{"id":459084,"date":"2026-02-10T00:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/459084\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T00:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:06:07","slug":"margot-robbie-jacob-elordi-fire-up-bronte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/459084\/","title":{"rendered":"Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi Fire Up Bront\u00eb"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt\u2019s possible that your first thought upon encountering Margot Robbie<\/a>\u2019s Cathy draped over a rock pleasuring herself on the wild and windy West Yorkshire moors in Wuthering Heights<\/a> might be, \u201cMerle Oberon sure never went at it this hard.\u201d Which probably is a good indication that Emerald Fennell<\/a>\u2019s unabashedly horny adaptation of the Emily Bront\u00eb classic is best approached on its own terms \u2014 not in comparison with William Wyler\u2019s 1939 film, in which Oberon co-starred with Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff, and even less so with the brooding gothic source material. This is not your Penguin Classics school curriculum edition.<\/p>\n

\n\tBront\u00eb\u2019s 1847 novel has been translated to the screen upwards of 20 times before, in English and American iterations but also international reinterpretations set in France, Japan, Mexico, India and the Philippines, drawing esteemed directors as varied as Jacques Rivette, Luis Bu\u00f1uel and Kij\u016b Yoshida.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tWuthering Heights\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tA ripe and juicy bodice-ripper.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date: Friday, Feb. 13
Cast: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, Martin Clunes, Ewan Mitchell, Amy Morgan
Director-screenwriter: Emerald Fennell, based on the novel by Emily Bront\u00eb
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated R,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2 hours 16 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most eye-rolling takes ditched the cold, blustery original setting right there in the title in favor of sun-drenched California in teen romances produced by MTV and Lifetime, the latter airdropped into Malibu and rechristened, ahem, Wuthering High. Please, people, not everything in the English-lit canon can withstand Clueless treatment.<\/p>\n

\n\tFennell\u2019s overhaul flirts with insanity, and if you can let go of preconceived notions about how this story should be told, it\u2019s arguably the writer-director\u2019s most purely entertaining film \u2014 pulpy, provocative, drenched in blazing color and opulent design, laced with anachronistic flourishes, sexy, pervy, irreverent and resonantly tragic. Often teetering on the verge between silly and clever, it\u2019s Wuthering Heights for the Bridgerton<\/a> generation, guaranteed to moisten tear ducts and inflame young hearts.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a collision of ecstasy and despair, Robbie is ideally paired with Jacob Elordi<\/a> as Heathcliff, the foundling child picked up off the Liverpool docks and taken in by Cathy\u2019s dotty, widowed father Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes), to be raised as her stepbrother. That quasi-sibling proximity does nothing to prevent turbulent desire and mutual intoxication from creeping into their late-childhood games, fully flowering as they enter adulthood.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile there\u2019s a suggestion of racial and class undertones in Cathy\u2019s air of teasing superiority over Heathcliff, the film, like many before it, largely whitewashes the underlying toxicity that makes the central relationship \u2014 despite its two-way magnetic pull\u00a0\u2014 unsettling. While Bront\u00eb fudges Heathcliff\u2019s specific ethnicity, she\u2019s not exactly being subtle by having characters describe him early on as a \u201cdark-skinned gipsy,\u201d \u201can imp of Satan\u201d and \u201ca little Lascar,\u201d a term used for Indian and Southeast Asian sailors trafficked by British traders.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe whiff of colonialism and imperialism is all over the novel and its othering of Heathcliff as \u201ca savage.\u201d During the period when the book was set, Liverpool was one of the busiest and most brutal slave-trading ports in England, and there are hints that the young Heathcliff might once have had an \u201cowner.\u201d Whether Bront\u00eb\u2019s writing is inherently racist or condemning racism has long been a subject of debate.<\/p>\n

\n\tThose aspects that make Wuthering Heights a somewhat uncomfortable text for contemporary readers are for the most part skirted in Fennell\u2019s adaptation, which swaps the emphatic depiction of British classism in Saltburn<\/a> for more veiled allusions. Literary purists might say the director is making it more commercially palatable, unlike, say Andrea Arnold\u2019s raw, naturalistic 2011 version, the first to cast Black actors as Heathcliff.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut this is a Valentine\u2019s Day weekend release from a major studio and Fennell is unapologetic about any concessions she makes toward popular tastes. Her take on the novel is that of a transcendent love story, which aims to have as dizzying an effect on its audience as it does on Cathy and Heathcliff. In that, it succeeds, before spiraling into a cautionary tale about denial of the heart\u2019s true longings.<\/p>\n

\n\tMr. Earnshaw is capricious \u2014 jolly one minute, enraged the next \u2014 and Cathy to some degree shares that unpredictable nature. \u201cThis\u2019ll be your pet,\u201d her father tells her of Heathcliff, and she takes an instant liking to him. But Cathy can also be cruelly insensitive, notably to her bookish companion Nelly (Hong Chau<\/a>), the illegitimate daughter of a Lord who paid to have her hidden away. It\u2019s Heathcliff who tells Cathy, \u201cI will never leave you, no matter what you do.\u201d But that vow could just as easily apply to Nelly.<\/p>\n

\n\tCathy and Heathcliff get caught in the rain \u2014 Fennell is rarely shy about drenching her pretty leads until their clothes are semi-transparent \u2014 and when petulant Mr. Earnshaw complains that they have kept him waiting on his birthday, Heathcliff takes the blame. Cathy says nothing about her part in it as she watches through a crack in the door while her father administers a vicious lashing that will leave permanent scars across Heathcliff\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

