Love, lust, loathing in new Wuthering Heights adaptation

DIRECTED by Emerald Fennell and starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, Wuthering Heights arrives burdened with one of literature’s most volatile love stories.

This 2026 adaptation streamlines Emily Brontë’s dense and layered novel into something far more direct and visceral. Whether that streamlining works depends on what you value in the story.

By most accounts from readers of the novel, much of the book’s structural complexity and narrative twists have been removed. The plot here feels simplified, almost flattened.

It moves cleanly from childhood trauma to obsessive adulthood without the intricate framing that made the novel feel so suffocating and cyclical. The result is more accessible, but also arguably less powerful.

What the film lacks in narrative depth, it compensates for in sheer sensory impact.

Carnality over longing

This version of Wuthering Heights leans heavily into physical desire. The romance between Catherine (Robbie) and Heathcliff (Elordi) is intensely sexualised, foregrounding their affair in ways that strip away some of the novel’s tortured spiritual longing. Instead of yearning defined by repression, this is desire made explicit.

There is an unsettling edge to their connection that the film does not shy away from. Cathy names Heathcliff after her deceased brother. They grow up together under the same roof, raised almost as siblings. The implication adds a layer of discomfort that makes their later intimacy feel transgressive rather than romantic.

Whether that tension is deliberate commentary or simply provocative staging is unclear, but it lingers.

Everyone in this story is terrible, but none more so than Cathy and Heathcliff. Cathy is bratty, immature and perpetually dissatisfied. Her marriage to Edgar Linton offers her a fairy tale escape from poverty, complete with wealth and status, yet she remains deeply unhappy. In a time when divorce was not an option for women, her frustration feels historically grounded, even if her choices are selfish and destructive.

Elordi’s Heathcliff is controlled and intelligent, almost serene on the surface. Beneath that calm lies something far darker. His obsession with Cathy curdles into cruelty. He is lovelorn but broken, capable of profound devotion and profound depravity in equal measure. Elordi plays him with a silent intensity that contrasts sharply with Robbie’s more volatile performance.

Despite their seven-year age difference, Robbie and Elordi are convincing as childhood peers turned doomed lovers. Robbie leans into Cathy’s immaturity, making her feel emotionally stunted and impulsive. Elordi, meanwhile, brings a jaded restraint to Heathcliff, making him feel prematurely aged by trauma.

Owen Cooper, as young Heathcliff, is particularly striking. Known for his breakout role in Adolescence (2025), he conveys the character’s rage and humiliation with heartbreaking clarity. In his softer features, you can see the abuse shaping the man Heathcliff will become.

Visual triumph

If there is one area where the film is undeniably successful, it is in its visual design.
Cinematographer Linus Sandgren captures the English countryside in sweeping wide shots of rocky hills and cliffs that emphasise isolation. The landscape feels vast and lonely, mirroring the emotional desolation of its characters.

The interiors are just as deliberate. Wuthering Heights itself is oppressive, with its jagged rocks looming behind it and its dark, cramped spaces creating a sense of suffocation. Thrushcross Grange, by contrast, is vibrant and ornate. The colours are rich and eye popping, almost surreal against the film’s deep blacks.

The set design is meticulous, especially in the Grange, where excess and beauty mask emotional decay.

The soundtrack is unexpectedly modern. Anthony Willis’ score is complemented by songs from Charli XCX, amplifying moods rather than adhering strictly to period authenticity. It is a bold choice that enhances the heightened tone of the film.

Elordi’s gothic range

It is hard not to compare Elordi’s performance here to his recent turn in Frankenstein (2025) directed by Guillermo del Toro. In that adaptation, he played a dark, aloof figure whose innocence and warmth slowly emerged. Heathcliff is the inverse. There is no innocence to uncover, no moral centre waiting to be redeemed.

The contrast highlights Elordi’s range as an actor capable of embodying vastly different shades of gothic masculinity.

Whitewashing discourse

There has been controversy surrounding the casting of Heathcliff. In Brontë’s novel, the character is described as dark skinned, possibly of Spanish or Romani descent.

Casting a white actor has sparked debate. Some argue it erases the racial ambiguity central to Heathcliff’s outsider status. Others speculate that depicting a brown man aggressively pursuing a white married woman in such a sexually charged adaptation could have veered into racist caricature.

Wuthering Heights does not meaningfully engage with this tension. Instead, it sidesteps it entirely, focusing on aesthetic intensity over sociopolitical nuance.

Final thoughts

At 136 minutes, Wuthering Heights is less interested in faithfully translating the novel than in reimagining it as a chic, carnal gothic melodrama.

It is visually stunning and frequently compelling. But by simplifying the plot and foregrounding physicality over emotional and spiritual torment, it sacrifices some of the story’s haunting complexity.

This is not high literature on screen. It is mood, colour and desire turned up to full volume. Whether that is enough depends on what you wanted from the storm.

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 The Sun Malaysia