If one is thinking of acing a book report by watching writer-director Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 gothic romance Wuthering Heights, well, I have news for you — and a really bad one at that. However, when it comes to pure, unadulterated creative indulgence, one would be hard pressed to find a better specimen of keeping the source material’s emotional core alive, no matter the deviances and debauchery.

See, as adaptations go, this is quite — what is that word — artistic? expressive? inspired? sexually depraved? Perhaps they all fit, and then some. One can see it working as a carnally driven, hard-romance Valentine’s Day release, though only for adults. A Ramazan release doesn’t work at all, even for those who might want to see it.

Wuthering Heights is a tragic story of the consequences of a childhood attachment destroyed by social ambition. Taken into the Earnshaw family, the orphan Heathcliff forms an intense bond with Catherine — and vice versa — which is shattered when she chooses status and stability over passion by marrying her neighbouring estate’s rich owner, Edgar.

Shunned and wounded, Heathcliff returns years later to initiate a deliberate campaign of revenge, entangling both families in cycles of bitterness, obsession and emotional retribution. It is this volatile emotional violence — rather than the novel’s melancholy — that Fennell chooses to amplify.

Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights makes for a beguiling, edgy, restive update

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi star as Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, the toxic couple. Elordi played the monster in Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein — but that creature was just a monster in name; Heathcliff is the real deal, as is Catherine.

The toxicity and sexual tension is as prevalent as Fennell’s unflinching, controlled direction. Rarely does one see such grip across the board, be it beautiful 35mm Vista-Vision cinematography (Linus Sandgren shot La La Land and No Time To Die), the perfect use of production design (Suzie Davies did Mr Turner and Conclave), or the aching, propulsive blend of Anthony Willis’s score and Charli XCX’s songs.

The performances are hardcore, on the edge, modern, yet somehow fitting to Brontë’s era, even if the casting plays the diversity card. Heathcliff, who is defined as a dark-skinned gypsy or Lascar in the novel, is now white (his childhood version is played by Adolescence’s prodigy Owen Cooper). Nelly — originally the housekeeper, now reimagined as Catherine’s paid companion — was white, but is now Asian (she is played by Hong Chau). Edgar Linton is now South Asian, when once he too was white (he is played by Shazad Latif). Mr Earnshaw and Isabella Linton, like Catherine, preserve their ethnicity (the actors are Martin Clunes and Alison Oliver — both excellent). The changes sting but, somehow, that doesn’t matter five minutes in.

Most of the story is from Brontë’s book, just aggressively trimmed to accommodate the doomed romance. Subplots vanish, as does the latter half of the novel, where the narrative shifts to the second generation. In all honesty, there was no need for them here in the first place. As far as film versions go, the omission is not merely a matter of economy, but of necessity.

William Wyler’s 1939 version, starring Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier and David Niven, also cuts out the second generation, and yet the film was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. The 1992 adaptation, starring Ralph Fiennes (in his debut) and Juliette Binoche, and the critically celebrated 2011 version with Kaya Scodelario and James Howson, likewise abandon that material. However, a 1970 adaptation with Timothy Dalton remains the cruellest to Brontë’s story as a whole.

While I am not a fan of deviances from original works, the kind of trimmings and excesses Fennell weaves into this version’s DNA, makes for a beguiling, edgy, restive update.

Because of that, a word of advice: don’t do a book report by watching this film… or any prior version for that matter.

Released by Warner Bros and HKC, the film is rated A, and has sexual situations. It is definitely suited for 18 years and, preferably, much, much older

The writer is Icon’s film reviewer

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 1st, 2026