Wuthering Heights (Christian Movie Review)
More Fifty Shades of Brontë than a timeless tale, “Wuthering Heights” is a sexually charged, shallow, and vulgar adaptation that lacks all the sophistication and compelling themes of its namesake; a morality tale without the mortality.
About the Film
Emily Brontë’s gothic classic is a masterful story of dramatic passion. The new “Wuthering Heights” adaptation fittingly sets its title in quotation marks. According to the director, the creative decision is intended to signal that the adaptation is a loose retelling unburdened by fidelity to the source material. Unfortunately, it also reflects a complete decoupling from everything that makes Emily Brontë’s novel a classic. More Fifty Shades of Brontë than a timeless tale, “Wuthering Heights” is a sexually charged, shallow, and vulgar adaptation that lacks all the sophistication and compelling themes of its namesake.
The film’s music was provided by musical artist Charli xcx. The opening song begins with a voiceover saying, “If it’s beauty, do you see beauty? If there’s beauty, say it’s enough.” That sentiment perfectly captures the essence of the film. “Wuthering Heights” is a beautiful looking film. The cinematography has a striking picturesque quality with some truly vivid and memorable visual imagery. But it quickly becomes evident that the beauty is not enough, and beyond the surface of the pretty visuals, there’s little else of redemptive value to be found.
Brontë’s original novel was gritty and boundary pushing for the 1800s, but for all the novel’s explosive passion, there is no sex. This is in part a byproduct of the era, but also due to its exploration of more interesting psychological and moral themes. In contrast, this film adaptation feels like angsty fan fiction from a horny teenage girl. It seeks the passion of Brontë’s novel but lacks the maturity or depth to explore it internally. The nuanced moral tension of the novel is entirely abandoned in the film’s misguided efforts to make its story all about physical attraction, lust, and sex. Catherine and Heathcliff are mere physical bodies for each other’s sexual pleasure.
Beyond the sexual bombardment, “Wuthering Heights” also inverts the compelling themes of the novel. There is a moment in the film in which the plot of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is recounted. The parallel drawn to literature’s most famous star-crossed lovers exposes a central issue of the film. In Brontë’s novel, Catherine and Heathcliff are largely the anthesis of Shakespeare’s doomed lovers. Romeo and Juliet are pure hearts kept apart by external forces, whereas Brontë’s doomed lovers are a toxic pairing led by their own pride and base nature to resist the refining external forces of their society. In other words, the story’s tragedy is that they are repeatedly drawn together, not that they are kept apart by a prudish society.
To be clear, the problem is not merely that “Wuthering Heights” strays from the source material (all adaptations do); it’s that the significant changes in thematic focus simply don’t work as a compelling narrative. They remove any sense of conflict or tension the adaption desperately needs. “Wuthering Heights” becomes a sort of morality play without the morality, an overly long slog of scenes depicting despicable people indulging in endless displays of sinful passion without remorse. At one point, Heathcliff literally has another woman (who he had spitefully corrupted and defiled) on all fours and chained around the neck like a dog. Then, just several scenes later, audiences are asked to sympathize with him for his broken heart. By making the book’s villains the film’s quasi-heroes, the story becomes a jarring and disjointed experience.
The film’s opening scene is a public hanging that serves as an aggressive showcase of the film’s impending vulgarity. A nun attempts to bring order to the crowd, but she is promptly ignored, as the crowd instead revels in the carnal passion and sinful lusts of their heart. The character of Nelly has a similar fate. In a novel filled with prideful and unlikeable characters, she is arguably the one voice of level-headed moral clarity. She still serves that role to some degree in the film, but she is also villainized; her actions and wise moral counsel framed as being self-serving and born of spite and jealously. When the sinful indulgences of the story are celebrated rather than condemned, the few voices of opposition are made superfluous and out of place.
In the end, “Wuthering Heights” falls short as both an adaptation of a classic and as a compelling romantic drama. There is a hypothetical version of this adaption that succeeds as a beautiful period piece, boasting excellent set design and costuming, star power in Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, and a foundation of one of literature’s more unique explorations of romance and passion. But in a continuation of one of Hollywood’s most vexing and arrogant trends, the classic tale is suffocated under the weight of modern sensibilities. Thus, whether you had read the source material or not, the film offers little more for audiences than an opportunity to degrade themselves, like the story’s doomed lovers, in an indulgence of carnal sexuality. It may be a pretty looking film, but neither the characters nor the film itself seems to realize that true beauty is more than skin deep.
For Consideration
On the Surface—(Profanity, Sexual content, violence, etc.).
Language: There are several f-words, as well as a collection of other profanities.
Violence: A public hanging is shown. Several corpses are depicted, with a character kicking one in the face. There are several instances of physical abuse (mostly implied, rather than shown on screen). Women are not necessarily unwilling participants in the film’s various sexual encounters, but the shockingly rough and degrading acts done to them by the men, and the manipulative and controlling manner that leads to them, could (and probably should) be viewed as sexual abuse. While not necessarily “violence”, a miscarriage results in an obscene amount of blood pouring out a woman’s womb (she is covered by a white blanket, but the blood stains the fabric and pools on the floor).
Sexuality: There is no nudity, but plenty of sexual acts are depicted. A man and woman have sex in a stable, with the man putting a horse bridle on the woman (the sex is heard but not shown). A woman pleasures herself, and a man sucks on her fingers used in the act. A man tells another man he is welcome to stay and watch as he has sex with his wife (in a moment of borderline marital rape). Plenty of other sex scenes occur, in various locations, including some while the woman is pregnant with another man’s child. During a public hanging, onlookers laugh that the executed man has an erection, which is later visible against his pants.
Engage The Film
Sin is Good, Actually
One of the most iconic moments in Emily Brontë’s novel is when Catherine declares, “I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.” The film retains a part of this speech—about their two souls being one and the same—but the dialogue that has been left out is illuminating.
In the movie, Catherine remarks (in dialogue adapted closely from the novel) that she would be miserable in heaven, because she would feel “homesick.” The book expands the idea further and establishes the contrast more clearly that her attraction to Heathcliff is deeper than sexual passion. In the novel, Catherine imagines herself as “angel” and Heathcliff is frequently identified as “fiend” or “devil.” Therefore, in a symbolic sense, Catherine is pulled between good and evil, to be an angel or to be a devil. Her declaration, “I am Heathcliff” is more an admission of her sinful nature than a romantic yearning for the monstrous Heathcliff. It’s a twisted romance, but one recognized as being twisted.
In contrast, the film reflects more modern sensibilities that elevate romantic passion and sexual freedom at all costs. The character are soulmates (seemingly only because they have enjoyable sex) and should be together, societal norms or not. What was shocking in 1847 is no longer so today, with the extramarital affair framed as something exciting and satisfying. The eventual misfortune is not in the taboo sexual passion or broken relationships left in its wake, but just in the bad luck and societal expectations that made the affair necessary. If only they had been able to pursue their carnal passions without consequence, they could have been happy.
The bible cautions “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20). There is a fleeting moment at the end when Catherine does appear to regret her sin, acknowledging that she might have degraded herself, but the film can’t seem to dwell on that possibility for long.