\n\tRobbie tackles Cathy\u2019s complexity head on; she\u2019s driven as much by carnal as emotional needs and not averse to the pleasure of power games, at times bordering on sadism. When Heathcliff says he would take any number of beatings to spare her, the faintest trace of a smile on her face speaks volumes. <\/p>\n

\n\tFennell knows exactly what she\u2019s doing, creating thirst-trap meme fodder with a shot of smoldering Elordi, I mean Heathcliff, shirtless and sweaty, stacking hay bales. The moment is so close to gay farmer porn I giggled. Cathy certainly takes note, but after her father gambles away what\u2019s left of the family money, she starts mulling a rescue plan.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt first, she\u2019s indignant that their new neighbor, Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), a handsome bachelor with a textiles fortune, has not called on her. Curiosity compels her to spy on him and his infantilized ward Isabella (Alison Oliver) through the windows of their stately home, Thrushcross Grange. But when she sprains her ankle in doing so, she is holed up for six weeks with the Lintons.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s more than enough time for Edgar to grow besotted with her and for Cathy to become torn, contemplating the advantages of a man who is not only rich but also kind. Heathcliff seems to intuit her wandering affections, even if her lust hasn\u2019t shifted. \u201cWe\u2019re not children anymore, Cathy,\u201d he barks at her. \u201cI cannot play with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn case her oscillation between sex and financial security isn\u2019t clear enough, Fennell has Cathy and Heathcliff peering through the hayloft floorboards at the stable, while the Earnshaws\u2019 manservant Joseph (Ewan Mitchell) has wild sex with the maid, Zillah (Amy Morgan), incorporating such horse tack as stirrups, a bit and a riding crop. This marks quite a change from the deeply religious, judgy Joseph of the novel, even if the sexual kinks are in keeping with the character\u2019s misogyny.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Heathcliff hears only part of Cathy\u2019s outpouring of doubts to Nelly \u2014 the unfortunate part about how marrying someone of his class would degrade her \u2014 he bolts. That at least simplifies her decision to marry Edgar, who treats her like royalty. She also gets a new plaything in Isabella, who in Oliver\u2019s droll performance is the kind of posh Brit that could be either a precocious genius or a complete nitwit. In any case, she can be usefully manipulated when necessary.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat happens when Heathcliff returns, mysteriously moneyed and made over as a gentleman (the swooning of overheated twentysomethings is going to be epic) with a gold tooth or two. The obsession that binds him to Cathy won\u2019t be denied by either of them. Cathy blames everyone but herself for her predicament \u2014 mostly Nelly \u2014 becoming steadily more unhinged.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a melodramatic grandiosity to much of this, a touch of the overwrought, which you either go with or you don\u2019t. I found it fun, not gonna lie. Fennell shuffles her English lit influences \u2014 either by accident or by design \u2014 with some scenes playing more like Austen or Dickens. But whatever its flaws or virtues, this movie seems to know exactly what its core audience wants and delivers it with the intensity of tempestuous winds and torrential downpours.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s nothing timid or stiflingly tasteful about Fennell\u2019s direction \u2014 though there\u2019s nothing terribly fluid about it either. The visual scheme is rooted in the period but flirts with modern times \u2014 from Linus Sandgren\u2019s spectacular cinematography through Suzie Davis\u2019 sumptuous production design and Jacqueline Durran\u2019s over-the-top fantasy costumes in eye-searing reds and metallics. And Anthony Willis\u2019 score, intertwined with original songs by Charli xcx<\/a>, effectively pumps up the romance and the tragedy.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe highly dysfunctional nature of the novel\u2019s central romance is not exactly ignored \u2014 both Cathy and Heathcliff engage in reprehensible behavior, particularly the latter in his abusive treatment of Isabella. (A scene with the refrain of \u201cDo you want me to stop?\u201d is straight out of Dangerous Liaisons, replacing \u201cIt\u2019s beyond my control.\u201d) But Fennell nonetheless leans into the palpitating hearts, the heaving bosoms and burning loins of what she seems to have decided is The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, not so much the tortured psychology of it. All of which means that your enjoyment of the movie might be impacted by your affection for the novel.<\/p>\n

\n\tEither way, the leads are captivating and their chemistry sizzles. Robbie (a producer here, as well as on Fennell\u2019s previous films Promising Young Woman<\/a> and Saltburn) is in full bloom, walking a tightrope between infuriating recklessness and devastating regret. Often, she seems more like Katherina from The Taming of the Shrew than Catherine Earnshaw. But Elordi (the second lead in Saltburn) inarguably is the standout. Even after showing the monstrousness of which Heathcliff is capable, he ensures we still see a broken heartthrob driven by love and madness into the abyss.<\/p>\n

\n\tClunes, Oliver and the quietly affecting Latif all nail their characters with brushstrokes ranging from broad to finely detailed. But as is so often the case, it\u2019s Chau who steals every scene, using her character\u2019s stillness and alert gaze to great effect. Like Heathcliff, Nelly is forever stained by the stigma of class, stoking ambiguity as to whether her loyalty to Cathy is forged in love or hate. Conflicted feelings like those might well represent how many people respond to Fennell\u2019s movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s possible that your first thought upon encountering Margot Robbie\u2019s Cathy draped over a rock pleasuring herself on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[19905,83603,88,214372,34564,39919,82685],"class_list":{"0":"post-459084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-charli-xcx","9":"tag-emerald-fennell","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hong-chau","12":"tag-jacob-elordi","13":"tag-margot-robbie","14":"tag-wuthering-heights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}