On Feb. 14, 2026, Emerald Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ was released, and many fans of Emily Bronte’s 1847 gothic novel of the same title were wondering if this movie deserved to be called an adaptation. The film has been highly anticipated since the cast was announced in 2024, with questions and controversy arising almost immediately from those, including myself, who have read and studied the source material. This article contains spoilers for the movie and the novel, and assumes that the reader has knowledge of both.
Before delving into controversy, I would like to give the director her flowers in advance of comparing this movie to the novel she claims it is based on. If Fennell should be credited for anything, it is creating an encompassing atmosphere. Visually, ‘Wuthering Heights’ is stunning. From the haunting, fog-filled expanses of the moors Wuthering Heights resides on, to the fantastical embellishments of Thrushcross Grange, the scenes are nothing short of immersive.
Originally, I was put off by the idea of Charli XCX’s songs being used in a classical setting, even as a fan of her music. However, the more I considered the eccentric approach Fennell was taking, the more I enjoyed it. The way I saw it, Charli’s songs were used to convey surreal experiences. The overtone of Catherine’s life with Edgar Linton in his estate is dreamlike — the complete opposite of the harsh realities she faces at Wuthering Heights. The songs may not fit in a period piece like this, but that’s the point. The life she is living is nonsensical to her because she isn’t in the right place; she isn’t with Heathcliff. And when she is snapped back to reality, the score becomes more connected to the time period of the film — folk songs or orchestras that fill the softer moments of the film before the tension inevitably swells again.
Take the scene where Catherine walks across the moors in her wedding dress, forced to leave her imagined life with Heathcliff behind and marry Linton for her security. “Dark Eyed Sailor” by Olivia Chaney — the song that is played over the scene — consists only of the singer’s voice and a harmonium. Harmoniums, as Chaney states in one of her videos expanding upon the use of her song in the film, were popular during the time in which ‘Wuthering Heights’ is set and was written: “Emily Bronte will have certainly heard one.” The stark contrast in musicality helps the viewer decipher what Catherine’s emotional state is with ease, allowing visuals to be a focal point.
The actors who play young Heathcliff and Catherine — Owen Cooper and Charlotte Mellington — are fantastic. They set up the unbreakable bond of their relationship with an emotional rawness that some adult actors would never be able to achieve. While this is Mellington’s first on-screen role, Cooper has recently made his mark on the industry. Last year, the Adolescence actor became the youngest male to win an Emmy, and four months later, became the youngest actor to win a Golden Globe in the “Best Supporting Actor – Television” category.
Saltburn, released in 2023, was Fennell’s claim to fame as a director and screenwriter, and her apparent claim of Jacob Elordi. This is the second film Elordi has starred in directed by Fennell, though his acting talents and visual appeal — while captivating for a complex role like Heathcliff — may not have been appropriate if the term “adaptation” is to be applied, as adaptation implies accuracy. In Bronte’s novel, Heathcliff is undeniably a person of color. There are multiple references to him being Romani in that he is repeatedly labeled a “gipsy,” or Asian, as Nelly states: “You’re fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian Queen?” It’s fair to deem that he is racially ambiguous, but one thing is clear: Heathcliff is not white. He is tortured throughout his childhood by the Earnshaw family for being of a different race than them, a key factor in his machinations of revenge. Elordi commented on this in a clip of a red carpet interview with ABC Australia, saying that art is subjective, and Fennell used that to her advantage while creating her “interpretation” of ‘Wuthering Heights.’
The same could be said for Margot Robbie, who stars alongside Elordi in ‘Wuthering Heights’ as Catherine Earnshaw, though not in such a severe sense. Catherine dies in childbirth in Bronte’s novel about halfway through the story, and it’s estimated that her character was 18 years old. Catherine’s death in this movie adaptation is the final scene, and depicts a miscarraige due to illness. As I stated, she is played by 35-year-old Robbie. In the novel, Catherine’s death is so impactful because of her young age and her husband’s neglect to her illness, not simply because Heathcliff lost someone he loved.
For how minimally book-accurate this movie is, Fennell includes many references to the plotline of the book that viewers wouldn’t pick up on unless they’ve already read it — leaving me conflicted on her thought process. Why put the effort into detail in symbolism if it won’t enhance the plot? As I said, ‘Wuthering Heights’ is visually stunning, but it feels like that is used as a distraction from the lack of intellectualism within the plot of the movie that was certainly present within the book. It’s as if Fennell wanted this to simply be viewed, not interpreted through a critical lens. The movie does not lack nuance, but rather nuance with intentionality.
Linton, in both versions, attempts to keep Catherine from Heathcliff — he recognizes but does not accept the fact that he will always come second. The novel depicts Linton using her illness against her, forbidding her to leave the house or even her “skin room,” which is just a boxed-in bed meant to isolate Catherine. In Fennell’s version, Catherine’s room in Linton’s manor is a literal skin room. As Linton explains, he hired artists to paint the walls the color of her skin, going so far as to point out the detailing of her veins and freckles. The room represents his surface-level love for her, not penetrating more than skin deep. He nonfiguratively traps Catherine within herself, causing her illness to worsen when half of her soul, Heathcliff, cannot reach her. Heathcliff never gets her to himself except in death. Catherine states in both the film and the book that her love for Heathcliff is eternal, but that is only shown indefinitely in Bronte’s writing when Catherine returns to the moors after her death as a spirit, hunting Heathcliff as she incessantly attempts to garner his attention.
There are hints to supernatural aspects repeatedly throughout the movie: the blanket in Catherine’s childhood bedroom that references the poem “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,” the lines “If I should die before I ‘wake / I pray the Lord my Soul to take” stitched to the bottom. Her soul is never taken, hence her haunting Wuthering Heights. Isabella Linton at one point exclaims that she saw a ghost, when she really just saw Catherine’s face peeking over the garden wall. Catherine tells Heathcliff, “I will never leave you, no matter what you do.” That statement is sweet standalone, but you cannot see the truth behind it unless you are shown that she never does leave Heathcliff, even in death. One of the points Bronte makes with this story is that death is not a permanent removal. Even after those who tormented Heathcliff for his race are long gone, their actions and words are still the roots of Heathcliff’s malicious persona. It is demonstrated again with Catherine’s ghost, returning to Heathcliff’s window night after night, begging to be let in. Heathcliff in the novel goes so far as to dig up Catherine’s grave and lay with her corpse — it’s morbid and romantic in a disturbing way, but death brought them closer. The two were so jealous and misunderstanding of one another, constantly in a war of revenge and destruction for the sake of their love, not in spite of it.
So no, Fennell, Wuthering Heights is not “the greatest love story of all time.” It is the story of two awful, self-obsessed people who are the perfect, toxic fit for one another. They could never be together in their lifetimes because of the mental and physical abuses they witnessed and caused, so it was only once destruction was no longer possible that they were finally unified. Bronte confirms that they are seen together from time to time, their ghosts wandering the moors along which they ran together as children, and upon which their children eventually find love that breaks their cycle of relational abuse. This story is not about Catherine and Heathcliff. It is about the ultimate forbidden love: they were doomed from the start, and so was Fennell in claiming that her film was any sort of an “adaptation.”