The Scary Lady Who Lived in the Attic

Time Out also covers the increase in visitors in Haworth:

Always wanted to step right into Heathcliff and Cathy’s sort-of-love story? Clearly, you’re not alone.

Since it was released on February 13 one thing Emerald Fennel’s somewhat controversial adaptation of ‘Wuthering Heights’ has done is show just how beautiful Yorkshire can be. As a result, Haworth, a tiny hilltop village in God’s Own County, has been swept up in ‘Brontëmania’. Local businesses and guides have apparently reported a major uptake in bookings since the film’s release. (...)

If you’re hoping to make your own Brontëmania trip, the nearest local station is Keighley in Yorkshire – which is on the East Coast Main Line and a direct LNER train away from London, Leeds, York, Newcastle and Edinburgh.

Once you’ve made it to Keighley, Haworth is less than an hour ride away on the Brontëbus – yes that’s really what it's called. For only three quid, the bus takes you past iconic Brontë locations (as well as where The Railway Children was filmed). (Anna Mahtani)

Wuthering Heights still remains in the top ten of the Fiction Paperback Sunday Times Bestsellers List. It's number 9. 

The Los Angeles Review of Books reviews Emerald Fennell's film:

Emerald Fennell’s sexed-up take on Emily Brontë’s gothic romance feels empty. (...)

Maybe Fennell’s Wuthering Heights was, like its protagonists, doomed from the start. If nothing else, watching it has made me wonder why our culture is so invested in this gothic tale as a paragon of romantic longing. Brontë’s novel is about two people whose love, cankered by misunderstanding, narcissism, and a soupçon of undiagnosed mental illness, devolves into a rage that destroys them and their estates; the traditional love plot it is not. Fennell is not particularly interested in exploring that material, but she also doesn’t have enough grasp of the power and promise of romance to produce the film it seems she wanted to make. She missed the essence of Charli XCX’s repetitive call to “fall in love again and again” in “Everything is romantic,” the track used to mesmerizing, vibes-enhancing effect in the film’s early trailer.

She missed the romance, missed why, with the right book or film, we crave letting ourselves fall in love over and over and over. (Eric Newman)

Amd Design Scene:

 Because the novel itself was not polite Victorian entertainment. It was wild, obsessive, and deeply strange. Catherine and Heathcliff behave like forces of nature, not characters designed to teach moral lessons. In that sense, the chaotic energy of “Wuthering Heights” feels strangely appropriate.

The internet may continue to argue about casting, costumes, accents, and Charli XCX. The discourse will probably last months. But inside a cinema, away from social media commentary, the film reveals itself as something much simpler.

Not a sacred text.

Just a loud, messy, visually striking movie that is actually pretty fun to watch. (Katarina Doric)

Even The Namibian (Namibia):

If you’re a purist looking for a faithful adaptation of Catherine and Heathcliff’s destructive, often sadistic but seemingly chaste and tragic love story, you’re going to be pissed. Fennell’s screen adaptation pointedly puts “Wuthering Heights” in quotation marks for multiple reasons. (...)

As someone who reread the book immediately before watching the recent adaptation, the film left a lot to be desired.

In Brontë’s book, just about everyone is kind of awful. A number of her characters, especially Heathcliff, are selfish, vengeful and violent and there is a supernatural element that looms over it all in a way that is fascinating and thoroughly unsettling.

In Fennell’s film adaptation, Heathcliff in particular is highly sanitised. (Martha Mukaiwa)

Maybe the LARB's reviewer would prefer one of the Wuthering Heights rewritings recommended in Women:

 If this isn't up your alley, the good news is that there are five books out there that have successfully reimagined "Wuthering Heights". "Here on Earth" by Alice Hoffman will satisfy any gothic romance craving. "What Souls Are Made Of" by Tasha Suri, part of the Remixed Classics series, reimagines "Wuthering Heights" through an Indian lens. For a fantasy twist, readers can enjoy "Ruthless Devotion" by Rebecca Kenney. In "For No Mortal Creature" by Keshe Chow, Brontë's classic is retold through a world of dark romance and Chinese superstitions. "The Favorites" by Layne Fargo portrays Cathy and Heathcliff's turbulent relationship through professional ice skaters competing at the Winter Olympics in the 21st century. Whatever you're craving, these books are guaranteed to fix the Brontë blues. (Danielle Summer)

