entertainment
December 28, 2025
‘It’s no romcom’: why the real Wuthering Heights is too extreme for the screen
The new film adaptation by Saltburn director Emerald Fennell looks set to be provocative – but nowhere near as shocking as Emily Brontë’s original
TL;DR
- The trailer for Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" is visually striking and deviates from the book's descriptions of characters.
- The marketing of the film as the "greatest love story of all time" is controversial, given the novel's themes of obsession, abuse, and cruelty.
- Most adaptations of "Wuthering Heights" have focused on the first half of the book, omitting the more brutal and complex second half.
- Early critics also did not view "Wuthering Heights" as a love story, but rather as a work of "vulgar depravity" and "unnatural horrors."
- Some interpretations suggest the "love" in "Wuthering Heights" is an abstract, unattainable ideal, appealing to a youthful perception of love.
- The novel's complexity and dark themes, particularly in the second half involving extreme abuse and a macabre fixation on death, make it challenging to adapt.
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