Fifty Shades of Wuthering Heights
Emerald Fennell's adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights focuses primarily on the incestuous and destructive relationship between spoiled aristocrat Cathy (Margot Robbie and Charlotte Mellington) and her boorish and emotionally abusive adopted brother Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi and Owen Cooper) who her louse of a father (Martin Clunes) rescued one night on one of his drunken benders (providing someone to take out his aggression on over the coming years).
Beautifully staged and shot, this version of Wuthering Heights looks amazing (and there's certainly worse ways to spend your time than watching Margot Robbie on the big screen). It's just too bad the vastly-simplified version plot feels more like soap opera than grand opera.
The conflict of the story comes from the affection our two main characters feel towards each other that is rebuffed when Cathy decides to wed the wealthy, and somewhat ridiculous, Edgar (Shazad Latif) leading to Heathcliff fleeing the countryside and returning years after making a fortune by mysterious means for the purpose of either winning Cathy back or emotionally torturing her (the film can't seem to decide). We also get Alison Oliver as Edgar's even more ludicrous ward and Hong Chau and Vy Nguyen in the key role of Nelly whose choices have long-lasting consequences for all involved.
The film is quite silly, and far kinkier than I expected, but is also running on fumes for most of the third act drawing out events to the extent that any momentum the film had grinds to halt in an excruciatingly-long final 40 minutes. The look of the film gets it only so far, as Wuthering Heights certainly has something to show, but, given this CliffsNotes' version of the book, it doesn't have much to say devolving into a romance novel with great lighting.
- Title: Wuthering Heights (2026)
- IMDb: link
