‘I’ ON CULTURE
The new film version of Wuthering Heights is not your daddy’s version. It certainly is not Emily Brontë’s version. And if you somehow remember it from reading it in high school, you would flunk a test on this film. The 1847 classic was all about class differences, obsession and longing. The key element was that Heathcliff, the outsider who makes it big, longs for Catherine, who has her eye on a life of wealth and status. He is obsessed, longs for her and they never get together. If it makes you feel better, in the book, their children marry. But since it would take a long time to go through two generations, movies have tended to stick to the first generation.
In this film, Earnshaw, an alcoholic not quite well-off man, sort of adopts a young kid to be a pet for his daughter Catherine (Charlotte Mellington as a child, Margot Robbie as an adult) and brings him home to his ramshackle estate called Wuthering Heights. She names the kid Heathcliff (Owen Cooper as a child, Jacob Elordi as an adult) after a dead brother, and they grow up together. But she, early on, has her eye on a “good marriage,” and the young boy does not qualify. He takes the blame for some of her wild actions and is horribly flogged. Soon after, they begin an intimate, extreme relationship. Jump forward some years and grown Catherine winds up fortuitously damaging her ankle while spying on Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), a wealthy merchant who falls in love with her.
Some of this resembles the book, except in the book, the focus is on unobtainable love, on mismatches and obsession. In this film, it adds overheated chemistry.
Still, the movie is pretty decent. The cast is good, the sets sumptuous. Focusing on the different types of love of the time does work pretty well. Although I am a traditionalist, I found the changes interesting, as did many in the audience. Instead of thinking of the film as a view of an old classic, it would be better to think of it as a historical romance novel. Lurid, yet dealing with major emotional trauma.
One of the things carrying the movie is the cast. Robbie is one of the screen’s great beauties. She can carry the carnal aspects of the role. But she also displays an undercurrent of longing, of wanting many things, of hating to choose between the lifestyle she dreamed of since childhood and a magnetic attachment to the crazed, obsessive Heathcliff. Elordi manages to not only encompass the sexual elements in his nature but the incessant longing and resentment that leads to his mistreatment of both Catherine and Isabella, the submissive sister-in-law he marries after Catherine deserts him.
The supporting cast adds a lot to the production. Latif manages the casual savoir faire expected of the well-off, which contrasts with his undoing once he discovers his wife’s infidelity. Alison Oliver almost steals the film as Isabella. She begins as a weakling, seeming to live off her longing to be good friends with Catherine, then becoming Heathcliff’s toy and finally rebelling against the treatment. In many ways, she is the prototype of today’s women who stand up against abuse. Martin Clunes as the drunken abuser Earnshaw steals most of his scenes through the power of his performance. The impact of his behavior is clearly a factor in the twisting of both major characters. I liked Cooper as the young Heathcliff, forced to deal with Earnshaw’s drunken demands and punishments.
Of course, the essential story is almost two centuries old, but as in many classics, we see elements of our time. The obsessive behavior, the compulsions, the nasty choices that appear are reflected as much in our time.
I found the movie interesting and surprisingly enjoyable. Yes, it differs greatly from my favorite old-time version and also from the book. Yet, somehow, I think Brontë would, after needing smelling salts to deal with some of the clearly defined elements, fully understand and appreciate this version of her work.
This Wuthering Heights is not for everyone. It may offend some. But it does provide a decent time at the movies. If you are really into this kind of thing, you will probably enjoy it. If not, wait until it comes to TV.
