When Emerald Fennell, the provocative filmmaker behind Saltburn, announced her next project: a modern, erotic adaptation of Wuthering Heights, the internet couldn’t get enough of it. Emily Brontë’s only novel, published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, has always fascinated readers and filmmakers alike. Only a few works spark as much debate when reimagined. Now, with Fennell in charge and a Charli XCX soundtrack rumored to accompany the mystical moors, her Wuthering Heights is already becoming one of the most divisive literary adaptations in years.
The announcement of Heathcliff and Cathy’s casting divided audiences instantly. Some fans applauded Fennell, excited to see current famous hot-shots: Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in the old classic Wuthering Heights. Others accused her of whitewashing, absolving the original literary piece of one of its core aspects. The irony, of course, is that Brontë herself left Heathcliff’s ethnicity deliberately ambiguous, a literary decision that continues to haunt every adaptation.
But that ambiguity is intentional. Heathcliff’s difference: racial, cultural, and social, defines his place in the novel. Brontë describes him as “a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect”, with “a half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire.” She even calls him a “lascar”, a term once used for sailors from the Indian subcontinent. Scholars argue this suggests he was likely of Romani or South Asian descent. The Roma people, historically displaced from the Indian subcontinent, faced deep-rooted prejudice in Europe, exactly the kind of hostility Heathcliff endures from the Earnshaws.
The racism portrayed isn’t just background texture; it’s his origin story. Heathcliff’s mistreatment because of his skin and class fuels his transformation from abused orphan to a vengeful antihero. As stated in Catherine’s diary: “Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won’t let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more.” Those early humiliations shape his character. He transforms into a calculated and ruthless person; someone who doesn’t mind playing the long game. “I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!” When Heathcliff later swears revenge, “I want you to be aware that I know you have treated me infernally—infernally!”, it’s not just personal; it’s systemic, and reveals more about Brontë’s social and political context.
That’s why the casting debate matters. A white Heathcliff can still embody class struggle, but it strips away the racial commentary Brontë was making. By erasing his visible ‘otherness’, the story loses one of its sharpest critiques: how society creates monsters out of those it refuses to accept.
In Fennell’s adaptation, this long-standing ambiguity has become the film’s lightning rod. Is her Wuthering Heights revising history, or reclaiming it?
If the casting didn’t stir enough controversy, the trailer certainly did. The film looks to amplify the sexual tension that simmers beneath Brontë’s text, transforming emotional torment into pure explicit eroticism. Critics have accused Fennell of turning a novel about cruelty and obsession into stylized and romanticised pornography of pain. In a lot of ways, this can be very problematic, glamorizing abuse and toxicity within romantic relationships. On the other hand, supporters counter that her approach exposes the raw sexuality that Victorian critics suppressed.
After all, Wuthering Heights has in some ways zoomed in on the violent intersections of desire, control, and social constraint. Fennell’s unapologetic eroticization may not betray Brontë’s vision, and it may in fact reveal it. [...]
Personally, I’m always intrigued when I hear about a new film or series based on a book I’ve read. Yet, honestly I’m almost always disappointed, no matter how “faithful” it tries to be. If the adaptation doesn’t perfectly match the version of the story that played in my head, it feels off. That’s the curse of being a reader: no film can ever recreate the imagination that built those characters for you.
Still, maybe that’s the point. Screenwriting is its own art form, limited by time, by what the camera can capture, by what dialogue can convey. It’s impossible to expect a film to transmit every inner thought, every shadow of emotion, and every complex relationship the way prose does. So maybe we shouldn’t judge adaptations by how closely they mimic the book, but by how honestly they reinterpret it.
The outrage around Wuthering Heights is really part of this bigger debate: what do filmmakers owe the source material? Adaptations have always walked a tightrope between faithfulness and reinvention. What about Harry Potter’s missing subplots, or how The Hunger Games shifted from social critique to a trilogical spectacle? Even the recent One Day series sparked discussion when Ambika Mod was cast as Emma; a choice that reframed the story through a new lens of representation.
Fennell’s Wuthering Heights belongs squarely in that tradition. Whether you see it as a daring evolution or an unforgivable desecration depends on how you view art itself, as preservation or as provocation. Of course, there is a thin line between just having an artistic opinion and fully removing elements that are core parts of the original piece’s identity.
Wuthering Heights has never been a comforting story; nor should it be seen as an idealised love story. It’s a howl of obsession, revenge, and love at its ugliest. To sanitize that would be a betrayal. And maybe, for all its controversy, Fennell’s version will capture that brutality better than any before. We can’t know for sure yet. The real question is whether her characteristically unorthodox and maximalist approach will highlight Brontë’s darkness, or bury it under excess. (Carol De Rocha Caruso De Lima)
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