Emerald Fennell’s latest cinematic experiment, Wuthering Heights, has swept into theaters amid a storm of anticipation and controversy. Released by Warner Bros. in February 2026, the film boldly reimagines Emily Brontë’s classic tale of passion, revenge, and social decay. With Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi cast as the doomed lovers Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, the movie is as much a spectacle of style as it is a study in obsession—and critics are anything but unanimous in their verdicts.
From the outset, Fennell signals her intent to break with tradition. The film’s very title appears in quotation marks—"Wuthering Heights"—telegraphing its status as a personal and provocative interpretation rather than a straightforward adaptation. According to The Guardian, Fennell “cranks up the campery” in her version, with a “20-page fashion shoot of relentless silliness, with bodices ripped to shreds and a saucy slap of BDSM.” Indeed, the movie opens not with the brooding gloom so familiar to Brontë’s readers, but with a shock: a hanging scene that leaves young Cathy (Charlotte Mellington) “downright ecstatic,” as described by reviewers. This sets the tone for a film that is as much about provocation as it is about narrative fidelity.
The casting itself is a statement. Robbie, at 35, and Elordi, 28, bring undeniable star power and chemistry to the screen. Their performances, however, have divided opinion. Some critics, such as The Telegraph’s Collin, praise the palpable tension: “Cathy and Heathcliff’s passions vibrate through their dress, their surroundings, and everything else within reach, and you leave the cinema quivering on their own private frequency.” Others, like Pearce in The Standard, argue that “Robbie and Elordi’s performances are almost pushed to the border of pantomime, while Fennell’s provocations seem to define the poor as sexual deviants and the rich as clueless prudes.”
Set in the late 18th and early 19th century, Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is less concerned with period accuracy than with mood and spectacle. The Yorkshire moors, rendered both wild and desolate, serve as a fitting backdrop for a love story that teeters between primal longing and social critique. Costume designer Jacqueline Durran eschews historical fidelity, instead drawing inspiration from 1950s melodramas and pop art. The result is a visual feast: PVC-enhanced dresses, latex-like skirts, and surreal set pieces such as a bedroom painted to match Catherine’s skin tone. As Empire notes, “Fennell reverts to the energy of her previous films, conjuring a dialled-up, meme-able vibe, from the interior textures and bright colours to lavish PVC-enhanced costumes and Charli XCX’s string-electro-screaming-orgy score.”
Music is another bold stroke. Brat singer Charli XCX provides a soundtrack that pulses with erotic energy, further amplifying the film’s feverish tone. Yet, as several reviewers point out, the movie’s sensuality sometimes verges on the absurd. “As the sexual tension cranks, the mood feels like an arthouse Carry On, with lingering shots of gloopy egg whites,” one critic observed, while another quipped that the opening scene was “closer to Carry On Heathcliff than The 120 Days of Sodom.”
Fennell’s narrative choices also depart dramatically from Brontë’s original. She pares down the sprawling cast, eliminating characters like Hindley and Hareton, and focuses tightly on Cathy and Heathcliff’s toxic relationship. The film reduces the story to a more simplistic narrative about hate and its polluting effects, rather than delving into the novel’s intricate web of class, race, and inheritance. Notably, the racial component of Heathcliff’s identity is removed altogether; instead, he is portrayed as an orphan from Liverpool, while Shazad Latif’s casting as Edgar Linton subtly shifts the story’s dynamics.
Jacob Elordi’s performance as Heathcliff is particularly striking. Having recently played physically intense roles—including Frankenstein—Elordi brings a “guttural, intense” energy to the character, oscillating between “boundless desire, tenderness and something far flintier,” according to Empire. Margot Robbie, meanwhile, plays Cathy with a bratty edge, channeling a “gothic Scarlett O’Hara” who is “selfish, vain, vindictive and bored.” Their chemistry is undeniable, with many critics highlighting the “electrically erotic energy” that sustains much of the film.
Despite its daring, not all are convinced by Fennell’s approach. Some reviewers lament the film’s tendency toward style over substance, arguing that its provocative visuals and maximalist tone come at the expense of emotional depth. As one critic put it, “Fennell’s Wuthering Heights amounts to something oddly shallow and blunt: garish and stylized fan fiction with the scope and budget of an old-school Hollywood epic.” Others, however, defend the director’s choices, insisting that “style can be substance when you do it right.”
The film’s rating—R for sexual content, some violent content, and language—reflects its willingness to push boundaries. Running at 136 minutes, Wuthering Heights is an “undernourishing feast,” offering “myriad pleasures” in its “bold, absurd pageantry and devilish scheming,” but ultimately leaving some viewers hungry for more substance.
Audience response, much like critical opinion, is likely to be polarized. For some, Fennell’s reinvention will be a thrilling, if exhausting, ride—a “fun night out at the movies” with enough “corset kink, power games and smoldering star power” to satisfy. For others, the film’s conscious artificiality and narrative shortcuts may prove distracting, even alienating.
Still, there is no denying the cultural moment that Fennell’s Wuthering Heights occupies. In a cinematic landscape often accused of playing it safe, this film dares to be divisive, to provoke, and to entertain in equal measure. As one reviewer summed up, “Fennell’s overhaul flirts with insanity, and if you can let go of preconceived notions about how this story should be told, it’s arguably the writer-director’s most purely entertaining film.”
Whether it is remembered as a bold reinvention or a hollow misfire, Fennell’s Wuthering Heights ensures that Brontë’s “wild, wicked slip” continues to haunt audiences—if only in a very different guise.