English teacher’s verdict on the very sexy Wuthering Heights

Review by

Sarah Watt

Film reviewer·New Zealand Listener·

12 Feb, 2026 12:00 AM3 mins to read

Sarah reviewed for the Sunday Star Times until 2019. After a career change to secondary school teaching, she now she works in alternative education with our most disadvantaged rangatahi.

Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.Subscribe now

‌

SaveShare this article

Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter/XLinkedInReddit

On the wily, windy moors: Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights. Photo / Supplied

Wuthering Heights, directed by Emerald Fennell, is in cinemas now.

As an English teacher by day, it’s embarrassing to admit my acquaintance with Emily Brontë’s romantic classic Wuthering Heights extends only as far as the Kate Bush song. So, I took along an expert.

Luckily, it’s my colleague’s favourite
novel of all time, and I loved all of Saltburn director Emerald Fennell’s previous films. As for her highly charged take on the self-imposed tragedy of Cathy and Heathcliff? It thrilled us both.

Australians Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi adopt impeccable English accents from across the social and economic divide, as the upwardly mobile Catherine Earnshaw and adopted ruffian Heathcliff, respectively. Actually, before we meet them grown up, it’s young Adolescence star Owen Cooper who is rescued off the street by Cathy’s drunkard father (a terrific Martin Clunes) to be raised in their family. It’s here that the soulmate co-dependency in these two youngsters is sown, such that when Robbie and Elordi take the screen as adults – all plunging necklines and sultry glances – it’s clear that this pseudo-familial relationship can only go one way. And that way gets very sexy indeed.

A best original screenplay Oscar winner for her excoriating fable Promising Young Woman, Fennell takes liberties with her adaptation of Brontë’s novel by amalgamating a couple of characters and portraying the couple’s destructive passion with shades of sado-masochism. Although this may disturb some purists, Brontë’s Biggest Fan was not at all troubled, noting that Fennell’s version sticks to the spirit of the story, even when straying into far-flung and fantastical interpretations that are entirely in keeping with its essence.

When Heathcliff marries flighty ingénue Isabella out of spite (a hilarious performance by Alison Oliver), one cleverly written scene uses the source novel’s original dialogue in a shocking new context.

Fennell also employs what we used to call “colour-blind casting” but now take as normal. There has been uproar that Elordi – a white Australian of Basque heritage – isn’t dark-skinned like the written Heathcliff, but here we have a Thai, Nelly Dean (Hong Chau), as the embittered servant, while Cathy marries a British-Pakistani, Mr Linton (Shazad Latif).

Does it matter? Not a jot. The chemistry between the doomed lovers is completely convincing, the soundtrack is as bombastic as befits Cathy’s relentless self-centred hysteria, and although the story cuts a lot out and still goes on a bit long, it’s a devastating cautionary tale about placing money over love.

Passionate, eccentric, sumptuous and daring, it’s sufficiently thrilling to entertain a novice like me, while according to the delighted aficionado, who rereads the book every couple of years and has watched all the previous screen versions, it’s “the best adaptation ever”.

Rating out of five: ★★★★½

SaveShare this article

Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter/XLinkedInReddit