Opinion: Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ does Brontë an injustice

Cathy and Heathcliff read the book. Art by Basil Allen.

As of 2024, 54% of U.S. adults have a literacy rate below the sixth-grade level, and film director Emerald Fennell has demonstrated the scope of the issue with her recent adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” based on the 1847 novel by Emily Brontë. 

Considered one of the most controversial novels of its time for its intense depictions of violence, generational trauma and its perspective on racism, it is only fitting that the recent film adaptation has also received immense controversy. But that’s where the similarities end. Suffice to say, it’s devastating to learn that Fennell has an English degree from the University of Oxford. 

Since the film takes almost nothing from the novel except for the general location and part of the cast, it leads one to wonder why not create an original film entirely?

The novel touches on the issue of racism through the character Heathcliff, a man of color who becomes violent because of the abuse he suffers at the hands of others through structural racism. 

He is constantly othered by his adopted family and is horrifically abused, making him an abusive person in turn. Fennell's choice of Jacob Elordi, a white man, to play Heathcliff is the first sign of the film’s total ignorance of the source material. 

By erasing Heathcliff’s racial struggle, a key part of understanding the story is lost. Yes, the novel is about class struggle, but it is equally about racial struggle. In the novel, Heathcliff is described frequently as “dark-skinned” or a “lascar” and is also subjected to a slew of racial slurs directed towards people with darker skin. 

Fennell has defended her choices, saying that they were “wish fulfillment” and that she wanted to make something that was her “response and interpretation to that book and the feeling of it,” not a faithful adaptation. 

However, if her casting choices show the wish fulfillment she sought, then that says something much deeper about her. She cannot see a main character in the story as non-white but can make originally white, lesser characters people of color. The most glaring examples of this include casting Nelly, Catherine’s maid, as a Southeast Asian woman and Edgar, Catherine’s unjust husband, as a Pakistani man. If this is Fennell’s interpretation of “Wuthering Heights,” then perhaps she ought to have her literature degree exchanged for a certificate in Aryan BDSM videography.

Other problems with Fennell’s adaptation include the erasure of Hindley, Catherine’s brother, and the last half of the novel failing to exist. Hindley, as a character, is meant to be someone the reader can compare Heathcliff to and abuses both Heathcliff and Catherine after their father dies. 

Hindley’s son, Hareton, is saved by Heathcliff from sudden death, giving him a reconciliation within the story. Without Hindley and Hareton, Heathcliff is entirely the same throughout the film and exists as a one-dimensional character. Due to this, there is no resolution to the story; Hareton and young Catherine do not exist to end the generational trauma suffered by the family, since Catherine miscarries at the end of the film. Without a resolution, the characters fall flat, and many of the central themes that made the original story a literary classic fall short of their true potential.

One of my final annoyances with this adaptation was the choice of turning Isabella, canonically a victim of domestic violence at the hand of Heathcliff, into a sex freak and making Catherine vanilla in comparison. 

At the beginning of the film, Catherine is introduced as a child who maniacally cackles at the sight of a hanging. However, when Catherine sees two of her servants having sex with whips and a horse bridle, she is aghast. At this point, it seems Fennell forgot that Catherine’s ideal gift as a child in the novel is, in fact, a whip.

In contrast, Isabella is presented in the film as a bookish girl who still plays with dolls. At the same time, she demonstrates a liking for roleplay as a dog for Heathcliff, which would have been impactful if her dog were slaughtered by Heathcliff, like in the novel. But the film refuses to expand upon the symbolism from the novel and uses sexual desires as a shock factor.

Now, if Fennell had chosen to create an original film inspired by “Wuthering Heights,” à la “50 Shades of Grey” to “Twilight,” there wouldn’t have been so much to complain about. “Wuthering Heights” is, understandably, one of the hardest novels to adapt to film. All adaptations so far have lacked at least some important aspects of the novel because there is so much content and symbolism to sift through that it’s hard to pin down what is most important to focus on. 

But choosing a story known for its criticism of institutionalized classism and racism and turning it into a horny romantic drama will never be appealing. 

If media literacy is dead and buried, Emerald Fennell is among those holding a shovel.