Wuthering Heights Adaptation Ignites Culture Desk Civil War at The Independent
Are you currently questioning your relationships with friends and family members over their opinions regarding Emerald Fennell's flamboyant bodice-ripper adaptation? You are certainly not alone in this experience. Here at The Independent, the release of the new Wuthering Heights film has created deeper divisions within our culture desk than any previous cultural phenomenon. In an effort to foster understanding and reconciliation, we have invited seven of our writers to articulate their passionately held perspectives on this polarizing cinematic work.
A Cinematic Earthquake in the Newsroom
Historical moments like Brexit, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and even the infamous blue-black versus white-gold dress debate all pale in comparison to the dramatic upheaval witnessed across The Independent's culture desk during the initial days following the Wuthering Heights premiere. Emerald Fennell's unconventional adaptation—featuring grass-eating, dough-handling, and loosely interpreted elements from Emily Brontë's literary masterpiece—has served as a revealing indicator of underlying tensions within our office environment, bringing longstanding disagreements to the surface and intensifying inter-departmental rivalries.
To be perfectly clear, we have simply experienced profound and genuine disagreement about this particular film, with Fennell solidifying her reputation as perhaps the most divisive filmmaker working today. The questions circulating our office have been relentless and varied: "Was Margot Robbie's performance intentionally stylized in that manner?", "What is the consensus on Jacob Elordi's gold tooth?", and "Did I genuinely enjoy Wuthering Heights, or was there potentially a gas leak affecting my perception in the cinema?"
At the explicit request of our human resources department, we have been instructed to calmly articulate our fragmented perspectives about the film in this public forum. We must formally declare that each individual interpretation of the movie remains valid and legitimate. These viewpoints do not reflect positively or negatively upon the respective writers expressing them, and no participant will face mockery, commendation, or derision for their thoughts regarding Emerald Fennell's creative vision. A collective sigh of relief has been heard throughout the building.
The Writers' Verdict: From Enthusiastic Praise to Scathing Criticism
Katie Rosseinsky approached her Friday evening cinema visit with a singular expectation from Wuthering Heights: an outstanding performance from Martin Clunes. On this specific criterion, the film unquestionably delivered. Could this signal Martin Clunes entering his prestige era? Might Doc Martin follow Olivia Colman's trajectory toward Hollywood recognition? Beyond this achievement, however, the film elicited little more than an indifferent shrug. The adaptation failed to achieve the cleverness and scandalous impact that Emerald Fennell clearly intended. Her persistent tendency toward relentless aestheticization ultimately stripped away emotional depth and nuanced storytelling, rendering one of literature's most strange and fascinating works feeling remarkably flat and emotionally vacant.
Annabel Nugent acknowledges the ease with which one might succumb to Wuthering Heights criticism, recognizing that certain acting performances appear questionable and the adaptation significantly simplifies Emily Brontë's classic novel. Yet when she feels herself beginning to align with the joyless naysayers, she recalls genuinely enjoying her cinematic experience. Between the highly stylized, Yorgos Lanthimos-inspired sets, Charli XCX's soaring musical score, and the abundant sexually charged silent longing depicted on screen, numerous elements distract from the film's more obvious shortcomings. While the film lacks profound meaning or depth, must every cinematic experience necessarily provide these elements?
Patrick Smith observes that few contemporary directors polarize audience opinion as dramatically as Emerald Fennell. For most viewers, her films represent either brilliant achievements or unmitigated disasters. His personal assessment places Wuthering Heights in the middle ground—a film that is simply fine. At its strongest moments, it presents as a bold, glistening, schlocky melodrama featuring a Charli XCX soundtrack that embeds itself in the listener's consciousness. At its weakest, however, the narrative drags and fails to generate sufficient heat. This film is best appreciated with generous quantities of wine.
Roisin O'Connor expresses outright loathing for this cinematic interpretation. She believes the film reveals much about the contemporary film industry's condescending assumption that audiences lack intelligence for anything beyond superficial treatments of genuine art. Perhaps it also suggests that Emerald Fennell's Oxford English Literature degree was fundamentally wasted. While Wuthering Heights presents challenging literary material, its central themes—colonialism, destructive love, revenge, religious hypocrisy, and class conflict—remain entirely relevant today. None of these themes materialize in Fennell's adaptation, replaced instead by what resembles an extended Charli XCX music video reflecting Fennell's teenage interpretation of Heathcliff and Cathy as star-crossed lovers separated by simple misunderstanding. The opening scene particularly raises questions: what motivated Fennell to depict a gormless, lust-driven villager group descending into orgasmic frenzy at the sight of a hanged man's erect penis? This choice speaks volumes about her perception of the audience.
Ellie Muir respectfully urges everyone to maintain perspective. Book adaptations occur regularly, and while this particular interpretation diverges dramatically from its source material—she argues that character names provide the only resemblance to Brontë's novel—this remains a wildly entertaining and aesthetically beautiful film. She entered the cinema expecting to dislike it, influenced by overwhelming pre-release discourse and the notably smutty trailer. Yet the film provoked laughter, tears, and cringing reactions. She occasionally needed to cover her eyes during particularly uncomfortable fish-poking and egg-yolk scenes. Furthermore, the soundtrack carries significant weight when dodgy accents become irritating. Approach the film with an open mind, and you might discover an enjoyable experience.
Helen Coffey suggests that viewers expecting a faithful interpretation of a challenging literary classic will naturally sneer at this film—but she doubts this was ever Emerald Fennell's intention. This adaptation represents "porn for women," pure and simple—a treatment of Wuthering Heights comparable to Bridgerton's relationship with Pride and Prejudice. Viewed through the lens of erotic fan fiction that captures what many people mistakenly believe the novel represents—forbidden love ending tragically—while incorporating elements that genuinely excite audiences: high production values, sumptuous costumes, and romantic leads possessing sexual chemistry without the inconvenient problematic traits of original characters, the film approaches genius.
Jessie Thompson identifies one universally acknowledged characteristic of the novel Wuthering Heights: it's excessive. Similarly, one could confidently state that Emerald Fennell's big-screen, quotation-mark-embraced "Wuthering Heights" is equally excessive—perhaps excessively so. This very quality explains her appreciation for the adaptation. Emily Brontë's singular novel has empowered female artists from Kate Bush to Sylvia Plath to embrace excessiveness for decades, and there exists genuine joy in embracing the artistic maximalism that Fennell wholeheartedly adopts. The film is excessively bright, excessively ribald, and features characters of excessive beauty. While unfaithful to the book (a relief, in her opinion), it remains faithful to the novel's spirit—at least during the first half. Sometimes she wished Fennell would stop distracting viewers with pretty visuals and allow sexual tension to simmer between the doomed lovers, but this isn't that type of film. Who concerns themselves with such matters when a film provides this much entertainment? The divisiveness fascinates and thrills her. Do we remain this protective about GCSE set texts? Are we still this unwilling to engage with a woman's artistic vision on its own terms? Wuthering Heights is excessive—it's designed to be exactly that.
