THE LIT MAJOR WHO LIKED “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”

I remember sinking into my seat 22-G when the end credits of “Wuthering Heights” (2026) began rolling. My face flushed hot with a stream of uncontrollable, viscous tears. I was absolutely inconsolable. Believe me when I say, I don’t know how to explain my first watch other than the fact that it was an emotional wreck like no other. When I left the theatre, all that remained with me was a weird void of sorts and a stubborn plight that demanded more of this. In that moment, and on the train ride back to campus, all I could think of was, “man, I have got to rewatch that again.”

Before you think this is just my brazen attempt to try and ragebait you with an ill-informed take, blindly idolizing everyone involved in the movie, it is not. My friends often dub me “the performative literature major” because, let’s just say, reading is not my strongest suit. Neither do I read a lot of classics, nor am I in on all these extremely niche literary references my peers keep making in class. So, Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights,” being my first brush with Brontë’s Gothic classic that has been hailed as a literary canon for so long, might already raise some eyebrows. Well, I do not know if having no reference point to compare my initial watch of the film to really helps my case or not. Not to mention, I hadn’t even watched the trailer or any promo for it, so it was a completely blind Valentine’s watch for me. 

However, as I came back and buckled up for Round 2 the next day, nothing could’ve prepared me for how much more of a puddle of tears I was going to leave in that damn IMAX. My friends, who had all somehow read the book, were highly concerned about why I was even raving so much about this film in the first place. Brushing them off as just naysayers, I knew where exactly I could find validation for my newfound obsession—the Internet’s online forums! But imagine my shock when everywhere I went, all I saw was horrifyingly further from any ounce of validation. Brutal Letterboxd reviews, lengthy Substack articles calling out every minute flaw, and my YouTube feed being flooded with everyone under the sun being disapproving of it were all I got. 

Being me, I went down this rabbit hole of inquiring about what exactly it was that had everyone so upset, when I clearly liked the film so much. This is when I found out about how the outrage was more than just about Fennell’s take being an “unfaithful/loose adaptation.” It wasn’t necessarily about not sticking to the book or the source text, but more about how Brontë’s classic Gothic tragedy, not to mention a nuanced class commentary, was just collapsed into what most felt like a star-studded, intense romance palatable for mass audiences. Divisive to a great degree, the film has definitely sparked some discourse amongst netizens about what Brontë would’ve thought about the film and how a literary crisis’s dawn upon us is imminent. 

After much urging from all of my friends, especially Hia (who has shamed me non-stop for my FYP being full of Jacob Elordi edits), to actually go and read the book, I did see the instances of erasure from the get-go. From the complex family tree, which took me two hours to understand, to being thrust in the middle of supernatural elements also being present in the text, I had realized that the difference between the book and the film was indeed stark. Hindley’s character was entirely removed, the cycles of generational ruin that haunted the Yorkshire moors remained entirely absent, and most importantly, Heathcliff’s racial struggles ended up being nowhere to be seen in the film. However, there was still something that retained that pull for Fennell’s take for me. The very fact that I am sitting at the very cusp of this tension and not rushing to a prevailing consensus that is currently dominant in all conversations about the film is nothing short of unexpected from me. 

I think where I am at currently, I feel it’s worth echoing online creator & cinephile, Fred Asquith’s take on the film where he says that, “[the movie] does what it said on [it’s trailer’s] tin, [although] it doesn’t do what it said on the book’s tin.” This is something I largely believe in myself, too. In addition to that, Asquith’s assertion of it being okay to have certain spins like these on works that have already had many of their interpretations come out already and have almost ventured into their own unique form does make sense—particularly his invocation of what people have already been doing with Shakespearean plays for eons now. That said, I also do acknowledge that circumventing the racial angle that was a very crucial part of Heathcliff’s character arc in the book, as well as collapsing Isabella’s having cycles of harm and cruelty inflicted upon her into something that reads as “slightly twisted” to most, erodes very important aspects of the source text. 

Does Fennell’s take on Brontë’s work read as a faithful adaptation, and is it meant to be one in the first place? No. Does it risk having newer audiences run with a version where there is an erasure of all these nuances as their only foci? Yes. However, can the film still resonate with people and be moving for them? Also, absolutely yes! I’d be lying if I said that Elordi’s & Robbie’s performances as Heathcliff & Catherine didn’t make me sob like a baby twice in the end. For some, Fennell definitely has achieved the effect of “wanting people to cry so hard they vomit” as stated in her Fandango Interview. Not to mention, Charli XCX on the soundtrack is an absolute treat, best believe the album is on repeat as I write this! I think the whole stance that I arrive at before my third rewatch this weekend is that as long as one acknowledges why criticism of the film exists in the first place, makes an informed choice beyond face value, and perhaps even uses the recent discourse as an entry point to the Brontë Sisters’ actual work, it is very much possible to root for the emotional charge one may have felt while watching the film, for it is still Brontë’s writing that is supplemented by everyone involved to achieve such a hauntingly beautiful rendition in its own right.

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