How the movie Wuthering Heights will change Emily Bronte’s novel

Spoiler Alert: This post contains spoilers for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, now in theaters.

Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights has only just been released in theaters, but discussions surrounding Emily Bronte’s adaptation (or “reinterpretation”) of her groundbreaking novel have already been going on for weeks.

In fact, it’s been going on for years. Social media has been buzzing ever since it was revealed that the movie stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in September 2024.

Fennell, no stranger to provocation having previously directed “Saltburn” and “Promising Young Woman,” made it clear from the beginning that the film was not a faithful adaptation of Bronte’s 1847 original. “Everyone who loves this book has such a personal connection to it that we can only make the kind of movie we imagined when we read it,” Fennell said at the Los Angeles premiere of Wuthering Heights.

“This is such a gigantic masterpiece that it’s impossible to even try to touch what it’s about,” she told Variety. “But all I could do was look at how this movie made me feel and hope it connected with someone else. That’s all I can do — because Emily Bronte is the best — so I hope I make someone’s favorite movie.”

While the premise of Fennell’s film is the same as the original, depicting the tormented romance between Cathy, a childish and impulsive girl who marries into the wealthy Linton family, and Heathcliff, a brooding boy her father takes from the streets and grows up with at Wuthering Heights, the director takes many liberties throughout, from the casting itself to the film’s conclusion. This has sparked a lot of debate among literature lovers and academics alike, including the topic of Heathcliff’s race (which has been debated for nearly 200 years with little consensus) and how naughty Fennell’s R-rated film adaptation is (the same can’t really be said). The film was divisive among critics, with some outraged by its drastic deviation from the source material, while others, like Variety’s Peter DeBrugge, praised Fennell’s “bold and charming” interpretation.

To clear things up, we’ve read Brontë’s Wuthering Heights – you don’t have to read it, but we really recommend it – and we’ve listed the five biggest differences in Fennell’s film adaptation. Please read below.

cast contrast

Elordi’s casting was questionable from the beginning, as a long-discussed aspect of the book is Heathcliff’s race. The character of Heathcliff is initially described as a “dark-skinned gypsy” with black hair and eyes, but is also sometimes referred to as a “lasker” (a sailor of Indian or Southeast Asian descent), or perhaps an American or Spanish castaway. Some scholars suspect that his ethnicity was deliberately obscured, noting that even people from other European countries such as Italy and Spain would have been discriminated against by the British at the time. Also note that the accounts given in this book are from various characters who may have their own biases, leaving the reader with a lack of hard facts. In any case, Heathcliff is immediately disliked because of his appearance. Therefore, many felt that Elordi, who is of Australian and Basque descent, did not fit the bill. Indeed, Heathcliff’s race is never explicitly stated in Fennell’s film, and his otherness seems more centered around class, highlighted by the fact that he is found on the streets of Liverpool and is illiterate.

Book purists also shared concerns about casting Robbie, 35, as Cassie. This is because in the book, the character is only 15 years old when she accepts Edgar Linton’s marriage proposal, and 18 years old when she dies. In the film, Fennell introduces younger versions of Cathy and Heathcliff (played by Charlotte Mellington and Owen Cooper), then ages the characters. According to Robbie, Cassie will be in her early to mid-20s when she appears on camera, and the story will span about six years. Cathy’s relative aging is hinted at throughout the film, with her maid Nelly (Hong Chau) at one point stating that Cathy should marry Edgar because she is “long past the time of being unmarried,” underscoring the social pressures of the time. However, Robbie’s performance keeps Cassie’s childish nature intact with many obsessive outbursts.

Several changes were also made to the Linton family. Kathy’s fiancé, Edgar, is described in the book as having “light hair and fair skin”, but in the film he is played by Shahzad Latif, who is of Pakistani, British and Scottish descent. And Isabella Linton, Edgar’s sister in Brontë’s text, is instead introduced in the film as his “protégé” (played by Alison Oliver). In Victorian times, guardianship meant an orphaned minor under the care of a guardian.

Several original characters are missing.

In this book, Cathy’s father, Mr. Earnshaw, who brought Heathcliff home and was always fond of him, dies, and Wuthering Heights is left in the hands of his eldest son, Hindley, who hates Heathcliff. However, in Fennell’s film, Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) is alive and, although Hindley is not present, Mr. Earnshaw inherits some of Hindley’s traits – chiefly his dislike of Heathcliff and his love of drink. Mr. Earnshaw dies during the course of the film, which becomes one of the catalysts for Cathy and Heathcliff’s affair. Cassie’s mother also dies in the movie, but only appears briefly in the book. And so were Edgar’s parents.

Fennell’s film also removes the book’s original narrator, Mr. Lockwood, and although Nelly plays an important role, she does not tell Heathcliff and Cathy’s story as she does in the book. Instead, the film is presented without a primary point of view, although Cassie appears to be at the center of the plot.

This movie focuses on the first half of the book

Fennell’s film focuses solely on the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff, meaning that only the first half of the approximately 300-page book (up to Chapter 16) is included. As readers know, the second part tells of Heathcliff’s actions after Cathy’s death and how he continued to torture his daughter, whom he would eventually marry, and his son (born shortly after Isabella Linton fled Wuthering Heights). Lovers of the book will probably have a much less romantic vision of him than the one portrayed in the movie, as Heathcliff seems to have lost all redeeming qualities after Cathy’s death and turned into a truly miserable and vengeful man.

The movie is steamier

Similar to “Saltburn,” Fennell also created a sexually provocative film with her adaptation of “Wuthering Heights.” Even in the trailer, the scenes of dough slapping each other, Robbie and Elordi kissing in the rain, and Elordi licking the wall were signs that this was an enhanced version of the real-life romance depicted in the book. In fact, there are no explicit references to sex in Bronte’s novels, which is not all that surprising since writing about such things was incredibly taboo at the time. The book’s eroticism comes primarily from the words exchanged between Cathy and Heathcliff, many of which are incorporated into Fennell’s film.

One of the book’s most evocative moments is when Heathcliff visits Cathy shortly before her death and the two share a passionate embrace, even though Nelly is in the room the entire time. Brontë’s text reads: “She raised her hand and seized him by the neck, and pressed her cheek to his while he held her; while he, covering her in desperate caresses in return, said roughly: ‘Tell me now how cruel you have been – cruel and false. Why do you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Kathy? I don’t have a single word of comfort. You deserved this. You killed yourself…I didn’t break your heart, and by breaking it you broke mine. ”As saucy as the book is, Fennell’s film is full of sex scenes, trysts, and passionate kisses in the rain.

ending

Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is only halfway through the novel, so the ending is quite different. In the book, Cathy was ill for several months after a falling out with Heathcliff, and died shortly after giving birth to her and Edgar’s daughter (also Cathy). The story then continues with Kathy’s daughter in the lead. In Fennell’s film, Cassie still becomes pregnant and dies of the disease, but the baby does not survive. In one of the final shots of the film, a pool of blood begins to collect below Cassie’s waist, dripping onto the floor in a very disturbing manner, revealing Cassie’s death, and the death of her child.