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The release of Emerald Fennell’s film version of Wuthering Heights has renewed intense discussion about how classic literature should be adapted for the screen. Fennell, known for provocative work, intentionally reframes Emily Brontë’s text rather than attempt a faithful page-to-screen translation. The resulting film preserves the core of Cathy and Heathcliff’s stormy relationship, but reshapes character backgrounds, narrative scope and tone in ways that have divided audiences and sparked debate among scholars, critics and fans.
At the center of the conversation are choices about casting and depiction: who Heathcliff is, how old Cathy appears, and which secondary figures remain or vanish. These decisions influence not only representation but also how themes of race, class and desire are read onscreen. Below, I outline the most consequential changes Fennell made, explain their narrative effects, and summarize the key points of contention this adaptation has generated.
Casting and identity: who becomes whom
One of the most scrutinized elements is the casting of Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Cathy. In Brontë’s novel Heathcliff’s appearance is described ambiguously with references that readers and scholars have long debated as suggesting he is nonwhite. Fennell opts not to foreground a specific racial origin for Heathcliff in the film; instead, the character’s outsider status is emphasized through class-based marginalization—his upbringing on Liverpool streets and lack of literacy—rather than through explicit racial markers. The director also ages Cathy up compared with the book: where the novel’s Cathy is a teenager, Robbie’s Cathy is portrayed as a woman in her early to mid-20s, shifting the power dynamics and public perceptions of the central relationship.
Which characters were trimmed and why
Fennell streamlines the novel by omitting or merging several figures. The film removes Hindley Earnshaw and alters the role of Mr. Earnshaw, who in the book dies early and gives rise to Hindley’s antagonism. In the movie, Mr. Earnshaw remains alive longer and absorbs some of Hindley’s bitterness and alcoholism, changing the familial tensions that propel the story. Other relatives who appear briefly in the novel are either absent or repurposed. This condensation narrows the focus to Cathy and Heathcliff’s emotional arc, but it also erases some of the social networks that provide the novel’s broader moral and generational commentary.
Narrative scope: concentrating on the first half
Fennell confines the screenplay largely to the first portion of Brontë’s book, ending before the novel’s second-generation storyline unfolds. The original work continues after Cathy’s death to chronicle Heathcliff’s descent into vengeful behavior and the lives of the younger Cathy and Hareton. By stopping earlier, the film omits Heathcliff’s later cruelty and the restorative, if ambivalent, resolution the novel offers. This concentrated approach presents their romance as more central and, for some viewers, more sympathetic; for others, it risks romanticizing a relationship that in the fuller text is embedded in cycles of harm.
Implications of focusing on an earlier timeline
Narrowing the timeline heightens immediacy and emotional intensity: the viewer experiences Cathy and Heathcliff’s passion in a compressed, charged way. Yet this choice also limits narrative context. The absence of the second half removes the generational consequences and moral complexity that complicate readers’ feelings about Heathcliff in the novel. In short, the film leans into a tragic-romantic framing rather than the sprawling, multigenerational saga that Brontë wrote.
Tone and intimacy: a steamier, more explicit vision
Fennell’s version is significantly more explicit about physical desire than Brontë’s text, which relies on implication and charged dialogue rather than overt sexual scenes. The film includes multiple intimate sequences, secret encounters and graphic imagery that are absent from the original novel’s phrasing. This amplified eroticism aligns with Fennell’s previous work and is intended to make the emotional intensity palpable to a modern audience. Critics and viewers are split: some praise the boldness and visceral energy, while others argue it obscures or sensationalizes the novel’s subtler psychological and social tensions.
Endings and departures
The film also alters the fate of Cathy and her child. In the novel, Cathy dies after childbirth and the story continues with her daughter’s life; in the film Cathy’s pregnancy ends tragically and the infant does not survive. The movie’s concluding images underscore loss in a raw, immediate way, choosing finality over the novel’s continuity. This reshaping of the ending reinforces Fennell’s thematic focus on the singular, catastrophic relationship rather than on inheritance and aftermath.
For viewers seeking faithfulness to Brontë’s plot and social texture, the changes are jarring; for others, the film offers a fresh, provocative reimagining of a canonical work. The debate it produces—about race, age, sexuality and fidelity to source material—illustrates why classic adaptations continue to invite passionate discussion.