{"id":14055,"date":"2026-02-17T17:04:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14055"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:27:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:27:28","slug":"wuthering-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/02\/17\/wuthering-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"Wuthering Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Wuthering Heights <\/strong>(2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 136 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (sexual content, some violent content, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Emerald Fennell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Emerald Fennell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Anthony Willis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Linus Sandgren\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 13, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, Martin Clunes, Ewan Mitchell, Charlotte Mellington, Owen Cooper.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: * \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s not your grandmother\u2019s Wuthering Heights. It\u2019s not a Merchant Ivory production of the Emily Bronte novel. It\u2019s definitely not a date movie. The new Wuthering Heights<\/strong> is- how should I put it?- a dumpster fire.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Filmmaker Emerald Fennell has a distinctive voice as illustrated by her other two films, Promising Young Woman (2020) and Saltburn (2023). She describes her take on Wuthering Heights<\/strong> not as an adaptation but as a version of the novel. She strips it down to the bare bones to tell a story of two doomed lovers who pay a heavy price for their feelings. I\u2019ll grant that her vision is bold, but in this particular case it\u2019s more of a liability than an asset.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For all of its heavy-handedness, Wuthering Heights<\/strong> is both overwrought and emotionally hollow. It demands that the viewer feel something, but fails to deliver anything worth giving a damn about. This could be attributed to several factors, but the main cause is the lack of chemistry between the leads, Margot Robbie (Barbie) and Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein). They may be two of the hottest actors right now, but they generate no heat as star-crossed lovers Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. Elordi is especially wooden (he doesn\u2019t act; he broods) not to mention miscast. Heathcliff is supposed to be dark-skinned. Having a white actor play the character is the opposite of bold.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Fennell disposes of the book\u2019s framing device and in doing that, loses the haunting aspect that defines the novel. What we get instead is a trashy, dumbed-down story that begins when Catherine\u2019s drunken boor of a father (Clunes, Men Behaving Badly) brings home an unnamed orphan boy with the intention of providing proper care for him. Catherine names him Heathcliff and the two form a bond. They grow up and realize life is complicated. They love each other, but she needs to marry into money to save her family from financial ruin.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Heathcliff overhears Catherine talking to housemaid and longtime companion Nelly (Chau, The Whale) about her plan to marry wealthy new neighbor Edgar Linton (Latif, Penny Dreadful). What Heathcliff doesn\u2019t hear is her professing her love for him. He jumps on a horse and rides off into the sunset before she can explain. She marries Edgar and settles into a comfortable life at his estate, but still longs for Heathcliff to return.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Heathcliff comes back a wealthy man five years later. It\u2019s not exactly a joyful reunion. He still resents Catherine for marrying Edgar. He doesn\u2019t do a good job of hiding it either. They nonetheless begin an intense affair that ultimately leads to tragedy, part of which involves Heathcliff marrying Edgar\u2019s na\u00efve young ward Isabella (Oliver, Saltburn) out of spite.<\/p>\n

\u00a0About the only thing Wuthering Heights<\/strong> has going for it is the cinematography by Linus Sandgren. The English moors, covered in fog and overcast skies, are inherently dramatic. They usually look good on film. However, Fennell weaponizes the imagery too, using it with the subtlety of a sledge hammer to let us know we\u2019re supposed to be feeling something. I felt two things, boredom and exhaustion. Nope, make it three, disgust.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Using contemporary pop songs in period romances isn\u2019t unprecedented. Baz Luhrmann did it in his modern-day set Romeo + Juliet (1996) and it was a success. The soundtrack worked with the story. The Charli XCX songs in Wuthering Heights<\/strong> do nothing to serve the narrative. They distract from it. It\u2019s a total disconnect. Also, the songs aren\u2019t even that good. I can\u2019t remember a single one. Then again, I\u2019m not a Charli XCX fan so yeah.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Try as they might, the actors don\u2019t bring their characters or the material to life. It\u2019s all fairly listless. Nobody\u2019s fully committed. Catherine, as played by Robbie, comes off as a beautiful idiot. She gives a slightly better performance than Elordi, but not by much. Chau is criminally underserved by the screenplay. She\u2019s barely developed even though she\u2019s a crucial character. Oliver\u2019s character is simply annoying.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019d like to think that anybody interested in seeing Wuthering Heights<\/strong> is familiar with the source, but I\u2019d probably be wrong in making that assumption. Young people these days are more interested in Netflix shows than Victorian literature. The studio is marketing it as the must-see romantic film for this Valentine\u2019s Day weekend. That is false advertising. While it\u2019s true it\u2019s a love story, it\u2019s not a celebration of love. It\u2019s dark, depressing and often ugly. It\u2019s populated by unlikable characters. It has mental illness and human degradation. Anybody not familiar with the story is in for a real shock. Don\u2019t say I didn\u2019t try to warn you.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wuthering Heights (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 136 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (sexual content, some violent content, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Emerald Fennell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Emerald Fennell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Anthony Willis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Linus Sandgren\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 13, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, Martin Clunes, Ewan Mitchell, Charlotte Mellington, Owen Cooper. Rating: * […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14056,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Wuthering-Heights-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14058,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14055\/revisions\/14058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}