Never one to play it safe, Fennell appears to have transformed Brontë’s vision into something far less like a polite period drama and more like the kind of torrid, wind-tossed romance novel you’d hide in your nightstand drawer—with Elordi’s Heathcliff as the smoldering paperback cover model. But we expect things to eventually combust into an unhinged storm of lust, heartbreak, and gothic fury before the credits roll.
Visually, the film leans heavily into moody gothic aesthetics: rain-drenched kisses, fiery embraces, and anguished stares across stormy landscapes. But Fennell also brings her signature boldness — there’s color, eroticism, and cinematic flourishes that feel modern even as they evoke the Victorian setting.The trailer’s soundscape plays a big role in setting the tone. Charli XCX contributes original music from her concept album tied to the film, including the stirring track “Chains of Love” that underscores key emotional beats.
If the trailer is anything to go by, this adaptation isn’t just retelling Wuthering Heights; it’s resurrecting the original novel’s wildest instincts. Expect passion, cruelty, beauty, shock value and more- (Morgan Truder)
Wuthering Heights, the limited series starring Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley, has resurfaced again after landing a new streaming home in the UK. Billed as a "sumptuous" take on Emily Brontë's classic novel, this is one you won't want to miss. (George Lewis)
Emerald Fennell has strongly argued that Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is "primal, sexual," per BBC, and her polarizing lens enhances the nuances of sadomasochism in the novel like never before. However, Brontë's classic is a twisted tale of psychological tragedy, not page after page of horse-saddled BDSM. When a canonical piece of literature is stripped of its layered narrative of gender, race, class, eco-criticism of civilization, and human psyche, only an unrelatable salacious imagery-in-motion remains. Social media wishes Fennell could have created a new sensual Gothic love story instead of axing most of Brontë's dimensions. (Ipshita Chakraborty)
Wuthering High School (2015)Yeah, this one? No. It relocates everything to a California high school, which basically steamrolls the novel's gothic bones. At 88 minutes, it sprints through the emotions, rewires motivations, and leaves the story's tragic weight behind. Widely considered the flimsiest take because it swaps out the book's haunting intensity for teen-drama CliffNotes.Wuthering Heights (2003)Director: Suri KrishnammaMTV turned it into a modern rock musical and moved the action near a lighthouse instead of the Yorkshire moors. Did we need that? Probably not. The musical swings are novel, but they pull focus from the emotional wreckage that defines the book. More teen melodrama than gothic tragedy; a loose riff that got mixed reviews and made a tiny splash.Wuthering Heights (1967)A BBC staging that feels very much of its era: stagey sets, marathon dialogue scenes, and pacing that drifts. It does squeeze in more of the book than earlier screen versions, but the limited production design undercuts the Heathcliff/Catherine hurricane. Closer to the outline than the experience, and largely forgotten for a reason.Wuthering Heights(1962)This earlier TV take sticks to the first half of the novel, zeroing in on Heathcliff and Catherine's childhood into early adulthood. Performances land, but the mostly interior staging misses the moors' feral energy. It also drops the entire second-generation arc, which is kind of the book's point about cycles of revenge and repair. Still, a solid historical snapshot of how TV first wrestled with the material.Wuthering Heights(1958)Often measured against the 1939 classic, and it comes up short. The atmosphere feels thin, Heathcliff is played with less sympathy than he needs, and it drifts from the source. Bright spots in the acting, sure, but the gothic vibe goes missing. Historical curiosity bonus: it's one of the few surviving TV performances of Richard Burton as Heathcliff.Wuthering Heights (2009)Two parts and emotionally loaded, with strong acting and locations that actually look and feel like the moors. It takes some liberties in how it reads the characters but taps into the book's wild, destructive pulse and gives the second generation more space than most films. Also, yes: Heathcliff is played by Tom Hardy. Big, brooding energy, and a more complete ride than you usually get.Wuthering Heights (2011)Harsh, tactile, and almost documentary in style. Arnold goes heavy on natural light, bad weather, and the kids' POV, which gives the story a flinty realism. The tradeoff: it largely sidelines the second generation. It did, however, walk away with Best Cinematography at Venice, which tells you how striking it looks. Unconventional, but it hits nerves the glossy versions miss.Wuthering Heights (1970)Timothy Dalton broods, the score (Golden Globe-nominated) swells, and the film hews closely to the first half of the book. It axes the second-generation storyline, but nails the tragic tangle between Catherine and Heathcliff with proper gothic swagger. One of the best straight-up classic interpretations.Wuthering Heights (1939)The granddaddy of them all: luminous black-and-white photography, sweeping score, and the kind of old-Hollywood star wattage you can still feel. Eight Oscar nominations including Best Picture, and a win for Best Cinematography. It ends with Catherine's death, so you only get the first part of the novel, but Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon are definitive enough to explain why this shaped how so many people think of the