Emerald Fennell's adaptation of Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights' has been criticised for missing the point of the gothic classic, turning a tale of abuse and obsession into a 'sexless horn-fest'. Critics argue that Fennell has neutered Heathcliff, the original literary incel, reducing him to a 'walking ick' rather than the fiery wrecking ball of the novel.
The film opens with a public hanging, where the condemned man's gasps are sexualised, and a nun's death-roll of the eyes mimics sexual climax. These cheap gags are described as 'edge-lord tactics', setting a tone that diverges sharply from Brontë's ghost-haunted, grave-digging narrative.
Fennell has said the novel is 'dense and difficult', but critics counter that Greta Gerwig's 'Little Women' proves otherwise. The film's tone is inconsistent, veering from tacky horror to a Disney-ified hellscape, with the Wuthering Heights house perched on a cliff—a metaphor critics call 'moronic'.
Jacob Elordi's Heathcliff, attempting a Yorkshire accent, has been widely panned. In the original, Heathcliff is a man of colour, but Fennell whitewashes him, using only the garbled accent to mark him as 'Other'. Critics call this lazy at best, whitewashing at worst.
The film is 'unnecessarily horny yet totally sexless', with sloppy liquid imagery—kneading dough, masturbation on the moors, finger-licking—that fails to capture the novel's depth. Fennell's 'Wuthering Heights' is a hollow romp that misses the gothic horror and complex abuse at the story's core.
