The Promise Trailer, Movies and Books

Let's begin with some news about The Promise, the upcoming (next February 14) Filipino film based on, or so they say, Wuthering Heights. Kissing and happy endings seem to be the keypoint here:

THE kissing scene between Richard Gutierrez and Angel Locsin in “Mano Po 5” is nothing compared to their exchange of kisses in the forthcoming Valentine movie entitled “The Promise”.
It is something they have never done before— raw, intense, fiery and always catching for breath. It is a love scene that Oyo Boy Sotto may not be able to watch or allow his former girlfriend to engage in even for art’s sake.
“The Promise” is an adaptation of the romance classic “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte. Previously it was produced by Reyna Films starring Richard Gomez and Dawn Zulueta when they were still the couple to watch more than a decade ago. It was titled “Hihintayin Kita sa Langit”.
It is now Richard Gutierrez’s turn to fill in the shoes of the lowly man who lost the love of his life to a wealthy guy.

“The Promise” is a collaboration between GMA Films and Regal Entertainment under the keen direction of Mike Tuviera.
The original story has an unhappy ending. But since it is a Valentine offering, writers Annette Gozon and Racquel Villavicencio promise not to make the moviegoers weep when they leave the thea-ters. We presume they compromised with two kinds of endings to name everyone happy. (MNS in Filipino Express)

Well, if you need more information, the imdb has now added The Promise to its database. A trailer can be watched on YouTube.

Another film that has some Emily Brontë in it, is Inconscientes (2004), a Spanish film directed by Joaquín Oristrell. It now appears in the US (Unconscious) and Entertainment Insiders reviews it:

The story here is about Salvador’s quest to land his true love Alma. (...) You see, Salvador and Leon are psychiatrists, and since the film is set in 1913, this is the time of the esteemed, at least now, Sigmund Freud. Believe it or not, Freud is a character in the film, showing up at the exact right moment to bring the pieces together. But before the resolution, Salvador and Alma [...] even step into a asylum having a lucid discussion with a female patient about Emily Brontë and the merit of women reading Wuthering Heights. (Jonathan W. Hickman)

And now for the books. The Guardian reviews several books. A couple of them have appeared on this blog previously: Jane Harris's The Observations and Lucy Ellman's Doctors and Nurses. About this last one, the article says:

Lucy Ellmann revels in a scabrous wit that is not for the squeamish. Her creations are baleful, tragicomic, with a bewildering array of targets, running to a frenetic plot which verges on insanity. Jen aspires to be Mata Hari, yet her secret self more closely resembles Jane Eyre. (Catherine Taylor)

Burning_Blake has discovered Cara Lockwood's Wuthering High novel and reviews it here:

A bimbo-y, materialistic rich girl crashes her stepdad's car and gets sent to a boarding school called Bard Academy on an island off the coast of Maine. She slowly figures out that: (...)
3) the older tough guy who says his name is Heathcliff and dresses funny and keeps calling her Cathy is, doh, actually Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights (...)
8) Emily Brontë is totally nuts, and she wants to destroy our world and go live in the Wuthering Heights world (not Gondal, for some reason). She likes her characters best and says the "real" kids are spoiled and obnoxious and have never known true suffering. Which may be true.
It's bubbly and inane and irritating, but I had to read it! And I'm not sorry that I did.

An finally, The Telegraph publishes an article about movie prequels and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea gets a mention.

Categories: Books, Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights