The Brutal Brontës!

Let's open with Tom Gauld's weekly cartoon for The Guardian:

Next, we turn to The Sunday Times Bestsellers week list, because in the Fiction paperbacks section we found Wuthering Heights in the number 8, which is truly astonishing.

According to The Mirror, Whitby is "UK town where every day is like a scene from Wuthering Heights":

A view of Whitby Abbey framed by a whalebone arch under a cloudy sky, showcasing historical architecture in North Yorkshire, England.

Sometimes, when a storm hits the UK, rain batters the pavements and wind whips the trees, it's easy to feel swept up in the kind of awe-inspiring conditions that helped Emily Brontë to write her classic novel, Wuthering Heights.

There is a little town in Yorkshire, 100miles from Cathy and Heathcliff's home, but steeped in as much Gothic drama, where every day feels like you've tumbled into such dark Victorian melodrama. (...)

If you walk along the coast from the nearby villages of Saltmoore and Sandsend, the gothic ruins stay within your sightline. Lucky hikers will get to see the sea fog - which locals used to believe was the fiery breath of a dragon - come in to cover the abbey. You'll feel like you're trekking the same paths Heathcliff did as he searched for Catherine's ghost, not least because Emerald Fennell's new film was shot about two hours away, in the Yorkshire Dales. (...)

The most remarkable sight comes when you walk back towards Whitby, as when the fog clears, the Abbey can be seen looming through a gap between the cliffs. It's terrifying and awe-inspiring all at once. I felt drawn towards the ruins, much as Cathy is drawn to Heathcliff or as an entranced Lucy is drawn to Dracula. How could anyone resist such a terrible sight? (Yasmin Vince)

Some American students visit Hampstead for the first time in Ham & High:

I was advised to visit Hill Garden and I’m so glad I did. The sun shone down on the terrace, and it was a nice place to sit and gather my thoughts after having walked around for a couple of hours. I’ve been reading Wuthering Heights in preparation for the new movie that’s coming out in a few days, and I couldn’t help but feel like Hill Garden came straight out of a Brontë novel. (Helena Sauriat)

Elmira Tanatarova in the Daily Mail rewrites the Brontë story in pure Daily-Mail-tabloid style. Are you prepared? Here it comes with some helpful comments from our own:

The brutal Brontës! Wuthering Heights author Emily beat up her dog, toothless Charlotte spitefully held back Anne's career and all three died close to their 30th birthdays... not to mention their opium addict brother.

NO TEETH, NO MANNERS, NO MERCY: THE BRONTË SISTERS' HORRIFYING SECRET FACES REVEALED!

The famous family of writers endured everything from opium addiction to water contaminated by a cemetery, as well as a string of tragically early deaths that saw three out of four siblings - including their only brother, Branwell - deceased within a year of one another, all close to their 30th birthdays.

And their precocious beginnings are almost as well documented as their 'spiteful' attitudes, with biographers remarking on the sisters' history with animal abuse, disdain of young children and 'anger management issues'.

As revealed by literary critic Claire Harman in Charlotte Brontë: A Life, there was also the matter of the sisters' 'plain' and 'poorly' appearance.

According to the writer, Emily had a large protruding tooth, while Charlotte had hardly any teeth at all.

Undersized and undernourished, she was described by her fellow novelist, Elizabeth Gaskell, as having a forehead that was 'square, broad and rather overhanging'.

Emily, for one, while posted at Law Hill School in Halifax, reportedly said she 'preferred the company of the house dog' over her pupils, as shared by author Juliet Barker.

SHE WOULD RATHER CUDDLE A DOG THAN TEACH YOUR CHILD — AND SHE WASN'T SORRY! 

And while not as combustible as her sister, Charlotte wasn't to be trifled with either. When she taught at a girls' school in Brussels, she gave any student who displeased her a tremendous tongue-lashing.

'If those girls knew how I loathed their company, they would not seek mine as much as they do,' she wrote in her journal.

In fact, several of her pupils seemed to have loathed her as much as she loathed them - one even threw a stone at her.

SHE CALLED HER OWN SISTER'S MASTERPIECE "A MISTAKE" — CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S UNHINGED BETRAYAL EXPOSED!

Charlotte's family, it seems, were not immune from her criticisms. In an introduction to her sister Anne's second novel, Charlotte shared that 'Wildfell Hall it hardly appears to me desirable to preserve'.

'The choice of subject in that work is a mistake – it was too little consonant with the character – tastes and ideas of the gentle, retiring, inexperienced writer,' she continued. 

Historians have dubbed the jabs an attempt to 'consign her sister’s novel to oblivion'.

Emily's temperament was also well known and has been a topic of discussion for historians - despite claims that Charlotte had tried to 'clean up' her sister's image posthumously.  

And so on....

But this is not the worst sensationalist headline we read today. The Daily Star is not only concerned about the hordes of tourists descending upon Haworth... 

Sex-mad doggers are romping in the countryside that inspired Wuthering Heights

As new raunchy film version of Wuthering Heights has just hit cinemas randy revellers are getting frisky where the Brontë sisters penned their acclaimed books.

And we can reveal that randy revellers are getting frisky where the Brontë sisters penned their acclaimed books. There’s plenty of bodice-ripping action as lust-crazed couples invade the moors around the picturesque parish of Haworth for bawdy al-fresco frolics. (John Ward)

The New York Post highlights that "Wuthering Heights’ lives up to the hype, takes No. 1 at box office for second Friday in a row". Free Ex columnist Louise Perry and senior newsletter editor Emma Camp chat about the film in this Wall Street Journal clip. The South China Morning Post introduces Charlotte Mellington, who plays young Cathy in the film. The Sun interviews Jacob Elordi on, you know, hot scenes and all that:

And Jacob reveals there was ­sizzling chemistry between him and Margot, who plays love-struck Cathy, from the moment they met.

He said: “It’s like, ‘Action’ and it’s like a horse at the race track — straight out of the gates.”

But he insists that sex scenes are actually “no different to choreo- graphing a fight scene or a dance sequence”, explaining: “It’s super- technical, especially the scene where, it’s not a sex scene, but where I’m on top [of Margot] with my hands — that’s choreographed because, in that kind of light, you only have so much space to move. (Nadia Cohen)

A (Leeds) reader of The Sunday Times defends Jacob Elordi's Yorkshire accent in the film.

Nicolette Jones in The Times argues that

Most film adaptations of Wuthering Heights leave half the story untold. And while Emerald Fennell’s steamy adaptation may have caused a surge in sales of Emily Brontë’s novel, it is very much a different creation. The Easy Classics version follows the original far more literally.

Still, more reviews of the film:

However, the true failing of “Wuthering Heights” lies in its unwillingness to offer anything genuinely new. We are, perhaps, well past the cultural moment where explicit sex alone can pass for provocation. The shock value has dulled, and what remains feels curiously dated. The omission of the novel’s second half, a section frequently sacrificed in screen adaptations of Wuthering Heights, further positions this film as just another iteration: more polished, glamorous and decidedly raunchier than its predecessors, yet reluctant to meaningfully reinterpret its source material. The whirlwind sexual crescendo ultimately achieves little. Cathy’s fate is preordained and her death carries no tragic inevitability when the emotional groundwork has been hollowed out. 

Gothic literature thrives on transgression and repression: on the past’s refusal to remain buried. Strip away those tensions, and what remains is superficial. Here, the Gothic is reduced to aesthetic texture: wind-swept moors, crimson palettes, feverish bodies, a dark synth-pop soundtrack. Its spirit—moral rot, psychological cruelty, generational obsession—is conspicuously, and regrettably, absent. In the end, while “Wuthering Heights” may dazzle the eye, it hollowly fails to evoke Brontë’s corrosive psychological and social commentary in favour of lavish spectacle, sexualised shock, and aestheticised cruelty. (Hannah Tang in Strand Magazine)

I am a deeply proud Northern lass, and not many media pieces ever acknowledge our little corner of the world. Emily Brontë and her sisters were deeply inspired by the Moors in which they resided. It influenced their writing and greatly impacted their local community for what is now well over the past 170 years. It saddens me that Emily’s deeply intelligent work is being passed off as what is essentially explicit fanfiction (seriously, what was up with kneading the bread?) If this piece wins any awards, I will be questioning Hollywood’s, obviously declining, sanity. (Lily Orton in HerCampus) 

 Does all this contemporary hindsight into the fabric of Brontë’s epic novel make for a quintessential “Wuthering Heights?” Even allowing that such a thing were possible, probably not. While it presents a stylishly crafted and thrillingly cinematic take on this complex classic, richly enhanced by a superb and adventurous cast, it’s not likely to satisfy anyone looking for a faithful rendition, nor does it reveal a new angle from which the “romance” at its center looks anything other than toxic — indeed, it almost fetishizes the dysfunction. Even without the thorny debate around Heathcliff’s racial identity, there’s plenty here to prompt purists and revisionists alike to find fault with Fennell’s approach.

Yet for those looking for a new window into to this perennial classic, and who are comfortable with the radical flourish for which Fennell is already known, it’s an engrossing and intellectually stimulating exploration of this iconic story in a way that exchanges comfortable familiarity for unpredictable chaos — and for cinema fans, that’s more than enough reason to give “Wuthering Heights” a chance. (John Paul King in Los Angeles Blade)

 Robbie puts in the worst performance of her career by turning Catherine into a bratty, unbearable hypocrite; meanwhile, Elordi’s script must have only said, ”Stare maniacally”.

The film also struggles with its presentation. So much of it feels like a scene from Alice in Wonderland, but without the charm. It’s drab and gross.

Even the scenes in Edgar Linton’s mansion, which is supposed to be a grander-than-life setting, have an unsettling, unnatural sheen. It’s like the entire film was shot on a stage, but instead of sets, the film chooses to have a nasty greenscreen backdrop.

Funnell committed a terrible practical joke by releasing this film on the weekend of Valentine’s Day. Every couple expecting an intimate, romantic depiction of a famous novel will instead be subjected to a cruel and unusual parody.

The film is a miserable experience and is the first truly horrible movie of 2026.

Wuthering Heights is showing in cinemas around the country. (Jarryd Rowley in Region)

 Then again, maybe Fennell is just having a laugh at our expense. If you want to watch a spiritually faithful adaptation of Wuthering Heights, complete with sexually charged graveyard visits, a decades-long real estate scheme, and uh, yearning in spades, Saltburn is already that movie. It’s hard not to suspect that Fennell, in her clever and cynical way, just wanted to see if she could get away with turning fantasy casting plucked from the recesses of Tumblr into a major motion picture. Because the only other explanation I can conjure for the gooey mess that is “Wuthering Heights” is that Fennell doesn’t realize her promising artistic vision has been cuckooed by something all too ordinary instead. (Nicole Penn in The Dispatch)

 The film "Wuthering Heights" is an anti-love story that goes for visual feast and shock factor with the way the characters fulfilled their sexual fantasies rather than an exploration of a fierce love that defies class and convention. (Rachelle Siazon in Philippine Entertainment Portal)

“Cumbres borrascosas”, el libro, el clásico, no se parece a nada porque lleva los vínculos al límite. 

Heathcliff no es un héroe trágico: es la violencia que una sociedad ejerce sobre él y la que él mismo reproduce, implacable. Catherine queda atrapada entre su deseo y la necesidad de encajar en un orden que la asfixia-

Por eso el libro sigue ahí, embrujándonos a todos, y mucho más arriesgado que esta adaptación que le baja el voltaje y la convierte en una versión vistosa, hot y descremada. (Verónica Bonacchi in Diario Rio Negro) (Translation)

 Brontë no buscaba la perfección romántica; creó un universo de pasión desmedida, de frustración y de tormento. Un amor áspero, inquietante, que deja el alma en desasosiego. La película, en cambio, parece desconfiar de la inteligencia del espectador, como si fuera necesario subrayarlo todo, explicarlo todo, hacerlo más evidente —incluso a través de escenas prescindibles— para garantizar su comprensión.

El final, además, da la impresión de cerrar definitivamente la puerta a la continuación de la historia, como si la segunda generación nunca hubiera existido.

