If you had told 17-year-old me that Kissing Booth star Jacob Elordi would play a stunning heartthrob in an adaptation of the boring novel I was forced to read and tirelessly decode in AP Lit, I probably would have laughed in your face. And based on the current buzz around the upcoming film Wuthering Heights, which hits theaters on Feb. 13, I know I’m not alone — people’s reactions are all over the place. While critics are loving it, fans of the original novel have their own prejudices about the film.Â
For many, it might be a shock that a novel like Wuthering Heights — while incredibly well-renowned and beloved by literary scholars — has become a blockbuster film garnering national attention. On the surface, original author Emily Bronte’s intricate, Victorian-era language doesn’t scream vibrant, epic romance the way director Emerald Fennel plans to portray it.Â
Then, there’s the casting. While the images my teenage mind conjured up of main characters Heathcliff and Catherine are blurry all these years later, I definitely didn’t foresee a star-studded cast featuring global sensations Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie.Â
If there is one thing I do remember from those long high school days spent pouring over Bronte’s words, it’s that Heathcliff’s character is deliberately constructed as racially ambiguous, and certainly not white. This is one element of the new Wuthering Heights film that has loyal readers most outraged. Fans argue the character’s race was treated as an artistic choice when in the novel, it’s integral to the plot and his interactions with other characters.
The commentary on race is what makes it the tragic love story that has withstood the test of time, not just any rom-com with a frivolous plot and hot people. Fennel said of casting a white actor in the role, “I think the thing is everyone who loves this book has such a personal connection to it, and so you can only ever make the movie that you sort of imagined yourself when you read it. I don’t know, I think I was focusing on the pseudo-masochistic elements of it.” For some fans, the casting choice is enough to keep them out of the theaters. They are protesting by creating fan edits of their dream Heathcliff, played by Dev Patel, and the dream Gothic vibe.Â
On the contrary, critics have been able to get on board with Fennell’s version. “There’s a version that I remembered reading and it isn’t quite real,” Fennel told Rotten Tomatoes in a video interview. “There’s a version where I wanted stuff to happen that never happened.” I mean, she did put quotation marks around the title for a reason!Â
David Sims, for The Atlantic, raved in his review, “Wuthering Heights, the writer-director Emerald Fennell’s new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s groundbreaking Gothic novel, is her best film to date — a heaving, rip-snortingly carnal good time at the cinema. It is also a gooey, grimy mess.” For Rolling Stone, David Fear headlined his review “Wuthering Heights May Be the Horniest Literary Adaptation Ever Made,” adding, “Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie turn Emily Brontë’s Gothic novel into a hyperventilating drama filled repression, revenge, and sex. Lots and lots and lots of sex.”Â
Hot actors and sensual scenes may not be the defining factors for a “good film” or a proper adaptation, but they are the key to getting audiences in theater seats. The provocative nature of the movie has caused quite the stir, but not enough to impactfully deter viewership, with a $50 million-plus box office debut. And personally, while I have my qualms with the inaccuracies, I’ll be sat with my girls on Valentine’s Day to celebrate this steamy romance.Â