Passionate sparring, deliciously delivered lines, an inspiring female lead, blood on the screen. It all spells obvious sequel potential.<\/p>\n
But enough about Sam Raimi\u2019s Send Help<\/a>. This weekend brings the release of \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d<\/a>, as the title is styled, and, with months of enjoyably derision-tinged chatter about the Emily Bront\u00eb<\/a> adaptation all but guaranteeing a decent box-office return, Hollywood economics demand that thoughts now turn to a second instalment.<\/p>\n Yes, it\u2019s time to start fantasy casting \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d 2 \u2013 or, by rights, Wuthering Heights \u201c2\u201d, because, like others before her, Emerald Fennell<\/a> has opted to skip over the second half of the novel in her take, leaving a creaking door open for a \u201csequel\u201d that finally gives the younger Cathy Linton \u2013 daughter of Catherine \u201cMargot Robbie\u201d Earnshaw \u2013 her due.<\/p>\n [\u00a0\u2018Wuthering Heights\u2019 star Alison Oliver: \u2018I really didn\u2019t imagine a film career for myself\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n A film about the travails of the next generation would, admittedly, be difficult to pull off within the confines of Fennell\u2019s universe, not least because \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d excises Catherine\u2019s brother Hindley from the narrative, making the future development of her offspring\u2019s ultimately happy union with his son Hareton impossible.<\/p>\n Who knows? Maybe the woman who brought us the grave-humping scene in Saltburn<\/a> has a line, and that line is marriage between cousins.<\/p>\n But it does seem like a lost opportunity that no one has bothered to make an iteration of Wuthering Heights that begins at the midpoint of the novel, with Catherine dead and Heathcliff tormenting everyone around him.<\/p>\n There\u2019s more than enough plot for a proper horror. We could see his displaced rage and keenness for intergenerational revenge fuel decades of senseless violence against hapless children forced to pay for the sins of their deceased parents, while his favourite ghost pops up every now and again to say hi.<\/p>\n [\u00a0\u2018Wuthering Heights\u2019 review: Less 120 Days of Sodom, more Carry on HeathcliffOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Eventually, the abuser becomes a spent force. Cathy 2.0 \u2013 tamer than her \u201cmischievous and wayward\u201d mother and, frankly, less of a dose \u2013 emerges as the real heroine of the story, and even gets to go back to her nice house at the end. Or does she?<\/p>\n The second half of Wuthering Heights is less a structural flaw, of course, than it is the entire point. It\u2019s the earlier chapters of Bront\u00eb\u2019s work that should be jettisoned from film adaptations, as starting with the arrival of \u201csullen\u201d Heathcliff and dwelling on his nascent moorcentric friendship with Catherine soon requires a disconcerting change of heads, with compelling child actors often replaced by less convincing grown-ups.<\/p>\n I studied Wuthering Heights \u2013 the quotation-mark-free version \u2013 at school, and remember it mostly as a cautionary tale about the unfortunate sequence of events that can follow an ankle injury.<\/p>\n Without such arresting visual fare as Robbie<\/a>\u2019s latex and cellophane dresses to consider, I recall writing reams of earnest essay material about the symbolism of windows in Bront\u00eb\u2019s Gothic text when really my overriding thought was that her characters would have been spared a lot of pain and misery if only television had been invented 150 years earlier.<\/p>\n Still, Yorkshire is a lovely place to spend some time, as \u201cinfluencers, TikTokers and Instagrammers\u201d are discovering, according to this week\u2019s BBC news report on the hordes of content creators now \u201cdescending on Haworth\u201d, the village where the Bront\u00eb family grew up.<\/p>\n My own weekend in Haworth some years ago was, unlike \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d, free of torture, with a fascinating visit to the Bront\u00eb Parsonage Museum<\/a> followed by second-hand-bookshop browsing and some cake. <\/p>\n The fittest member of our group set a cruel pace on the walk up to Top Withens, the long-ruined farmhouse \u201cassociated\u201d with the novel, but otherwise there was no hint of Fennellian sadomasochism, just impressively bleak moorland views and a cobbled main street that might prove perilous in heels.<\/p>\n