La Opinión de Murcia thinks that the only reason to watch the film is Jacob Elordi:

Ver a Heathcliff proclamar que "no puede vivir sin su vida y no puede vivir sin su alma" mientras luce un perfil donde hay músculos que ni siquiera sabía que existían genera un cortocircuito en las generaciones de ahora. (...)

Teniendo clarísimo que la película es bastante mala y una versión muy libre del libro, tenía muchas ganas de ver qué sucedía en la sala de cine y cuál era la reacción de quienes acuden a ver la película. La realidad ha superado mis expectativas. La directora no ha rodado un drama gótico, ha filmado un deseo colectivo en un mundo de ghosting y frialdad digital; ver a un semidiós moderno sufrir por amor nos parece la más envidiable de las fantasías que puede que ninguna confesara jamás. (Belén Unzurrunzaga) (Translation)

Youth Journalism International:

 Fennell leans all the way in. The film is decadent and drenched in color. Cathy’s beautiful, vivid ballgowns stand out against the Longley mansion’s abundance and excess, and even the walls of her bedroom, painted almost exactly the color of her own skin, down to the nerves, create an unsettling intimacy.

It’s visually rich – almost indulgent – yet always heavy with doom.

Costume design deserves serious praise. Robbie stuns in exquisite period dresses and deep red frocks that mirror Cathy’s emotional turbulence. The opulence never feels accidental – it amplifies her mood swings.

Alison Oliver’s Isabella adds an unexpected edge. She brings comic timing to a character who is, at her core, deeply insecure and slightly twisted. Watching her willingly allow herself to be degraded by Heathcliff is uncomfortable. She is vulnerable, desperate for love and craving control in the only way she thinks she can claim it. It’s disturbing, but compelling. (Anjola Fashawe)

Papel en Blanco (Spain):

 En conclusión, un producto entretenido y de alta calidad, pero que ha sido relegado de la esencia original de la obra a una simple historia de pasión, que dentro de unos años nadie recordará. Sin embargo, la novela de Emily Brontë seguirá perdurando como clásico de la literatura universal por su complejidad emocional y social. (Mercè Homar Mas) (Translation)

Libertad Digital (Spain): 

De algo parecido adolece Cumbres borrascosas según nos la intentan empotrar en esta última adaptación al cine. Sin duda Jacob Elordi y Margot Robbie son dos de las personas más agraciadas que se hayan puesto jamás delante de una cámara. Derrochan fotogenia. Lo que no derrochan, por desgracia, es ninguna química. Encerrados los dos en las respectivas burbujas de una fría estética narcisista, la cámara tiene que hacer milagros para arrancar algún destello aislado de morbo que a lo mejor funciona en un vídeo cortito de TikTok, para la promoción y tal y tal. Pero luego vas al cine y la película vista del tirón se te hace larga y tediosa. Quien busque las emociones fuertes que el marketing promete, las encontrará antes en un cruce de miradas entre Humphrey Bogart e Ingrid Bergman en Casablanca, que en el señor Elordi tirándole del corsé a la señora Robbie. (Anna Grau) (Translation)

Cine Culto (Spain):

Cumbres Borrascosas (2026) es una película fallida con momentos de belleza real, pero entre la megalomanía estética y la superficialidad emocional termina siendo una linda y tóxica forma de romantizar la dependencia sin el valor de explorar por qué eso duele. (Luis Zúñiga) (Translation)

Buro247 gives the film a 4 out of 10:

 Where “Wuthering Heights” ultimately fails is her inability to replace the core themes and messaging in Brontë’s novel, which she stripped away with material that makes for a new, provocative, and unique interpretation.

