25 Days of Romance Movies: Wuthering Heights (2026)

Alright- I've been preparing for this movie all month. I read the book Wuthering Heights and listened to the audiobook just so I could fairly critique this adaptation in comparison... I loved the book and I think this adaptation of it- while entertaining is not at all a fair representation of the book.

So I think on my substack- SpookyShannon I will probably do a better analysis of the book vs the movie and that will likely be a more scathing review... so I don't really want to compare this movie too in depth to the book on here... but it wouldn't really be fair of me to not mention the book at all. The movie focuses on the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff and pretty much does not focus on any other character. There are several important characters in the book that are not mentioned in the movie at all... plus there are so many characters that get cut down in the movie so they are completely different characters than what we see in the book... and they're much worse characters. And they're involvement in the story really has nothing to do with the main plot of the movie and it doesn't really move it forward. The worst character arc in the movie compared to the book has to be Isabella... They just kind of turn Isabella into a dog... and Heathcliff treats her like a dog and she's just okay with that. In the book Isabella and Heathcliff get married and Isabella leaves him pretty much immediately because Heathcliff is abusive towards her- and she has a son that Heathcliff doesn't really know about until Isabella's death. I really don't think there's much of a point to her character at all in the movie... other than for the shock value of everyone treating her like a literal dog. It's interesting... but Emerald Fennel is telling me she could imagine THAT about Isabella but she couldn't imagine a dark skinned Heathcliff when he is literally described as having Dark Skin right away...OKAY!

I also think I'll get into some of my thoughts about Emerald Fennell in my substack because I don't like the things she said about this movie. I have seen all of her feature length movies at this point and I will probably continue to watch her feature length movies even though... I don't think she's a genius. I can see why people like her vision for this movie and I don't really want to yuck anyone's yum with this one because I was excited to see this- I watched it with a pretty open mind but also low expectations... and entertainment wise I think I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would.

I think I have 2 different numbers I would give this movie in order to rank it. Entertainment wise I'm giving it a 6/10. I don't think it was bad at all. If you went into the movie without knowing the source material at all- or if you read the book a long time ago but you maybe don't remember all the details... I think this movie will keep you entertained. I thought the movie looked really nice although some of the Jewelry I didn't really like in the movie and the design of Wuthering Heights itself- like where Cathy and Heathcliff grow up is a little lackluster. Thrushcross Grange is very elaborate and beautiful. I especially love the way the bedroom looked while Catherine was very sick and they were treating her with leeches and you can see the leeches on the bedroom wall which was designed to look like Cathy's face... it looked beautiful and disgusting and I really liked it overall.

I also think Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi did a great job. I think Jacob Elordi is a really great actor and he is very handsome and was a lovely hunky heathcliffe. He had great chemistry with Margot Robbie. Margot Robbie is not how I pictured Catherine at all- but I still think she was really good in this movie. The other actors in this movie were fine. They weren't really as important in the movie as they were in the book but I can't say any of them were bad in it.

The second ranking number I would give this movie is a 4/10 narratively. I feel like even seperated from the source material... the narrative of this movie just isn't good. They spend too much time on montages of the characters having sex and no real time developing a lot of these characters. A lot of things the characters do just don't make sense because of the parts of the movie that were chosen for this adaptation.

If you go into this movie just because you want to see a sexy love story about yearning... I'm not even sure you'll be totally satisfied with this movie because they do show Cathy and Heathcliff together so much during the movie. I also don't think the sex scenes during the movie were really anything too interesting. I get there are ratings standards and I don't think they did anything wrong with what they showed... but I think there are better spicy scenes in movies and tv.

So overall if you go to see this movie I don't think you'll be disappointed. I don't think I was disappointed in this one- I would say I was entertained throughout the movie. I would probably watch it again- but I would like a more book accurate adaptation... and I might watch some more adaptations even though I'm not sure they're good.

Also if you like Charlie XCX the soundtrack is really good and it's kind of a must- watch for the soundtrack alone.

Alright that is everything! I hope you guys like this post... If you want a more book vs movie post- definitely look for that on my substack SpookyShannon- that one will also be a more scathing, critical and spoiler heavy review.

Bye!

-Shannon