Friends, let me say one thing right off the bat. I don’t have a long, storied history with Wuthering Heights. I did not spend my formative years sobbing over Emily Brontë’s iconic novel. I read it once. My prevailing memory, I believe, is watching the 1939 William Wyler film at far too young an age. I came for Laurence Olivier. Yes. I had an Olivier phase, but that’s another essay. I didn’t get it. It was so dark. It was complicated. I didn’t understand why I should care about these horrible people. It just didn’t click. 

This is my long way of saying, forgive me. I’m not coming to this with an eye for literature first. I did, though… and I always admit my biases… come to “Wuthering Heights” as an Emerald Fennell fangirl. After watching Saltburn and Promising Young Woman… my body was ready. 

I’m not going to surprise many when I say “Wuthering Heights” drops audiences into the complicated and complex story of Catherine (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi). These two grew up together. They leaned on each other. They, it’s not hard to guess, love each other… at some level. However, as they grow and things change, nothing is ever quite so easy. Hong Chau, Alison Oliver, Shazad Latif, Martin Clunes, and Ewan Mitchell co-star in the movie. Emerald Fennell directs “Wuthering Heights” from her own script. 

Kids, I didn’t know how much I needed a classic, literary story told through Emerald Fennell’s colorful and often tawdry lens. While I do feel like this is perhaps one of her more accessible films, this is still plenty spicy.

I wanted to live in this world. The windswept moors. The rundown facades. It all blends together into set and costume design that borders on lurid. It’s over-the-top in the best way. Blood red carpets. A mantle and candle holders constructed of tiny hands. Tables packed with foods that can best be called nightmare fuel. Fennell is telling this sweeping, gothic tale through her best Ken Russell inspired lens. 

It goes without saying, like Fennell’s other works, this isn’t going to fit everybody. The film’s Letterboxd page is already showing a distinct “love it or hate it” vibe. 

There have been countless tellings of these classic works of literature. They’re mooney. Many have a stiff upper lip. They marinate in their passionate restraint. This is not that. This film is brash. It’s bawdy. It’s having a blast telling this story in a world that’s deliciously artificial. “Wuthering Heights” isn’t rooted in fidelity to literature or history. This is part lurid 1980s psychosexual fantasy and part Fabio bodice ripper. Fennell’s take is deliciously rooted in pop culture and the sweet inconsistency of the imagination. 

In her third film, Fennell brings together a solid troop of performers. Martin Clunes steals scenes in a manic and colorful performance. Alison Oliver, meanwhile, shines in a character performance that will stand among the cinematic “wards” in this genre. She’s a delight and truthfully, I wanted more of her.

Jacob Elordi, meanwhile, continues his starmaking run after dominating in Frankenstein at the end of 2025. While his casting once again shows a film version of Wuthering Heights stepping away from Heathcliff’s (often discussed) Romani identity, Elordi cuts a formidable figure on-screen. His physicality is dominating. He’s intimidating. Fennell’s camera, though, loves him. There’s so much gazing going on. 

Elordi carries the intricacies of the film’s tone with his powerful performance. He’s terrifying, yet fascinating. He’s boyish yet massive— capable of making a theater full of women collectively gasp as he broods in the rain. 

When all is said and done, “Wuthering Heights” is an Emerald Fennell work in all its unhinged goodness. Those looking for literary fidelity or historical restraint might not find a lot here to love. Fennell though, is telling her story. This is wackily bad-ass and delightfully lurid from top to bottom. If you don’t mind a little Ken Russell in your Emily Brontë, this might be just your speed. 

“Wuthering Heights” opens in theaters around the country on February 13, 2026.

Originally published at Piercing Pop Culture.