Everyone has something to say about Wuthering Heights

UMNIA, LDN

I've had it with Fennell's brand of Class politics – this thriller-ification of Jilly Cooper made manifest in a Barbie dream house. I had more patience for it when it felt truly ironic (Saltburn) – now, re-contextualised in her adaptation of this novel, it's a pattern, and a bad pattern, that I can't abide. They made Heathcliff woke and yet still not brown, which, fine, but then cast their only two "antagonists" (the title which truly belongs to Cathy) as people of colour. The resonance of Nelly as a hero, the true protagonist, perhaps, I fear wasn't the point, or intentional, but was the ultimate effect for me. No doubt Deadline will soon announce Fennell's next outing and we'll all get very scared very quickly. God help us. Not to my taste at all.

Michel Abdulaziz, NYC

Rotten mess movie, gorgeous to look at but kind of frightfully immature for a film marketed around its steaminess and sex drive. Fennell's take on Brontë's novel diverges from its source material so brazenly that you'd think it's ashamed to be adapting it all—gone is the deviousness and terror to recast Cathy and Heathcliff as star-crossed basics, doomed by conniving servants and marriage plots while leaving the incredibly charged circumstances of race, and class to the windy cliff side, as if it works to provoke but never to stoke real conversation. Less Gothic fiction and more like a half-baked romantasy.
Keep an eye out soon for Michel's coverage of SXSW (Austin) this year!

Aaminah Saleem, LDN

Wuthering Heights is an adaptation which rips out the core themes of the novel which explored classism, racism, obsession and generational trauma. Fennell’s take is visually gorgeous with incredible cinematography, but is more stylistic than a film with substance particularly with the change of Isabella’s abuse to a consenting BDSM relationship. With the eradication of core themes of the novel, this adaptation feels more like a self-insert fanfiction heavily carried by the good looks of Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff and shrewd advertising which has positioned this as a romantic and sexy film.

Megan Hilborne, LDN

Why call it Wuthering heights when you’re not going to create a truthful telling of the book. Emerald Fennell cuts the entire third act and removes crucial characters. She could have cut out half the sex and potentially had time to give it what it deserved. The cinematography, set designs and the costumes were this films saving grace. They were delicious and a feast for the eyes. I’m afraid this was style over substance. Jacob Elordi was excellent along with Alison Oliver, Owen Cooper and Charlotte Mellington. 
She frankly should have called this something else, gave the characters different names and changed the story slightly, still crediting Emily Brontë as a writer. She has called it Wuthering Heights to profit off of the name. How disappointing.