, but similar to Elordi’s character’s portrayal in Saltburn, you admire the mystery yet fail to resonate with the reality. Hong Chau is an actress who never really gets her flowers, and she does the best she can here as Nelly. Sadly, the role she is given has almost no depth. We understand that she is jealous due to her childhood, but her personality is never explored beyond that. Something similar happens with Edgar, Cath’s husband. We get that he cares, then he gets jealous, but we never really see how that shift affects him or changes the dynamic in a meaningful way. Honestly, the most compelling character might be Isabelle. Can I get a little woof woof?

Fennell is clearly a divisive filmmaker, and I suspect this film will tear audiences the most yet. When I opened Letterboxd, one friend gave it half a star and another gave it five. That is cinema, and films that provoke reactions and intense conversations like this one should be encouraged, especially when they feel as fresh and visually unique as this one. 

My main issue with “Wuthering Heights” is that while it has a bold aesthetic, it is something we have seen a million times before at its core. It is a classic doomed period romance, and it does nothing to distinguish itself from the litany of other entries in this genre. It does not completely work narratively, and its writing absolutely lets down some inspired visual choices. But ultimately, “Wuthering Heights” comes undone in a messy but vividly compelling way. 

6/10