Wuthering Heights Review: Yes, Emily Brontë may be rolling in her grave, but the rest of us are having a great time

REVIEW -- From the minute the poster for "Wuthering Heights" was released on September 3, 2025, I've been counting down the seconds to being seated in a theatre.

As a 26-year-old with a short attention span and a desire to love the period pieces I so often find myself looking to my phone during, I thought that maybe this would be a film designed solely for my viewing pleasure.

This meant that, unlike most, I went into an opening night screening with incredibly high expectations.

Thankfully for my own personal sanity and that of those around me, I was not disappointed.

What Emerald Fennell has created is not an adaptation for those loyal to the book or with any sense of literary elitism.

Instead, she's brought to life the chaotic, toxic fantasies of every young person bored with dating apps and ghosted messages.

Basically, if you're a fan of Emily Brontë's 1847 novel, you may as well stop reading now. I can almost guarantee you'll leave the cinema disappointed, if not enraged.

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Fennell has completely stripped the movie of its deeper meaning.

There's very little, if any, focus on the themes of social class, isolation, and racial disparity – the latter especially being pointed out in the whitewashing of Heathcliff, a glaring issue that completely changes the DNA of the original story.

There really is nothing profound about the film. It has nothing to say. What Fennell has made is simply a high-octane, adolescent fever dream.

The film skims through any remotely tedious parts of the novel, giving context through cinematic montages just short enough to stop its young target audience from reaching for a second screen.

With complete disregard for the source material, the movie is not made to be intellectualised, which is exactly why it's so enjoyable.

Instead, the film focuses on feeling, designed to be viewed in a cinema filled with giggles and gasps.

In what is becoming known as classic Fennell style, the film takes it too far; at times, it's in bad taste, and throughout most of it, the two main characters are entirely frustrating.

But there's a distinct relief in watching two beautiful people be this messy.

I've done my due diligence and scrolled through Letterboxed, and I won't deny that the consensus seems to be that Brontë would be rolling in her grave if she were alive to see what her novel inspired.

"Emily Brontë died of tuberculosis 177 years ago, yet this adaptation is still the worst thing that has ever happened to her," read one review.

And I don't disagree.

But as the review pointed out, Brontë is dead. She's never going to know about this raunchy, messy take on the characters she poured her heart into. And Fennell knew that when creating the film.

She had no one to offend but those loyal to the novel, and she had an entire generation of young women to please. One group being much larger – and more lucrative – than the other.

"Wuthering Heights" is made for the Bridgerton generation. The generation that doesn't have the attention span for a slow-burn period piece.

I have no doubts that the movie is going to be criticised for being a dumbed-down version of the novel. But what's so wrong with enjoying a horny, doomed love story without giving any more thought to it?

The novel has had its fair share of (attempted) faithful adaptations, and Fennell stated from the start that this would not be one of them.

She delivered drama without the drudgery, and surely after 179 years, it's okay to trade the historical homework for one gloriously unhinged, camp take on the classic.

I don't think "Wuthering Heights" will win any major Oscars. I'm not even sure it will go down as a cult classic.

But I do think it's the perfect movie to see in a cinema with friends and escape reality for two hours and 16 minutes.

And I don't see why we need it to be anymore than that. 

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