En conclusión, si deseas disfrutar plenamente de la película, quizá sea mejor no haber leído la novela. Pero si lo que buscas es comprender la intensidad, la oscuridad y la complejidad del amor que imaginó Emily Brontë, entonces acude al libro… y no esperes demasiado de la película. (María Beatriz Muñoz Ruiz in Diario Sabemos) (Translation)

 El resultado es una película que traiciona el espíritu del libro en nombre de una supuesta autenticidad. Porque el corazón de Cumbres borrascosas no es el sexo; es la imposibilidad. Es la herida abierta de un amor que no encuentra lugar en el mundo. Es el resentimiento que fermenta durante años. Es la crueldad que nace del abandono. La novela es violenta, pero su violencia es moral, psicológica, casi metafísica. Aquí, en cambio, la violencia se sexualiza. El dolor se erotiza. Y el espectador asiste a una saturación de escenas íntimas que no construyen personaje ni conflicto: solo ocupan tiempo.

Y, sin embargo, la película ofrece una paradoja que la redime parcialmente. En su tramo final, cuando el frenesí carnal se agota y los cuerpos dejan de ocupar el centro del encuadre, algo cambia. De repente, el silencio vuelve a tener peso. Las palabras, esas grandes ausentes durante buena parte del metraje, recuperan su lugar. Los personajes hablan, se enfrentan, se reprochan, se reconocen. Y entonces, casi milagrosamente, la película encuentra la profundidad que había estado buscando a golpes de piel.

Es en ese último acto -cuando el deseo ya no se expresa en sudor sino en diálogo- donde asoma la grandeza que el conjunto prometía. Las miradas pesan más que los cuerpos. Las frases hieren más que cualquier escena explícita. El dolor se verbaliza y, al hacerlo, adquiere una dimensión trágica que conecta, por fin, con el espíritu de la novela. Resulta irónico que la adaptación alcance su mejor momento precisamente cuando renuncia a su estrategia más insistente. (Amanda Ramos in El Plural) (Translation)

Mariana Enríquez also reviews the film for Página 12 (Argentina). And she goes straight to the major problems of the film:

 Una adaptación es una lectura, y las lecturas se definen no sólo por lo que se conserva del original, sino por lo que se elimina. Esa chica de 14 años, si le creemos a Fennell, quería más sexo, y por qué no. Cathy y Heathcliff se lo merecen. Pero hay muchas otras cosas que llevan al infierno en Cumbres Borrascosas, y acá es donde aparecen los lectores con el texto en la mano, porque esas otras cosas son esenciales y no están en la película, ni en texto ni en subtexto.

Fennell decide que Heathcliff no sea un abusador, un golpeador y un hombre cruel. ¿Por qué? Heathcliff, de origen incierto, es una víctima de abusos, está tan dañado que se transformó en un monstruo vengativo y solo se hizo rico para destruir a quienes lo rechazaron, maltrataron, degradaron y aislaron. El Heathcliff de Fennell recibe una paliza, pide permiso hasta para besar y jamás resulta peligroso. ¿Por qué llamarlo Heathcliff, entonces? ¿Si no se suicida, es Ofelia la de Hamlet? Fennell también cambia a la esposa de Heathcliff, Isabella, que en la película tiene una relación sadomasoquista con él, más o menos consentida, y chistosa. Elegir como alivio cómico a una mujer en cuatro patas, atada a la chimenea de lo caliente que está con Jacob Elordi es una provocación, por supuesto. Pero resulta que en la novela, esa mujer, después de ser golpeada, y (seguro) violada y encerrada, logra escapar con siete meses de embarazo y tira su anillo a la chimenea de marras, y esto en 1847, cuando la esposa era propiedad del marido. Es muy radical. ¿Por qué convertirla en alguien de quien reírse?

Los ejemplos pueden seguir, pero la decisión es clara: la tragedia está aplanada y sustituida por la historia de dos enamorados pasionales separados por las circunstancias y enloquecidos de deseo. En la novela, Heathcliff no vuelve en plan recuperar a su amada, regresa como una tormenta de odio que condensa y perpetúa toda la injusticia social que provocó su daño irreversible. No es cuestión de purismo.(...)

