In January’s edition of British Vogue, the glossy magazine’s star for the month defended Emerald Fennel’s casting of her Wuthering Heights adaptation. Margot Robbie, Fennel’s Catherine Earnshaw, who was in herself a criticised casting decision, was somewhat hesitant but calm to defend Jacob Elordi playing a character who was described as a man of colour. “I saw him play Heathcliff” she told Vogue’s Radhika Seth, “And he is Heathcliff. I’d say, just wait. Trust me, you’ll be happy”. As a devoted Vogue reader and classic literature lover, was I happy?
No x
That Just Didn’t Happen Though
Whilst Fennel has previously said that her adaptation would be her own imagining of the novel, this film is past imagining; it’s a fever-induced hallucination. The major aspects of the plot are a mixed bag. Some stay, some go, it’s very inconsistent. But the less relevant but still relevant details are gone. They’re muddled. They’re whatever Fennel says they are. And in that sense, it verges on disrespectful to Emily Brontë herself.
Additionally, the novel Wuthering Heights itself displays the cycle of abuse. It’s raw, cruel, and jarring. This film took the abuse that was so crucial in revealing who the characters really are, and romanticised it, no, sexualised it. Hence, we see a heavily romanticised version of these characters that lines up with something worse than misinterpretation – it’s horny delusion to a moral fault.
As you can guess, I loved the book. As I’ve ranted before, I literally threw it across the room at some points out of shock at how insane these characters were acting. Like truly depraved individuals. That didn’t happen here. As I knew what was meant to happen, I patiently waited for the turning point that surely had to come, and actually started thinking cruelly about it by the time Elordi and Robbie displayed any chemistry at all.
Eventually, the turning point came, and guess what? It was wrong. And yes, I’m saying wrong and not “changed”, because when you make a film named after a novel and keep all the names and places the same, you’re making a film of that book. But it plays like a fanfiction, in the way that it relies on previously constructed characters, but changes their plots to what the viewer wishes could have happened. And in that way, it’s low effort and cowardly.
We Need To Talk About Jacob Elordi
As discussed in every Wuthering Heights article under the sun, Elordi plays the role of a character who is not white. I won’t deny that in certain scenes, Elordi portrays an emotional and devoted Heathcliff, who in himself is meant to be more morbidly obsessed than devoted, but I think he’s just played the role written for him as best he can.
I’d argue that as an actor, he doesn’t seem to be the inherent problem here. But Heathcliff is deeper than a man with sideburns and an accent. He is downtrodden because he faces oppression, and unlike class, this oppression never changes, it never becomes invisible, and it remains literally part of his DNA. Because he is not a white man. And so, regardless of Elordi’s performance, it does not make up for the fact that he’s really not supposed to be here, especially considering that the film has no issue with casting people of colour in other roles, but only in supporting ones.
Pretty Doesn’t Make Up For This
The dialogue of the film is simplistic. Whilst obviously, people speak the way they do in classic literature novels (formal, lots of big words to mean a few short ones), it’s as if the writers looked for excuses to say undertones out loud, to literally connect the dots for us. It came across as patronising and dryly humorous, though I still can’t tell if this was the intention.
It’s a fashion movie that tries so hard to be revolutionary, sexually taboo, and arousing. But it never hits the spot. It brings a whole new meaning to the word anti-climax. It’s made for Pinterest, in the idea that someone who pays for Letterboxd is going to make a poster of it that makes it look so much cooler than it actually is. It’s visually stunning and (aims for) sexy, but that’s all it is.
Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros