Reactions to Wuthering Heights 2009 (III)

Some reactions to the second (and final) episode of Wuthering Heights 2009. Our own review can be read here:

MOSTLY POSITIVE

Knighleyemma's Blog:

This adaptation is not very close to the book, but it has several strong points. The music suits the mood of the story very well. The use of unknown actors works well, as we have no preconceived notions of what we’ll see. As characters changed over time, and the actors’ portrayals became more believable.
Tom Hardy, though not conventionally handsome, makes an excellent Heathcliff. This Healthcliff is “very changeable” (like Mr. Rochester), but filled to the brim w/ rage. Hardy is somehow able to make the audience feel some empathy with him at crucial times in the story. I especially enjoyed these scenes: Heathcliff coming to tea after Cathy and Edgar Linton’s marriage, confronting her on the moors after she’s been w/ Edgar, and holding/comforting the nearly-dead Cathy at the crag.
Tom Hardy does a lot of acting with his eyes and facial expressions, as Healthcliff is a mysterious man. But he’s also able to say the dialogue with conviction. The low/deep voice he uses makes you lean forward and pay attention. He created good chemistry with Cathy (Charlotte Riley), but I felt he was a much stronger actor. He’s older and has had much more experience. (While I watched him, I thought of Gene Hackman, another actor who is very masculine, intense, and able to stay in the moment.)
Burn Gorman, an actor you may’ve seen in Bleak House, did a terrific job as the depressed, unstable, and alcoholic Hindley. The young lady who played little Catherine (Cathy’s daughter) did very well also; she was full of her mother’s curiosity and energy. Edgar was handsome, likeable, but weak (as in the book).
There were many things different from Bronte’s book, most notably Healthcliff shooting himself. Also, no one mentions that Healthcilff might be Mr. Earnshaw’s son by a Liverpool whore. There is no way to be certain that he and Cathy “hooked up” at the crag (as plainly shown/said in Part I). Could it have happened? As my mom said- yes, but people didn’t state these things explicitly then. Heathcliff doesn’t physically abuse wife Isabella, though he says hurtful things and neglects her.
What didn’t work was the scene where Cathy confesses to Nelly her feelings for both Edgar and Heathcliff. The actress didn’t put too much emphasis on these important lines. Before he rode off, Healthcliff was supposed to hear part of her speech (Edgar wants to marry her, it would degrade her to marry a “servant”, and so on.) But in this film, Healthcliff goes off while she starts talking about Edgar. Too bad- missed opportunity for the director!
Ultimately, Heathcliff and Cathy’s love was obsessive and destructive. Cathy was torn between Heathcliff (passion/uncertainty) and Edgar (wealth/respectability). Because of his tortured past, Heathcliff was ”more full of hate than love,” as Cathy says. He wanted revenge so badly that he nearly destroyed the younger generation. When he came back a rich gentleman, Healthcliff was unable to rid himself of his emotional baggage. He was his own worst enemy!

Farfaraway:

I hadn't read it--the only Bronte sister book I've read was Jane Eyre, which I loved--so I had no idea what the story was about. The first installment ran last Sunday, and the final hour aired tonight. I waited the entire week to find out what happened to Heathcliff and Catherine, and I could watch the whole thing over again. It was one of those painful, bruising, perfect love stories without a happy ending (my favorite kind). It's the kind of story that becomes a part of you. If you can find it at your library, or your PBS station reruns it later in the season, do watch it. It was beautiful.

solielvert on imdb board:

Sadly, it is the 1978 bbc version which follows the book exactly, and proves in its boringness and lack of soul that following this marvelous book word for word isn't necessarily the answer to making it work on screen. There is first and foremost a soul, a mood and a landscape that must be captured, if that is done then you have it, whatever mucking around is done with the rest of it. I think they have done that beautifully with this version. my biggest gripe was that it wasn't given enough time.
The 1992 version and the 1998 version technically followed the book the best, but the actors weren't right, and there was none of the magic of the book. You can't replace that with special effects.