Rather, Fennell did not care for the character’s interior and exterior lives, only wishing to “smuttify” a beloved literary classic in the hopes that audiences would be satisfied with watching two beautiful people get steamy in beautiful backdrops. (Marissa Chin)

Raio Ángulo (Cuba) reviews the new(?) film, but clearly, they have not seen it. The author of these new articles in Her Campus and El Generacional, at least, did. The RNE podcast, Tres en la carretera also reviews the film. Die Welt (Germany) explores the GenZ reactions to the novel or the movie.

Movie-Locations fittingly explores Wuthering Heights 2026's locations. The Telegraph & Argus lists a top ten of tourist attractions around Bradford, including the Parsonage, of course.

The Observer interviews Shazad Latif, Linton, in the film:

In Emerald Fennell’s rendering of Wuthering Heights, Latif plays Edgar Linton, the well-to-do textiles merchant who marries the story’s protagonist, Cathy, played by Margot Robbie. Traditionally, Linton is a dull, sensible foil to Cathy’s true love, Heathcliff, butFennell and Latif had other ideas for their version of the character.“We wanted to make him less of the pathetic guy he comes across as in the book,” he says, “and more of a real rival to Heathcliff.” Linton’s visceral devotion to his new bride is apparent when Cathy arrives at his dreamlike manor house, where one bedroom wall is decorated, complete with veins and moles, to mimic her own skin. (...) 

One of the numerous controversies surrounding Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is an accusation of whitewashing. In Brontë’s novel, Heathcliff is described as a Lascar, a term for a sailor from India or south-east Asia; the casting of Elordi, a white man, in the role has raised eyebrows in corners of the internet. When I bring it up, he says, “If anything, it shouldn’t be on me, or any person of colour, to comment on this. It’s one for the industry. What is cool, to me, is being able to play these roles. We’re adding colour back into period dramas becausewe’ve always been there.” Understandably, he would rather focus on the ease with which his own heritage was woven into the narrative.“We were able to flesh out this backstory, which included the Linton family being from South Asia and adopting Isabella, who is white, as a ward. It adds another dimension to the story.” (Michaela Makusha)

And The Times does the same with Martin Clunes, Mr. Earnshaw in the film:

In Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, Clunes is the one dishing out the floggings, in a bravura performance as Cathy’s dissolute father. He looked like he was having enormous fun, with his mouthful of terrible teeth, and also on the red carpet, where he was the one person grinning alongside Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi and Charli XCX. “I loved it, loved it,” he says. “My wife trod on Charli’s dress at the premiere, but it didn’t rip.” (...)

When Clunes was working on Wuthering Heights, Fennell told him the audience needed to like Mr Earnshaw, even though he was cruel. (Melissa Denes)

Nerd Daily interviews the writer Lai Sanders:

Melissa Dumpleton: The first book you ever remember reading: 

L.S.: There’s no way this won’t sound ridiculously pretentious, but I think it was Jane Eyre, when I was around six. I was staying at my grandparents’ apartment that summer, and it was one of the few books on my grandfather’s bookshelf that wasn’t about engineering. All I remember is having recurring nightmares about the scary lady who lived in the attic.

The iPaper recommends Jane Eyre... as a psychological thriller: 

“It was only while re-reading this book a few years ago that I realised this wasn’t just the coming-of-age story I’d always assumed it to be. First published under the pen name of Currer Bell in 1847, Jane Eyre is also a masterclass in psychological suspense with all the hallmarks of the genre: the first-person narrator with a dark past, the creepy old house, the strange noises and goings-on in the dead of night, the twists and turns, the lies, deceit, and fear.

“When Jane arrives at Thornfield Hall to be a governess, she soon picks up that there is something strange about both the mansion, with its rambling corridors and forbidden spaces, and its elusive master, Mr Rochester. Is the house haunted? And what is the secret in the attic?” (Anna Bonet)

Mae's Food Blog reviews Jane Eyre.