Emerald Fennell’s take on the literary classic “Wuthering Heights” isn’t exactly a Valentine’s Day pick-me-up. Yet it’s awfully stunning to look at with all sorts of toxic obsession, forbidden lust and Gothic sauciness.
Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are friends, lovers and frenemies in a heated rivalry in the posh and tumultuous “Heights” (★★★½ out of four; rated R; in theaters Feb. 13). Fennell’s adaptation takes some liberties with Emily Brontë’s original 1847 Victorian-era novel but unless you’re a devout superfan, you likely won’t be too mad. The Oscar-winning British filmmaker crafts a sumptuous bad romance that’s quite haughty, darkly hilarious and ultimately heartfelt.
After an opening where a crowd gets inexplicably hot and bothered at a hanging – an auspicious choice to begin a tragic love tale – abusive alcoholic farmer Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) brings home a street urchin (Owen Cooper) as an act of “charity.” He tells his willful, high-maintenance young daughter Cathy (Charlotte Mellington) that the boy can be her “pet.”
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She names him Heathcliff and while the servants, including Cathy’s confidante Nelly (Vy Nguyen), aren’t excited about having another child to take care of, the two kids grow very close. Cathy even tells Heathcliff one night, “I will never leave you."