story.Wuthering Heights (1998)Director: David SkynnerBeautifully shot, emotionally paced, and unusually faithful to Brontë's darker textures. It lets moments breathe instead of sprinting through the plot. Some viewers quibble with the casting, but the performances hold onto the sorrow, trauma, and generational churn the book is built on. A moody, faithful version that sticks the landing more often than not.Wuthering Heights (1992)Director: Peter KosminskyMy pick for the most complete retelling. This is the one that finally brings the second generation into the frame on film, mirroring the book's structure instead of lopping it in half. Lush visuals, full-throated emotions, and indelible leads: Ralph Fiennes (in full volcanic mode) and Juliette Binoche. Weirdly under-awarded and under-loved by critics on release, but in terms of fidelity and scope, it is the truest screen echo of Brontë's design. (Leo Hartwell)
In Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë never romanticizes love — she exposes it as a primal, almost violent force that shapes, destroys, and condemns. And Chains of Love, which was written directly to Emerald Fennel‘s film, translates precisely this incendiary dimension of the bond between Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a connection that was never gentle but inevitable; never tender but absolute.The song uses physical pain to express emotional agony — “I’d rather lay down in thorns / I’d rather drown in a stream / I’d rather light myself on fire” and this could easily be Heathcliff himself confessing the impossibility of existing without Cathy. He would rather endure any bodily pain than face the void of her absence. As he says in Brontë’s novel: “I cannot live without my life, I cannot live without my soul.” The song, in its own way, echoes the same wound. (...)Perhaps the most Brontë-esque line is: “No matter how hard I try / I’m here so permanently”because no one escapes Wuthering Heights — neither living nor dead. Their love exists beyond body, time, and reason. Brontë never frees them because they do not know how to exist apart. (...)Where Chains of Love is the breathless cry of a love that suffocates, Kate Bush sings from the perspective of Cathy’s ghost, already freed from her body, yet still chained to the world she left behind. “Let me in at your window” is the plea of someone who died but could not move on. It echoes the same voice that, in Chains of Love, says, “I can’t breathe without you here.” In Bush’s version, Cathy no longer breathes — yet she still knocks at the window, because Heathcliff is the air she never had in life.Both songs rely on images of pain and transcendence. In Chains of Love, the speaker accepts thorns, fire, blood — a living martyrdom. In Wuthering Heights, agony becomes ghostliness, a lament dissolving into the wind: “It’s me, Cathy, come home. I’m so cold.” The cold that, in Chains of Love, suffocates (“my face is turning blue”) in Bush becomes literally the chill of Cathy wandering the moor after death. (Ana Claudia Paixão)
Charli XCX, Chains of LoveThe creator of Brat is moving on from her neon green age and into movies, appearing in several films and creating the album for Emerald Fennell’s controversial Wuthering Heights, which is out next year. Two tracks have dropped: House with Velvet Underground’s John Cale and this echoing, desperately romantic piece packed with haunting synths. (Blanca Schofield)
The Charli XCX song is also discussed in The Last Mixed Tape, soapcentral. El-Balad. Dork, Attitude, Stern, Russh, The Line of Best Fit, Kiss FM Cleveland, WDEF, Daily Jang, Female First, CrazyMinds, Stereoboard, UMusic, Vogue...
Haworth is the kind of village that makes you want to slow down and take it all in. Nestled on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, it’s best known as the home of the Brontë sisters, whose novels immortalised the windswept landscape. But the village itself has a story worth exploring, a mix of literary history, industrial heritage, and small-town charm that feels genuine and unpolished.The village grew around the textile industry in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of its stone houses were built for workers in the local mills, and the streets still echo that past. Cobbled lanes twist between stone cottages and independent shops, and while tourism has increased over the years, Haworth retains an authenticity that makes it feel like a lived-in place rather than a museum. Today, the Brontë Parsonage Museum sits at the top of the main street, a constant reminder of the village’s literary fame, while the moors beyond provide the dramatic backdrop that inspired Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. (Aditi Rane)
The Telegraph & Argus also highlights Haworth's many wonders.
Olivia Emily: This book made me want to be a writer…A.T.: I suppose I always admired the way Jean Rhys wrote. When she wrote Wide Sargasso Sea, I sort of thought, ‘oh, I would love to be able to write like her’. I love her.
Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens Remember… Jane EyreBBC4, from 10pmThe actors reminisce about the 2006 adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel in which Wilson is the titular orphan and Stephens plays Mr Rochester. All four episodes are shown, starting with a bleak opener (10.20pm) covering Jane’s schooldays and time living with an aunt. Then she gets a job as a governess, but the master — Rochester — is never there and his mysterious wife is never seen. (John Dugdale)
Women suggest reading Wuthering Heights before watching Emerald Fennell's film. Good advice.
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