Almost Fabulous

Perhaps the best thing to come out of Emerald Fennel’s recent wet n’ wild take on Wuthering Heights are the reviews: Vulture’s Alison Wilmore described the movie as embodying a teenage girl’s horny fantasy of the love between Heathcliffe & Catherine, emphasizing the wetness of the picture (it’s true, they are always walking in the rain, which as a puppet I found unnerving — naturally, I would come apart at the seams! Plus: pneumonia!). In Rosanna McLaughlin’s spot-on piece for ArtReview, “Wuthering Heights & the Aesthetics of Surface”, she argues that Margot Robbie’s outfits are the main character of the film, the sets reminiscent of self-consciously kooky boutique hotels, & Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff about as wooden as they come (though, to be fair, he didn’t have much to work with), as well as making a strong case for the merging of the promotion of the film with the film itself. The cover has become the book, more or less.

It’s been a while since I’ve read Emily Brontë, but one thing that stuck out about Wuthering Heights was its definitive Gothic character, the spookiness of the locale & the ghosts that walked it — not so here. As I’m sure you’ve heard, Fennel’s interpretation is a wide departure from the book, though not as far of a departure as it could have been, the emphasis entirely on Catherine Earnshaw & the foundling she gives the name Heathcliffe, & I’ll admit the burning coals of their desire sustained a certain tension through most of the film, but once they finally give in to the urges, that tension breaks & the movie is essentially over, though it carries on nonetheless (clocking in at 2 hrs & 16 minutes). The aesthetics are obviously the point, as McLaughlin crystallized in her essay, though they are essentially rather random. It’s one of those cases where it needs to go in one direction or the other: 1977 Suspiria-level mad dedication to aesthetics as an experience in itself, emphasis on the surreal (I would’ve liked to see some spooky birds or weird animal business to bring in the sadly lacking gothic mood of it all), or a more true-to-form period piece. The issue is not necessarily that the aesthetics were the point, it’s that they were not a strong enough point to be meaningful in & of themselves, or to lend powerfully enough to the picture’s rather pared-down & straightforward plot.

The debate raging around this film (though ‘debate’ may be the wrong word, since many seem to be in agreement that while Margot & Jacob make for steamy eye candy, the movie overall isn’t so great — disappointing mostly because it could have been great, seeing as it’s based on a masterpiece of English letters & all) crystallizes a major problem that I have with many films that are coming out these days: as I said, the emphasis is on how it looks, as opposed to the story it tells. They’re playing to the Instagram crowd, & who can blame them? But a good Instagram story, as satisfying as it is for the 5 seconds it takes to register it, does not a good film make. Of course there was a Dazed story about the film’s fashion choices, it would be positively remiss if there weren’t! Imagery is definitely good clean fun, but when the art department is getting the whole budget & the script is flim-flam, we have a bit of a problem. Especially a script that somehow runs for two hours & sixteen minutes. Films these days, especially those that cue to the art variety, more often than not are just too damn long. Who has the attention span, let alone the time? I have places to be! Can we get back to the tight ninety already? Jeez!

That being said, perhaps Emerald Fennel should take the level of hype around this movie as a compliment. I mean, Promising Young Woman & Saltburn each made their own big special splash in the culture, she was perhaps due for a miss. The frustrating thing is that it wasn’t a total miss: with a few more edits here & a few more details there, the movie could have landed. Perhaps that’s why people can’t stop talking about it. For the fashion crowd: run, don’t walk to the this movie. For the art crowd: you can catch it on streaming & be prepared to talk about what you would have done differently (where were the paintings in that almost-fabulous Linton manor?). For the book crowd: don’t bother.

—Peggy Hepburn