As soon as the “Wuthering Heights” movie was announced it was met with controversy. Many fans of the book were disappointed with the more romanticized and whimsical tone that was seen in the various teasers, while others were more upset by the casting of Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff.
One of the concerns many people had regarding the movie when teasers were first released was the romanticised view of the story. For those who have read the book, this change was striking because it undermined one of the core themes of the book: obsession.
From what was seen in the trailer, the movie seems to be portraying Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship as a fairytale love story. This idea is far from the truth when it comes to the book; in the novel, their love story is one of obsession and toxicity.
In response to this backlash on the romantic tone of the film, director Emerald Fennell said in an interview, “I wanted to make something that was the book that I experienced when I was 14.” She uses this logic to justify the intense and more sexualized aspects of the film.
However, even this justification has received mixed feelings. Some fans, after hearing the reasoning for her style choices, have started to come around to this new interpretation of a classic story. Meanwhile, others have seen this as further proof that this is a bad adaptation of the book and predict that the story will fall flat or be tone deaf.
One of the biggest controversies to come from this film was the choice to cast Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. In the book, Heathcliff is described as “dark-skinned.” As a result of his race, he faces prejudice and classism, which heavily affect his character and his relationship with Catherine, another main character.
Aside from this casting completely ignoring the representation of a person of color, it is also ignorant of the implications Heathcliff’s race has on the story and the main relationship. Elordi and Fennell have received much hate about this casting in the past months and have responded by saying that this casting choice is just part of Fennell’s new take on the classic.
Elordi has said when talking about the movie, “This is Emerald’s vision, and these are the images that came to her head at 14 years old; somebody else’s interpretation of a great piece of art is what I’m interested in – new images, fresh images, original thoughts.”
With release day just around the corner and interviews and press conferences still coming out at an extreme rate, it’s hard to see what this movie has in store. If all the controversy has anything to say about how this movie will do, it will definitely be an interesting one.
