Pseudo-Hardyonic Silliness

We certainly were waiting for one of those reviewers who loves to be an iconoclast and makes a show-off of ignorance thinly disguised as witty (or rather randy) remarks (the offspring of a very bad case of THC, i.e. Tom Hardy Crush). Kathryn Flett from The Observer reviews (?) Wuthering Heights 2009:

Wuthering Heights is a nightmare for a film-maker. The first half of the book is bonkers (I believe the technical term is "gothic"), the second half boring.
There are too many characters to create a streamlined narrative, and the book is arguably not even a great literary romance, but a study of OCD, narcissism and control. Not that these aren't entirely fascinating subjects for drama, but maybe I'm just not a big enough E Bronte fan, because instead of surrendering myself to the seductive insanity of an unbridled quasi- "romance", I just find the protagonists annoying – Cathy's a manipulative, greedy little minx with far too much time on her hands, while Heathcliff has, let's face it, done the sisterhood no favours for the past 162 years.
For anybody who doesn't know the book but whose own "romantic" journey has featured more than its share of pseudo-Byronic silliness over the years, Wuthering Heights is potentially a bit of a wake-up call: if it doesn't end in tears, with a bit of luck pneumonia will ring down the curtain.
Teenage girls, meanwhile, should be banned from going anywhere near the bloody book, lest they delude themselves into thinking that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have, like, snogged their own H-cliff.
So then I sit down to watch ITV1's two-part Wuthering Heights, which was adapted by flavour-of-the-moment Peter Bowker, and blow me if I'm not instantaneously both agog and a-flutter at the sight of Tom Hardy, who as a potential object of unbridled lust was just too mad in 2007's Stuart: A Life Backwards and too bad in Martina Cole's The Take earlier this year, but as Heathcliff is thoroughly dangerous to know in all the right ways, entirely capable of making even careworn middle-aged women rend their garments, tear their hair and head for both the moors and the HRT.
For those who haven't had the pleasure, physically Hardy is a successful mix of Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Steve Coogan and Marco Pierre White. And while this may not be your particular cup of Yorkshire, if I had my own little lab, a bunch of spare celebrity body parts and unlimited access to an electricity sub-station, that is pretty much the monster I'd build. In short, while not wishing to seem any more inappropriately unseemly than usual, the man is sex on fire, the hottest thing ever to have emerged from East Sheen.
Which meant that when Cathy's brother, Hindley, bullied and flogged him, instead of being floored by Heathcliff's inexplicable passivity, I was pleasantly distracted by his smouldering stoicism. And while "smouldering" and "stoicism" may not seem like comfortable bedfellows, somehow Hardy has the actorly scope to pull it off.
There were plenty of other good things in a production which took a heroically restrained 124 minutes before allowing us a glimpse of bodice: Hardy's The Take co-star, Charlotte Riley, as Cathy, a ravishing, ravaged Gothic Girl Aloud, Sarah Lancashire's Nelly, torn between the demands of love and duty, and Andrew Lincoln, who managed to make Edgar not actually the sappiest male character ever written, but a plausible alternative romantic prospect for any woman forced to choose between sex and stability. And of course Burn Gorman was brilliantly vile as bitter Hindley – but if ever there was a character who was meant to have rotten teeth, it was he, and I'm afraid Gorman's veneers were just a bit too bling for 19th-century Yorkshire. But no matter, little savage that I am, I enjoyed this edited-highlights version of the Heights, directed with flair by Coky Giedroyc. But somehow even young Tom Hardy couldn't quite stop the second half from being a bit, like, Wuthever.

Fortunately, Hugh Montgomery's review in The Independent not being entirely positive doesn't wallow in ignorance:

