On Screen: “Wuthering Heights”
Wuthering Heights
There’s a temptation to say: Any resemblance between Emily Bronte’s classic 1847 gothic novel “Wuthering Heights” and Emerald Fennell’s sensual screen adaptation is purely coincidental … but that’s not exactly accurate since Fennell reinterprets the toxic, tortured love story, focusing on the singularly depraved, destructive relationship.
Set in gloomy Yorkshire, England, the Victorian-era drama begins with a raucous public hanging as a cheering crowd watches the condemned man’s body writhing in agony. Then we’re introduced to Catherine ‘Cathy’ Earnshaw (Charlotte Mellington) and Heathcliff (Owen Cooper) — as children.
Cathy’s widower father (Martin Cluens) is an abusive drunk, drowning in debt, who adopts a ‘savage’ urchin off the Liverpool streets whom precocious Cathy claims as a ‘pet,’ naming him Heathcliff. Under the watchful eye of bookish ‘companion’ Nelly (Vy Bguyen), they grow up together on Mr. Earnshaw’s drafty, ramshackle estate called Wuthering Heights.
Years pass — as saucy, bodice-bursting Cathy (Margot Robbie) provocatively taunts hulking, penniless Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) by masturbating on the rainy, windswept moors, only to marry wealthy neighbor Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), whose naïve, ribbon-obsessed ward Isabella (Alison Oliver) becomes her bestie.
Infuriated, Heathcliff — who once vowed, “I will never leave you, no matter what you do” — disappears for years, only to return as an affluent businessman, audaciously resuming his intensely carnal infatuation with reckless, capricious Cathy, viewed by conflicted, ever-observant Nelly (Hong Chau).
Without revealing salient plot points, Emerald Fennell (“Saltburn,” “Promising Young Woman”) focuses on tumultuous, obsessive lust — choosing overtly erotic style-over-substance — graphically chronicled in VistaVision by cinematographer Linus Sandgren and extravagantly enhanced by production designer Suzie Davies, set decorator Charlotte Diricks, costumer Jacqueline Durran and composer Charli xcx.
There have been numerous previous film adaptations of Emily Bronte’s lovers, most notably William Wyler’s 1939 drama starring Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon and David Niven, followed by two British versions — one pairing Timothy Dalton and Anna Calder-Marshall and another with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Wuthering Heights” is a salacious, shallow 6, playing in theaters.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.