It’s not any kind of “shocking revelation” that what’s left of the “book business” is mostly in shambles. And that what it takes to “monetize” literature in the present is a decidedly “bread and circuses” approach. Never was that made more apparent than the advent of “BookTok.” However, with Emerald Fennell’s latest film, a “version” of Wuthering Heights (that she opted to put in quotation marks to emphasize that it’s a rendition rather than a faithful adaptation), there’s been a major backlash not seen in quite some time about the calamity of “perverting” literature. As if 1) anyone ever gave a fuck about it in the twenty-first century, 2) that “perversion” hasn’t been occurring for quite some time now (see also: Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You) and 3) that it is somehow “wrong” to attract literary interest through non-“hoity-toity” means. Even though directing attention to literature, in any way, shape or form, is, at this point, the only hope that it might endure, however “impurely,” in subsequent generations.
That fact is ostensibly lost on some of the more hardline critics of Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, with the word “vapid” getting used quite a bit, as if to underscore that the only way an adaptation of a novel should exist is if it’s dense and, therefore, cumbersome. Especially when told through a medium like film, which requires a certain amount of bam-bam-bam, plot delivery-wise. But what Fennell has done is make Emily Brontë’s classic of gothic literature more “accessible” to audiences who would not otherwise even think to pick up a book, let alone Wuthering Heights. Maybe now, though, they might at least be compelled to listen to the audiobook that has been recorded by Aimee Lou Wood (one of the gigs she took before blowing up in the mainstream thanks to the third season of The White Lotus).
The point is, Wuthering Heights being, thus far, the cinematic event of the year has achieved something unthinkable: making literature sexy (and a hot-button/button-undoing topic) again. Not just any literature, mind you, but classic literature. Whereas, in the past decade, thanks to its Netflix rendering, it’s been up to Bridgerton to generate some mild interest in reading again (with Julia Quinn reaping the benefits). And sure, Fennell’s take on Brontë’s work is decidedly of the Bridgerton-meets-“romance novel cover” variety, with Jacob Elordi filling in for the two-dimensional “rippled muscles guy” typically featured on such covers (here’s looking at you, Fabio).
As for Margot Robbie in the Catherine Earnshaw role, there are those who have been almost as up in arms about that casting as they are Elordi’s for the part of Heathcliff, reducing her to nothing more than “Brontë Barbie” (this from The Times). Yet another attempt at oversimplifying Fennell’s work as if in retaliation for her “oversimplifying” Wuthering Heights.
“The audacity” of her doing this, however, is nothing that male filmmakers haven’t been doing for ages and getting away with. Not only that, but getting away with it sans nearly as much condemnation. In fact, they get accolades instead. Take, for instance, a recently acclaimed adaptation of another signature novel of gothic literature written by a woman: Frankenstein. Translated for the umpteenth time to the screen, in Guillermo del Toro’s hands, that movie has been praised as a triumph despite flattening the story and its characters into something more palatable for the “average” current audience (complete with the bonkers beautification of Frankenstein in the form of, who else, Elordi, who evidently has a hard-on for gothic lit). Fennell’s intentions with Wuthering Heights, however, are in direct contrast to this, with the writer-director genuinely wanting to bring the feeling of the text alive for a modern audience. That’s right, the feeling. Which is what “intellectuals” (sometimes known as academics) abhor when it comes to the creation and or appraisal of a work. Branding anything that’s driven solely by “feeling” as inferior and, worse still, insulting to more “discerning” audiences.
Granted, even “regular” people have found ways to be insulted by what Fennell has “dared” to do with the hallowed text. This in spite of many being perfectly content to let Taylor Swift utterly obliterate the original meaning and intent behind Ophelia’s character in Hamlet through the bona fide atrocity that is “The Fate of Ophelia” (perhaps even more affronting because her obliteration is achieved in just under four minutes). In contrast, Fennell, contrary to certain popular opinions, has actually not decimated the core meanings of Wuthering Heights. First, that “all-consuming” “love” is, in truth, toxic and destructive to everyone involved, whether directly or on the periphery. And secondly, that class—de facto, capitalism—is the root of all suffering. Well, that is, depending on which class you’re born into. Fennell herself, it is no secret by now, was born into the class that those with a Heathcliff-type station in life can only dream of. Indeed, among the critiques lobbed against the film, Fennell’s class has been a point of contention in terms of speculating as to why she would be so “flippant” in her adaptation, placing, in some critics’ opinion, the issue of class on the back burner.
As Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett of The Guardian phrased it, “That Fennell, at fourteen [the age when Fennell first read the novel], was living a life of privilege cannot go unmentioned. I think it’s part of why I left the cinema feeling so downcast. I am tired of consuming art by people whose understanding of class struggle is limited to the paranoid notion that the rest of us are all plotting to topple them.” This being a reference to the way that Fennell portrays Nelly Dean, the servant to the Earnshaws (and later, the Lintons), not to mention the novel’s narrator. Even if an unreliable one at that. But, among other “tweaks” (and “snips”) to the book, Fennell opts to let the tale unfold without the perspective of any one narrator (in other words, there’s no voiceover).
And without being able to hear Nelly’s interior voice, she certainly does come across as a jealous and conniving bitch. To compound this portrayal, some viewers have found the casting of Hong Chau to be yet another slight toward people of color in Fennell’s “rendition,” since she also decided to cast white man Jacob Elordi in the part of someone described in the book as “Lascar” and a “dark-skinned gipsy.” But, when hearing Fennell, who majored in English at Oxford, talk about her thoughts and intentions behind the adaptation, it is difficult to see her as some nefarious, machinating villain when it comes to translating her vision for the book to the screen. Instead, what one sees in all of her interviews is a passion and enthusiasm for both film and literature. Even though, for the purists who take major issue with Fennell’s “alterations,” it might not seem that way when it comes to the latter category.
To this point, while being interviewed for the Ask Penguin podcast, host Rhianna Dhillon inquired of Fennell, “Why do you think that some readers are so protective over certain texts?” Fennell replies that she, too, is one of those people who demands a certain level of excellence from filmic adaptations. However, in her mind, “I think the adaptations that I love and have found really moving tend to be ones that exist as a response, not as a literal adaptation,” later adding, “This [film] is a sister, or a cousin, to the original text. It can’t be a twin… I want it to be clear to the people who love this book as much as I do that I know how untouchable, you know, the coattails of Emily Brontë are.”
Though perhaps she couldn’t have known just how untouchable, considering her movie has set off a fierce debate among defenders of “intelligence” and literature versus those who would argue that she’s merely offering a version of Wuthering Heights that reflects a new generation’s sensibilities. Much as Baz Luhrmann did with 1996’s Romeo + Juliet. And yes, this is the film that Fennell wants hers to be compared to (even though, truth be told, it has more of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette in its DNA). Maybe that’s why, in her own trailer for the movie, the phrase, “Inspired by the Greatest Love Story of All Time” appears. Much like a version of that “promise” shows up in the trailer for Romeo + Juliet, which declares it to be “the greatest love story the world has ever known.” If by “great” love story what is actually meant is a horrifying one.
Tragically, no one reminded Fennell that only male writer-directors are hailed as “brilliant” and “visionary” when it comes to adaptations such as these. This includes Quentin Tarantino, whose revisionist takes on history in Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (both of which were also cited by Fennell to Ask Penguin as being inspiring to her process) were lauded. Praise cemented via each film’s Academy Award nominations and wins.
Suffice it to say, Wuthering Heights likely won’t be getting any such recognition. Instead, it’s been “degraded” (to use a Catherine Earnshaw word) as nothing more than a “popcorn movie” (you know, the way Demi Moore was once told she was nothing more than a “popcorn actress”). And it has nothing to do with the way she’s “butchered” the original text and everything to do with the way that women—privileged or not—are “allowed” to function in the arts. For while Fennell may have stated, “But I can hopefully make some people feel the same way that I felt when I read it,” she’s got many instead feeling a sense of rage and worry. The latter sentiment stemming from a fear that audiences are increasingly being dumbed down with the release of projects like this one, which, with its Charli XCX soundtrack, comes across, to some, like nothing more than a series of music videos or “perfume ads.”
As for XCX’s presence, it, too, grew from Fennell’s desire to convey a feeling. As she told Elle, “I sent the script to Charli with a view to asking her simply if she had an emotional response to it, would she like to make a song about it? It wasn’t even like, ‘Here’s the scene.’ It was just, ‘What does this make you feel?’” And what it made XCX feel, clearly, was a whole spectrum of yearning and burning that shines through on the Wuthering Heights Soundtrack. Itself a testament to the ways in which this adaptation is the definition of postmodern pastiche. A palimpsest of previous “tawdry” adaptations that have flouted tradition (again, Romeo + Juliet and Marie Antoinette, each with their own signature soundtracks too) as much as an homage to the original work. Not, as some would have you believe, a harbinger of doom and yet another signal that we are a culture shifting toward total illiteracy. If that were entirely the case, there probably wouldn’t be a marked uptick in book sales for Wuthering Heights as a direct consequence of Fennell.
What’s more, in bookstore windows everywhere, various editions—“plain” and “handsome” alike—of Emily’s lone novel are on display to cash in on the latest movie adaptation, inviting readers of a new generation to become acquainted with the text. And then make their own decision about whether or not Fennell is as “monstrous” as the characters contained within it for choosing to make her adaptation in this manner.
Because, yes, it is sumptuous, it is froth, it is undiluted confection. And, most notably, it is driving an interest in classic literature that, like it or not, is the closest many have gotten to a book of this genre in ages. In this regard, if no other, Fennell should at least be applauded for that.