by Tom Farrelly
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau, Martin Clunes, Alison Oliver, Millie Kent
Intro:
You’ll either hate it or lust it.
It’s only been out for one night and much has already been said about Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. It appears that there are only two possible reactions, you either bitterly despise this film like it personally wronged you or you’re head over heels as it’s awoken/re-awoken something deep in your loins.
You’ll either hate it or lust it.
The writer/director of Saltburn has adapted the Emily Bronte classic Wuthering Heights, and it’s sexually charged, erratic, over-stylised, unsubtle and stupidly entertaining. Fennel’s fingerprints are all over this and they are at this point, globally recognisable. Think Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby.
The marriage of the source material and the filmmaker makes perfect sense. Fennell thrives in the wet and the mist of the remote Scottish moors, everything is turned up to 11. If The Iron Lung had the highest fake blood budget of all time, Wuthering Heights must hold the same record for fog and rain.
The cinematography, particularly of the natural surrounds, is at times genuinely jaw dropping, at other times it’s like we’ve fallen into Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The sets often appear dollhouse and Margot Robbie’s Catherine in all her costume and makeup, is an enlarged head away from Helena Bonham Carter’s Queen of Hearts.
Everything feels cartoonish (a lot of Shrek about this), you know the sunset isn’t that red, the castle isn’t that tall, and the fog isn’t that thick. Margot can’t be that pretty and Elordi’s jaw can’t be that sharp. That artificiality extends to the emotional core of the film. Fennell directs with such ham-fistedness, that Robbie and Elordi never show us a real reason for the stakes to be so high. Catherine and Heathcliff are in love because they say they are, their soul is one because Catherine declares it, they are physically so compatible because they are both unquestionably gorgeous, is that enough?
If you can stomach the bad accents, the obnoxious visual foreshadowing (an eye-watering red floor comes to mind), the melodramatic performances and the stilted Victorian dialogue, there is a genuine good time to be had here. It’s hot people doing hot things against a borderline otherworldly setting. You can easily sit back and enjoy the ride.
Emerald Fennell leaves no room for maybes, she is swinging for the fences which in itself is commendable. Ultimately, Wuthering Heights is an enormous, messy, indulgent, tragic, romp that will split people down the middle. If you manage your expectations, you’ll find yourself on the pleased side of the room.