As a rule, I avoid costume dramas so far as housemates and Sunday evenings allow. Too often, they've eviscerated my favourite authors, replacing emotional nuances with ponderous exposition and frou-frou nostalgia.
And then there's the utter predictability of the adaptation choices to contend with: this autumn, say hello to the umpteenth version of Emma. Nevertheless, I wanted to give Wuthering Heights a go for two reasons. First, it was written by Peter Bowker, the man behind June's exemplary Iraq War drama Occupation; and second, it starred Tom Hardy, the rising star with the pillow lips of Jolie, the quicksilver intensity of young Brando, and a fine record in playing the dangerously deranged.
So, did I eat my words? Well, chew on them a little, maybe. With its intricately detailed narrative, hopping back and forth through time, Emily Brontë's moorland saga is a difficult fit for the screen – indeed, the 1939 Olivier film avoided the issue only by paring it down to its melodramatic basics: the tragic relationship between gypsy orphan Heathcliff and his forbidden soulmate Cathy.
Bowker was less brutal in his changes – despite, quite literally, taking a knife to the book while re-ordering it. The opening, jumping forward to the fates of the star-crossed lovers' children, may have confused this reviewer, who briefly assumed he was watching episode two, but mostly the action flowed grippingly and coherently.
More importantly, Bowker remained faithful to Brontë's tone, not just to her story: hate was as sharply delineated as love, and its dramatic impetus was stoked as much by Heathcliff's cold-blooded vengefulness as it was by his and Cathy's hot-blooded passion. In this respect, Bowker was brilliantly served by Hardy, who refused to play the romantic hero card, notwithstanding his standard-issue tresses. One part smirking malevolence to two parts laser-eyed psychosis, he treated detestable step-brother Hindley to a full-throttle head-smashing that could have been an out-take from his other recent TV outing, gangland drama The Take.
Perhaps, though, Hardy was also part of the problem: his demonic magnetism left everyone else in the shade, not least Charlotte Riley's insipid Cathy, who lacked the heroine's infamous "double character" of untrammelled sensuality and social ambition. Meanwhile, as the drama drew to its conclusion, so Bowker increasingly struggled to cram in events: you have to feel sorry for the actor playing Heathcliff's son, Linton, in a hair's breadth of screentime, whose life and death passed without so much as a sentimental bedside exchange. The Hardy boy done good, then, but as a reflection of Brontë's novel, it was still too much like televisual York Notes.

Drapers is more concerned with the costumes of the production:

I watched the recent ITV adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The bleak moors and stormy skies were a pathetic fallacy for Cathy and Heathcliff’s turmoil and that coupled with the dark costume palette, I could help being reminded of the AW09 Chanel ads. (Sushma Sagar)

People is totally enthusiastic:

I've heard of raking over old coals, but digging up your ex and snuggling up to her bones years after she has died takes some beating.
Such was Yorkshire terror Heathcliff's passion for Cathy in Wuthering Heights, a drama as gripping as the fever that did for our heroine in this classic tale of star-crossed lovers.
There was certainly nothing sappy about ITV's adaptation of Emily Bronte's Gothic potboiler. Forget your usual bodice busters and brooding bedfellows, this was brutal and brilliant. Charlotte Riley didn't just simper as Cathy, she simmered gently before boiling over alongside Tom Hardy's explosive Heathcliff. (...)
Consumed by their passions and a couple of 19th-century workhouse diseases along the way, as most of the cast were by the end, so I too was devoured by this achingly good two-parter. With actors so perfectly cast they could have been moulded from the originals, this was The Full Bronte as Emily intended. (Richard Arnold)

As is - sort of - IndieLondon:

The two leads are superb. Hardy imbues Heathcliff with an intensity of passion and menace totally befitting the character – definitely not a man to cross swords with. So full marks to Burn Gorman’s Hindley for daring to do just that. For the uninitiated, Hindley is Cathy’s biological brother who, after their father’s death, relegates Heathcliff to the status of servant. Not a good idea!
And Riley is perfect as the spirited but tantalizing Cathy who, forever within yet just beyond Heathcliff’s reach – except of course in death – wounds him deeply when she succumbs to the attentions and life style of neighbouring land owner Edgar Linton (Andrew Lincoln) and marries him. But as we all know by now, Cathy is in love with Heathcliff so it’s not a happy marriage which is a pity for Lincoln’s amiable and upstanding Edgar certainly deserves better.
Sarah Lancashire also deserves special mention. As devoted housemaid Nellie she positively shines in a role so far removed from her Coronation Street persona, the glamorous but ditzy barmaid Raquel, that she’s barely recognizable. Which shows just how far she’s come since her last appearance in the popular ‘soap’.
Bowker may have taken the odd liberty or two with Bronte’s original (or so I’m reliably informed) but the essence of the story remains unchanged. And it is undeniably bleak. Nevertheless, fine performances, exquisite costumes and a fittingly wild landscape make Wuthering Heights compulsive viewing, particularly if you’re a fan of the novel. Just don’t expect a happy ending.

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights