REVIEW: WUTHERING HEIGHTS

3.5/5

In The Heights

136 Mins. Starring: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, Ewan Mitchell, Owen Cooper & Martin Clunes. Screenplay: Emerald Fennell. Director: Emerald Fennell. In: Theatres.

Weathering and withering the pages of Emily Brontë's first and only novel (her sisters Anne ('Agnes Grey') and Charlotte ('Jane Eyre') had a few more between them) right down to the spine, 'Wuthering Heights' has been adapted and lifted more times than pride and prejudice put together. It's even an epic Kate Bush song that could outrun the one that Max from 'Stranger Things' uses to free herself from Vecna. Now, following the 1992 classic featuring Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes, comes the 2026 version and era, produced, written and directed by 'Promising Young Woman' Emerald Fennell in feral mode. Reuniting with the 'Saltburn' of Jacob Elordi and 'Barbie' Margot Robbie to give us a romantic period drama so loosely based on Emily's 1847 text that "Wuthering Heights" is even in quotation marks. Scrawled on to a pane of glass in painful cursive. Yet there's still so much honour for the past that is prelude. So much so, even the promotional poster is gone with the wind.

Fennell has played with 'The Crown', as none other than Camilla Parker-Bowles, and appeared in period pieces like 'Anna Karenina' and 'The Danish Girl' as an actor. But it's behind the camera, where Emerald shines, and is at her most compelling, like in her classic with Carey Mulligan. The former 'Killing Eve' showrunner puts on quite a show here that she has everybody in a fluster. Some degrading critics are calling this disgraceful, but after the colour and shape of things to come in this art form on screen, people will be leeching off of Fennell's style for years. Sure, 'Wuthering Heights' is not perfect. It's not for everybody. But what is in this world where we want to have it our way like the King? Times move on. Even an older guy like me can't complain that the 'Once Upon A Dream' contemporary of Lana Del Rey isn't on the soundtrack. Because great British bold and beautiful singer Charli XCX, and a vocal range that haunts makes this 'Wuthering Heights' soundtrack her own actual album, going Gaga.

Wuthering with you, these heights are more like when Aussie Baz Luhrmann made a gaudy show of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' with Leonardo DiCaprio, Mulligan and Tobey Maguire before these roaring twenties. It really picks up in the third act, and that's not because of all the sex, but all the actual epic emotion behind it. Save for moments of true ignorant and intolerable cruelty that surely must be in the book, because you'll even wish they were left out, like certain infamous parts of Stephen King's 1000 plus page tome of 'IT'. This will have you all in true tears for all it does. And notes on the author, if, like me, you haven't read this book yet, you could literally get it on your Kindle right now (like me) for 14 pence. That might have been a lot of money back in the Brontë day, but you can come up with it and lint, right now. All whilst critics are still coming up with reasons to hate. Like the ridiculous one of superstar and icon Margot Robbie ('I, Tonya', 'Bombshell', 'Once Upon A Time In...Hollywood') being too old for this part. WHAT?! The Barbie and Harley icon who made her mark in 'The Wolf Of Wall Street', giving us one of her best, since Elizabeth I in 'Mary Queen Of Scots' and the ever underrated 'Babylon', is in her prime and perfect here.

Yet, it's Heathcliff that will steal your heart from the margins of this print. The euphoric Jacob Elordi has already played The King, Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola's 'Priscilla', and he's just garnered an Oscar nomination for haunting as Oscar Isaac's monster in Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein' epic on Netflix. Truly understanding the pain behind Mary Shelley's classic novel. And now he gets to do it with another legendary woman's words and work in another English literature epic. Seducing you, this young prince even has the look to show you he could play McCartney, with all due respect to the great Paul Mescal, whom deservingly so, will. The last moment he shares with 'Star Trek: Discovery' star Shazad Latif (The Jekyll and Hyde of 'Penny Dreadful') will break you, but what he does to fellow 'Saltburn' star Alison Oliver is unforgivable. Elsewhere 'The Whale', 'Kinds Of Kindness' and 'The Menu' star Hong Chau ('Inherent Vice', 'Downsizing', 'Asteroid City') steals the show, like she always does. Whilst Ewan Mitchell and legend Martin Clunes really are men behaving badly. Yet it's the 'Adolescence' of Emmy winner Owen Cooper who really reveals Heathcliff's heart. No one else hits those heights. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Further Filming: 'Frankenstein', 'Mary Queen Of Scots', 'The Great Gatsby'