Wuthering Heights, a novel written by Emily Brontë, was originally published by Thomas Cautley Newby in 1847. As a well-regarded classic, naturally, over the years, there been many adaptations of the book including a new movie released on Feb. 13 of this year. Directed by Emerald Fennell, it received mixed reviews. Like almost all adaptations of novels, the film differs from the book.
The original story in the book, told to Mr. Lockwood by the housekeeper Nelly, follows Heathcliff. Heathcliff fell in love with Catherine. The two were childhood friends and grew close over the years. However, after Catherine chose a richer man over Heathcliff, he becomes heartbroken. Heathcliff leaves, only to return and get revenge on Catherine and her family.
The book has strong themes of social classes, revenge and the consequences of obsessive love. The themes in the story are often the reason why people may hold this book in high regard. Those themes, plus the darker tone of the story, makes the book feel special and moving. However, the movie adaptation doesn’t follow through with these themes.
The movie only covers around the first-half of the book. This cuts out characters such as Heathcliff’s and Catherine’s children, which were important in the book, as they’re prime examples of Heathcliff’s behavior towards others he resents. This also removes some of Heathcliff’s bad actions, like his treatment towards his and Catherine’s families. In general, Heathcliff is pretty toned down from his book version.
The whole point of his character in the book is that due to feeling rejected, he becomes very cruel and hurts many people. His vengeful actions never fix anything and he dies still angry at the people that he was harmed by, even though many of those people died years before he did. Heathcliff is a bad person, but that helps the story, because the story shows that obsession and revenge won’t help, it will only hurt you and the people around you.
In the movie, he is just a typical male protagonist in a romance movie, and his anger from Catherine leaving him is glossed over since he and Catherine end up having an affair together. The movie often fell into pretty common tropes in the romance genre. This makes the general movie feel boring since it feels like you’ve seen this story millions of times.
Overall, the movie isn’t really enjoyable for people who liked the book.