Eyris on imdb board:

I was pleasantly surprised by part 2 and overall I think they did a pretty good job of portraying the central, melodramatic love story of the novel. I think Cathy was perfectly cast and the characterization appropriately walked the line between annoying teenager/sympathetic spirit. I really appreciated that she looked and acted like the age of Cathy in the book. Tom Hardy grew on me this week - could be some of the meatier scenes during the Cathy death sequence.
The best parts for me were the direction, the scenery and the soundtrack. I'm so glad they didn't use the jerky hand-held camera directing that seems to be the standard mode of British adaptations recently. The ending seemed to close rather quickly, yet I felt it was a valid choice and interpretation of how the book also closes very quietly and peacefully.
I don't feel like this could be the definitive, never-to-be outdone version, but it is easily the best one that has been done so far. I'm guessing that those who love the book solely because of the Cathy/Heathcliff love story will really love this version.

Maria on the Brontë yahoo group:

I liked the score very much, and found it suitable to the story. I was happy to see them include the second generation -- and to give it so much space (Hareton was very pretty, but way too well-kempt. His scene with Heathcliff toward the end was very, very nice). the idea of eliminating Lockwood and giving a lot of his explorations and realizations to Cathy II is interesting, and worked for the purposes of this production (though I had visions of Jane Austen's poor, sweet
Catherine Morland running around Northanger Abbey). I can deal with several of the changes to the plot, including the very end of Heathcliff. The very last glimpse in the production was nice.
Actors were very good, but I had problems with the structure, the transitions, and the direction, which was awfully-tamped down. The shouting matches sometimes felt forced to me. Nelly's character is much under-used and under-developed. The writing for Heathcliff lacks cohesion, though Hardy did very nicely with what was given to him (he isn't my idea of Heathcliff, but he
was very good).
Cathy I's inner conflicts are under-exploited and under-explored -- as inaccurate as the 1939 version is, they manage to convey this kind of thing with sharp clarity: watch the scene where Heathcliff and Cathy have their first nasty confrontation, after Cathy returns from the Grange. Oberon's Cathy mentions Heathcliff's hands; Olivier's Heathcliff snarls that this is all he's
become to her, and slaps her across the face twice, then runs out. Oberon's initial reaction is wonderfully conveyed in just the widening of her eyes, and then, after Heathcliff leaves, she yanks off her stylish gown, and the next thing you know, they're both on Pennistone Crag. This kind of handling is economic, graphic and skillful, and you get the point at least as clearly as you
do when Edgar and Cathy have a shouting match in which you have to strain to make out what they're saying.

Hartford Courant:

Both pale considerably compared to the conclusion of the well done version of "Wuthering Heights. (Roger Catlin)

MOSTLY NEGATIVE:

The Little Professor:

If there's one image that sums up just how badly this adaptation went off the rails, it's the final shot of the ghosts of Cathy and Heathcliff...haunting Wuthering Heights. Given that even this adaptation has associated their passions and desires with the moors, it makes no sense to effectively entrap the two of them behind a window, cheerfully watching Hareton and Cathy holding hands as they trek off to the Grange. It doesn't help that this moment arguably harkens back to the novel: Lockwood spies on Cathy and Hareton through a window after Heathcliff's death. (I'll give the director and writer credit for incorporating the novel's frequent use of windows--looking through them, trying to get out or in through them, etc.) Lockwood, however, is alive at the time, and Bronte uses the moment for comic effect (once again, the famous Lockwood sex appeal hasn't had time to work). In effect, the adaptation doesn't just ignore the novel; it also ignores itself.
It also seems to me that the adaptation de-demonizes Heathcliff. Quite literally: when Nelly Dean finds Heathcliff dead in the novel, she desperately tries to erase "'that frightful, life-like gaze of exultation before any one else beheld it. They would not shut: they seemed to sneer at my attempts; and his parted lips and sharp white teeth sneered too!'" And Joseph joyously proclaims "'Th' devil's harried off his soul,' he cried, 'and he may hev' his carcass into t' bargain, for aught I care! Ech! what a wicked 'un he looks, girning at death!'" The novel insinuates very strongly that Heathcliff may well be a sort of demon (and not of the figurative variety), and certainly that he is en route to damnation. But in the adaptation, Heathcliff rests quite calmly on the pillow...having blown his brains out, instead of dying by thwarted obsession. The script demands that Heathcliff do to himself what Hindley failed at. Moreover, while Heathcliff remains an unpleasant human being, it's an oddly mundane sort of unpleasantness (attempting to bash Hindley's head in aside). While we see him fighting with Cathy before he marries Isabella, their mutual tortures on her deathbed have gone (or have they? I'm wondering if the editor is at fault), and they certainly seem nice and cozy out during a rainstorm on the moor. His marriage to Isabella appears to be generically unhappy--did I blink and miss the hanged dog?--and Isabella's confrontation with her brother made Edgar Linton seem as obnoxious as Heathcliff. And Cathy #2 has surprisingly little trouble standing up to Heathcliff. It's no surprise when he suddenly deflates at the end, simply because there's nothing supernatural to his evil at all.

