Emerald Fennell’s new film “Wuthering Heights”, the latest adaptation of the 1847 classic novel by Emily Brontë, attempts to be wild and cheeky, and I appreciate that to some degree although the result turns out to be hollow and superficial on the whole. Despite all those bold and idiosyncratic touches, the movie somehow does not reach to that dark and tumultuous passion swirling around the two different main characters in Brontë’s novel, and I was just mildly amused without being really engaged in the story and characters.

The first 20 minutes of the film shows enough promise at first. During the amusingly grim and vicious opening scene, we are introduced to Catherine “Cathy” Earnshaw (Charlotte Mellington) and her companion Nelly Dean (Vy Nguyen), and we get some little dark fun as these two young girls become thrilled and fascinated as watching the hanging of some criminal along with many other people in the village.

Cathy and Nelly live along with Cathy’s father Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) in a house named, yes, “Wuthering Heights”. Located at some remote spot in the middle of the barren field outside the village, this house, which often feels like being built from the leftover materials from Derek Jarman’s production design in Ken Russell’s “The Devils” (1971), looks pretty ugly and hostile just like its surrounding environment or Mr. Earnshaw, who often terrorizes others around him as your average raging alcoholic.

On one day, Mr. Earnshaw brings a little boy from the village, who was abandoned by his biological father before taken by Mr. Earnshaw. He is soon named Heathcliff (Owen Cooper, who recently won an Emmy for acclaimed Netflix miniseries “Adolescence”) by Cathy, and we see them gradually befriending each other despite their awkward first encounter. As they grow and endure the frequent abuses from Mr. Earnshaw together, they become more emotionally connected with each other, and we get a little sensual moment of flesh as the story eventually moves forward to several years later.

When a rich man named Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif) and his younger sister Isabella (Alison Oliver) happen to move into a house not so far from Wuthering Heights, Cathy, who is now played Margot Robbie, is quite excited as looking forward to getting invited by Edgar sooner or later, but Heathcliff, who is now played by Jacob Elordi, is not so pleased in contrast – especially when it seems that Cathy considers marrying Edgar for solving the current financial problem of her family caused by Mr. Earnshaw’s drinking and gambling.

In the end, due to a moment of misunderstanding caused by Nelly, who is now played by Hong Chau, Heathcliff eventually leaves not long after Cathy accepts Edgar’s proposal, and Cathy certainly regrets, but she marries Edgar anyway. Edgar expectedly throws a lot of luxury onto Cathy as her wealthy husband, and the movie gleefully throws many deliberately anachronistic touches onto the screen as accompanied with the modernistic score by Anthony Willis and the cheeky songs by Charli XCX.

Of course, Heathcliff eventually returns a few years later, and now he becomes affluent enough to buy Wuthering Heights from Mr. Earnshaw, whom he keeps in the house just for bringing more misery to his old tormentor along with more alcohol. Needless to say, Cathy soon finds herself enthralled by the presence of Heathcliff again, and it does not take much time for them to have a series of carnal moments between them.

Around that point, the movie begins to deviate more from Brontë’s novel, and it does not hesitate to expose the sexual aspects inside the story and characters with some kinky details. However, it unfortunately fails to generate enough romantic heat between Cathy and Heathcliff mainly because of the serious lack of chemistry between its two lead performers. Robbie is no stranger to being wild and spirited as shown from her enjoyable performance as Harley Quinn in several recent DC Extended Universe flicks, and she is convincing as Cathy frequently goes up and down with her bumpy matters of heart along the story, but her good efforts are sadly not matched well by her co-star. I must point out that he is a good actor as shown from his recent Oscar-nominated turn in Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” (2025), but Elordi, who also previously appeared in Fennell’s previous film “Saltburn” (2023), somehow looks flat and bland without much intensity here in this movie, and that is the main reason why several carnal moments between Cathy and Heathcliff feels rather cold and tepid to our disappointment.

Several substantial main cast members in the film including Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, and Martin Clunes are mostly under-utilized as often limited by their shallow supporting roles, but Chau manages to leave some impression as suggesting a bit of her character’s complex feelings toward Cathy. In case of young performers Charlotte Mellington, Owen Cooper, and Vy Nguyen, they are the best part of the film, and it is a shame that the movie does not focus more on the little but dynamic emotional drama among their characters.

Overall, “Wuthering Heights” does not regrettably delve that deep into the dark romantic heart of Brontë’s novel, and I would rather recommend some other versions such as William Wyler’s 1939 film and Andrea Arnold’s 2011 film, which are relatively more interesting in my inconsequential opinion. In fact, when the movie was over, my unimpressed mind was already determined to check out either of them sooner or later, and I may admire more of what they respectively achieved.