A veces, ser ligero y provocador es un alivio, es frescura y fiesta, una forma de desafío al poder. Y otras veces, como en estas Cumbres borrascosas, esa ligereza resulta hueca y reaccionaria. (Translation)

La visione di Fennell, innegabilmente personale, piena di gusto per l’iperbole e di forte intensità visiva, si scontra in definitiva con ciò che rende 'Cime tempestose' un classico: la sua capacità di trasformare dolore e desiderio in un’esperienza narrativa che non si esaurisce nello sguardo ma scava nelle viscere del lettore. Così alla fine, uscendo dalla sala, resta la sensazione di aver assistito a qualcosa di intenso ma incompleto. Come se il film avesse scelto di incarnare la tempesta, rinunciando deliberatamente a mostrarci le sue conseguenze. (Dario Vassallo in PrimoCanale) (Translation)

Filmink rescues a 1959 Australian TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights (likely lost):

The best -known adaptation (until this year) is probably the 1939 film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon – although AIP tried their luck with Timothy Dalton in 1970, and Cliff Richard did a musical Heathcliff, and there was a very respected 1953 BBC television version starring Richard Todd from a script by Nigel (Quatermass Experiment) Kneale. In fact, that BBC version was so respected that in 1959 the ABC decided “wow let’s use 1700 pounds to shoot this script even though it would be cheaper just to import a kinescope of the BBC production and we could have spent the rest of the funds on shooting a something local.” Incidentally, the BBC filmed Kneale’s script again in 1962 with Claire Bloom and Australia’s own Keith Michell in the leads – so, even if Kneale wrote it very hastily, by his own admission, he did pretty well out of it.

We’ll be upfront – we haven’t seen the 1959 ABC TV film of Wuthering Heights. It’s entirely possible that no copy survives – but we’ve read a lot about it and reproduce what knowledge we’ve ascertained below. (...)

The driving force behind the production was director Alan Burke, who specifically asked to do it. Burke was a competent director and from all accounts a very nice man, but like many Australian directors of his time (and now) he really wanted to be directing foreign scripts rather than local ones. (...)

Burke’s production of Wuthering Heights starred deejay Lew Luton as Heathcliff, Delia Williams as Cathy, Annette Andre as Isabella, and Richard Davies as Hindley. It was shot in Sydney and was mostly done live with some prerecorded segments. (Read more) (Stephen Vagg)

The Telegraph & Argus talks about the jet-setting trend (to travel to the real-world locations behind beloved films and television series), but it is basically an advert for the Wuthering Heights movie Airbnb at Holdsworth House. BuzzFeed lists film adaptations that "That Actually Slap Unlike That Trainwreck "Wuthering Heights" Movie We All Suffered Through":

Jane Eyre 2011

If you’re looking to put more of the psychological in psychological romance, this movie should do it. It’s what Fennell’s movie should have had, with more book accuracy and a weird plot twist. (Hannah Trimble)

NewsNine also includes Jane Eyre among "books that capture stormy love as intense as Wuthering Heights". QueVer (Spain) recommends Wuthering Heights 2009 as one of the most faitthful to the novel. RAI PlaySound announces the contents of its programme Racconti d'autore (RAI Radio 1):

Ragioni e sentimenti - radici dei classici e narrazione contemporanea - è il tema di “Incontri d’Autore”, la trasmissione coordinata da Francesca Cosentino, a cura della redazione Cultura e Spettacoli del Giornale Radio Rai, in onda domenica 22 febbraio su Rai Radio1 alle 00.40, per parlare di libri, di letteratura e di tutto quanto ci gira intorno. (...) Natalia Augias racconta della biografia di Charlotte Bronte scritta da Eleonor Houghton. Classici e cinema, le tante versioni di "Cime tempestose” - il servizio è di Baba Richerme. (Translation)

The Brussels Brontë Blog posts a summary of a recent talk by Jones Hayden, who set out to prove that the Brontë sisters had a genuine sense of humour, drawing on comic moments, witty character names, and laugh-out-loud exchanges from across their novels.