“Wuthering Heights” (2026): Beautiful, but Weightless

On February 13, 2026, the new version of  2026 film adapted from Wuthering Heights was released in global theaters. The film, directed by Emerald Fennell and starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, achieved excellent box office results of more than $240 million because of its Gothic visual style and an acoustic album written by Charlie XCX. As a film, it is a success. However, it sparked highly polarized evaluation as soon as the release. Because the film exposed a core problem, it acts as “Wuthering Heights”, but not Emily Bronte‘s Wuthering Heights. It just covers the skin of the story without reaching its soul.

The choice of character in the film first reflects this contradiction. In the original novel, Heathcliff is described as “dark-skinned gypsy”, “a little Lascar”, but Fennell actor Elordi to play the role. This may be understood as a consideration for the film’s visual appeal, but she also replaced the male lead Edgar and the maid Nelly with Asian faces, played by Shazad Latif and Hong Chau. On the surface, this casting plan expresses the director’s attitude towards a certain diversity. However, in the background of the 19th century of the movie, other characters show no reaction to these ethnically faces, not even strange eyes. Not only is there no historical context to explain the existence of these characters, but even the heredity discrimination as one of the core sources of conflict in the original work has completely disappeared. As Chihaya pointed out in The Nation, the film ignores

“the novel’s very real and present concerns with class, race, and heredity”.

And because of this series of changes, Nelly seems to have become the biggest villain in the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine. This threatment is more uncomfortable than mere neglect, because it has become a protective “symbol” for creator. The director can say that she agrees with diversity, but she does not need to understand the historical weight behind this diversity.

However, the biggest regret of this film is that it is too far from the emotional core of the original. The emotion in the movie is very direct and strong, but sometimes it is also “fast”. Love comes suddenly, and hate comes suddenly. This expression is quite easy to understand, but it is also rather simplistic. Bradshaw and LaSalle both expressed dissatisfaction with the erotic factors of the adaptation. The excessive physical entanglement fails to convey their soul-resonating love, and ultimately results in a false sadness. In fact, the film’s scenes, soundtracks and pictures are all very attractive and excellent. These are the embodiment of Fennell’s use of Gothic aesthetics. “Gothic” is described as a grotesque and barbaric aesthetic because of the Gothic destruction of Roman architecture. (Fischer, 2019)

The scene can illustrate this is, after Catherine’s father’s funeral, Heathcliff lifted the black veil on Catherine’s head in the small spire pavilion where they sheltered from the rain in their youth. As evidenced by the wind that never stopped whistling in the wasteland, he married his bride.

The impact of Emily’s Wuthering Heights is never just a story that shows toxic and torturing love, but more like a pain that is out of place in that times. Heathcliff, Nelly and Catherine she created are not merely three characters, but different aspects of her consciousness. Heathcliff is her anger and hate for the world, Nelly is the shackle of conformity under that era’s conservative values, and Catherine is the self she longs to be. That soul wanted to live in the wasteland but can only die in Thruschcross Grange.

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. ”

—— Wuthering Heights

Catherine’s confession beside the fireplace in the original novel was entirely rewritten in the film, even became Nelly’s deliberate guidance causing the two lovers’ missed connection. The whole meaning that Catherine said changed, such as I love Heathcliff, but he has no money. I love Edgar’s money, but I do not love Edgar. Not only the love between Catherine and Heathcliff is presented as superficial, but the love between Catherine and Edgar has been entirely removed. In truth, Catherine is the most natural and primal state of life on the wasteland like Heathcliff. Thus, after entering Thrushcross Grange, a symbol of the civilised world, she often tried to open the windows. She desires to integrate into civilisation, but cannot separate herself from her savage soul, just like Emily. Therefore, Gonzalez expressed disagreement with Fennell’s weakening of the wasteland environment and the overall social spirit, focusing on the love between the two protagonists. Audiences who have only seen the movie will be confused about pain of love and reluctant hatred between Heathcliff and Catherine, because the film has never really touched the roots of these emotions.

Fennell once admitted that adapting this novel was of course a matter of fear and a great responsibility, to fill the blank she felt when he read at 14 age. However, honesty cannot eliminate the film’s hollowing out of the original work. The reason why Wuthering Heights has become a classic and has been re-told and re-experienced over nearly two centuries is mainly because Bronte never avoids weight, whether it is racial, class, or the weight of a woman’s soul in that era.