WHATEVER FILMS ARE MADE OF: THE CONTROVERSY OF EMERALD FENNELL’S ‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’

Reviews for Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights have begun to emerge, and it has caused quite a heated debate. The controversy does not lie in Emily Brontë’s novel, but in Fennell’s decision to reshape the novel’s moral complexities in their entirety. After seeing the film on release day myself, it’s safe to say it cinematically exceeded my expectations, whilst quietly disappointing my love for literature and the book. The costumes are gorgeous, the moors are breathtaking, and the cinematography gives an Alice in Wonderland feel. However, somewhere beneath the spectacle, Brontë’s complexity has been moulded into something easier to admire than endure. 

We cannot talk about Fennell’s adaptation without addressing the casting of Heathcliff. In Brontë’s novel, Heathcliff’s racial ambiguity is the foundation of his otherness. His exclusion is racial as much as it is economic, and one of the reasons why Cathy refuses to marry him. It is much more than just wealth; it is respectability and difference. In casting Jacob Elordi, a white actor, the adaptation removes this ambiguity entirely. What was once a destabilising racial tension solely becomes a matter of wealth and temperament – a far simpler conflict to stage. 

Another example of simplification is the removal of Hindley Earnshaw. Fennell argued that Hindley functions as a villain without sympathy, but this overlooks one of Brontë’s central propositions: sympathy is not forgiveness. Hindley is cruel, he is unforgivable, and yet, he is also a grief-stricken widower who sees haunting traces of his late wife in his newborn son. After the infamous bannister scene, we see glimpses of devastation amongst his violence and have empathy for him without forgiveness. Brontë refuses to make him a redeeming character – but that does not mean he is simply a villain. By removing Hindley, the adaptation makes cruelty easier to locate and violence easier to justify. Heathcliff’s actions feel less cyclical, more reactive. The moral murkiness of the novel is streamlined into tropes we have seen before, and the complexities of much-hated characters become flat. The characters are not meant to be lovable but unsettling. 

Fennell also only adapts the first half of the novel, omitting the second generation entirely.  The latter half of Wuthering Heights is bleak and disturbing, as it demonstrates how obsession and cruelty replicate themselves across generations. By ending the story at its most emotional height, the film preserves the marketable passion, whilst disregarding the aftermath. Intensity without responsibility is easier to consume, and it is easier to create.  

Fennell has described this adaptation as her vision, and the version of Wuthering Heights she read and imagined when she was younger. All adaptations are interpretative, yet when interpretation hardens into authorship, nostalgia risks becoming authority. In a novel, readers are granted interpretive freedom. We can imagine our own Heathcliff; we decide Hindley’s sympathy and negotiate moral ambiguity ourselves. Performance, however, is fixed. Once a director casts an actor and frames a scene, this interpretation is narrowed. Through the director’s lens, ambiguity becomes controlled. The backlash comes down to audiences feeling that their interpretation has been displaced. Readers who have their own private adaptation have been intruded upon by a singular, cinematic vision. Is it fair for one director’s childhood reading to define a text that has resisted singular interpretation? Or is this the beauty of an adaptation that we must accept? 

It has to be said again how the film stuns on a cinematic level. For audiences unfamiliar with the novel, it offers gorgeous cinematography, sweeping passion, and gothic intensity. As cinema, it shines. For readers, however, loyalty to the original text is missing. Another example of this is the “sadomasochistic elements” that Emerald Fennell has referenced. Risk being aestheticised, cruelty reframed as erotic, and toxicity into stylised intensity. Isabella shifts from a victim of domestic abuse to a stylised participant in Heathcliff’s chaos. Heathcliff and Cathy’s relationship, too, becomes a feverish romance rather than a destructive force that poisons generations. When buying tickets to see Wuthering Heights, is it unreasonable to expect adaptation rather than interpretation? The title carries cultural weight, in order to retain it whilst reshaping the foundations still invites public scrutiny. It invites the question: who is this adaptation for? Film fans seeking spectacle? Or readers invested in moral ambiguity and consequence? 

The premise, destructive love across social boundaries, could easily have inspired an original Gothic drama. Modern films have been reshaped from Shakespeare’s plays before, without claiming sole ownership of the story. When did reinterpretation begin to present itself as definitive? There is a difference between adaptation and inspiration. Audiences frustrated by the film are not necessarily demanding rigid fidelity; they are questioning whether a beloved literary text has been used as recognition for something that might have made more sense on its own. 

If the film functions primarily as spectacle, then perhaps the more poignant question is this: was this Wuthering Heights for the readers at all? 

The problem is not that Wuthering Heights has been changed. It is that the changes consistently remove friction: No arguments about race, no sustained moral ambiguity, no generational reckoning. Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is problematic, not because Brontë’s novel is too difficult, but because it makes that difficulty easy. Catherine insists, “I am Heathcliff”, but this film claims authority over him too.  

Editor: Tamima Islam

• adaptation
• emerald fennell
• emily bronte
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• wuthering heights