hammyflirt on imdb board:

Yeah, I have to say the end was sort of a let down for me. After the wonderful first part I was expecting more I guess. It just seemed too rushed the closer it got to the end and I wanted to see more of the final few scenes between Cathy and Heathcliff. I thought they should have been longer, esp when he's in her room holding her as she's dying. That was the last time they were together-alive-and it should have been more memorable and given more time, imo. It's such a crucial scene. I would rather have seen more of them than another 20 minutes of the second generation. Also, it seemed so sudden that Cathy was full term with her pregnancy and you would think Heathcliff would/could have found a way to see her before that night in the storm when she's so near to dying...It's really unfortunate because most of this adaptation was stunning, except for the ending. This has happened to some other series' I've seen before, where they rush the ending and tie up loose ends way too quickly, and it makes me so frustrated! I say bravo to the actors though, esp. Tom Hardy, who was amazing as Heathcliff. Too bad the script let them down in the end.

MOSTLY COMME SI COMME ÇA

coquiero on imdb board:

My response to the second part was the same as the first. I didn't think it was substantially better or worse. It was entertaining, I'm glad I watched it, but it wasn't difinitive for me.
Good casting, great cinematography...there was just something lacking for me, and the only thing I can chalk it up to is an oversimplification of the characters. We did get a sense of a Cathy's having been driven crazy near the end, which I thought was a nice change from the previous episode where she just seemed like an innocent victim.
Hardy for me is the best Heathcliff so far--he came off as menacing and a little mad without being melodramatic. Someone mentioned snake-like, and I like the comparison.
A word on the love scenes. Now, I like my period dramas a little sexed up, I thought it was perfectly done in the 2006 version of Jane Eyre. They're lying on the bed, kissing. There's plenty of passion and whatnot.
I did not need to see all the pumping and heaving! It burned my eyes! And I have to say the love scene btw Cathrine and Heathcliff on Penistone Crags looked to me like a hulking beast crushing some poor young girl. He was too big to be on top of her like that, with his hair covering her up. I know they had to get the shot of his whip marks, but still...
So my overall review, in a word--good, not great. I'll keep waiting for great...

THE CAT LOVES IT:

MetaChat:

Tonight, however, when Heathcliff learned of Cathy's death and let out an agonized howl on our new high definition television set, that was it for Cinnamon. Her big eyes did not leave the screen for 15 minutes. If she had had popcorn, she would have been unconsciously dipping her paw into the bowl and putting it into her mouth. I could swear she knew exactly what was going on, drama-wise, the tone if not the actual subject. It was like watching someone watch the show who doesn't speak English but has a general understanding of what they're seeing. Even when the scene changed a couple of times, she was still riveted, especially by Heathcliff. She seemed to have a basic understanding of what she was looking at, taking in the different scenes but knowing that it was the same story and the same people. She only lost interest when the action and emotion quieted down.

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights