Introduction to Wuthering Heights
The director of an excited new film version of Wuthering Heights, Emerald Fennell, wants her adaptation to convey the "original" feeling she had when she read the book as a teenager for the first time. Fennell spoke in Haworth, West Yorkshire, about her adaptation, which stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. The publication of an erotically charged trailer this month has heated up the debate about the film months before its release.
The Emotional Connection to the Book
Fennell said: "I wanted to do something that I felt like I read it for the first time, which means that it is an emotional reaction to something. It is like original, sexual." The writer and director won an Oscar for Promising Young Woman in 2021 and is known for her psychological thriller Saltburn, which gained cult status for its provocative and confrontative scenes. Fennell told the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival that she felt a "profound connection" with the book when she read it for the first time at the age of 14.
The Unique Story of Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë’s story of the turbulent and tragic romance, written in 1847, is "difficult, it is complicated, it is simply nothing else," Fennell said. "It’s completely unique. It’s so sexy. It’s so terrible. It’s so devastating." When it came to making the film, Fennell said: "I wanted to do something that was the book that I experienced when I was 14." She suggested that some of her spatial additions are things that she remembered when she had read the book as a teenager – but weren’t really in there when she returned to it.
Fennell’s Obsession with the Book
Fennell always wanted to adapt the novel throughout her career and was "extremely lucky" that she had the freedom to choose what she did next. Wuthering Heights was what she wanted to do "most desperate", said the writer and director. "I’m obsessed. I was driven crazy from this book," she said. "And now I’m even crazier than before because I have been thinking of little else for two years now." It is "a terror also a terror, of course because it is a great responsibility," she added.
The Casting of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi
The choice of casting has raised eyebrows because Robbie is older, at 35, than Catherine Earnshaw, a teenager in the book; while Heathcliff is described as "dark-skinned" by Brontë. Fennell spoke about the Australian actor Elordi and said she asked him to play Heathcliff after seeing him on the set of Saltburn, and he looked "just like the illustration of Heathcliff in the first book I read". Fennell said that Robbie is "not like someone I have ever met – and I think I felt like this with Cathy." The Barbie actress is "so beautiful and interesting and surprising and she is the kind of person who could get away with everything like Cathy," said Fennell.
Staying True to the Original Dialogue
Despite some freedom, Fennell said that she had kept a large part of Brontë’s original dialogue. "I was really determined to get so much of your dialogue [as possible] Because her dialogue is the best dialogue ever," she said. "I couldn’t improve it and who could?" Fennell’s Wuthering Heights will be released in cinemas on February 14th – Valentine’s Day – next year. The film’s release is highly anticipated, and fans of the book are eager to see Fennell’s unique adaptation of the classic novel.
