Emerald Fennell Says Her ‘Wuthering Heights’ Is “a Version,” Not a Straight Adaptation

Oscar-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell is standing by her bold reimagining of Wuthering Heights, describing the film as a deeply personal interpretation rather than a faithful retelling of Emily Brontë’s 19th-century classic.

“The book means so much to me,” Fennell said in a January interview with Fandango. “It’s very important that everyone who loves it as much as I do feels almost a part of it.”

At the same time, she acknowledged the limits of adaptation. “You can’t adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book,” she said. “I can’t say I’m making Wuthering Heights. It’s not possible. What I can say is I’m making a version of it.”

Fennell, who won an Academy Award for writing 2020’s Promising Young Woman, explained that her film draws from the way she remembers reading the novel as a teenager — a version shaped by imagination as much as the text itself. “It is Wuthering Heights,” she said, “but it isn’t.”

Published in 1847, Brontë’s novel tells the tragic, obsessive love story between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. The book has been adapted many times for film and television. Fennell’s interpretation, however, sparked debate as soon as the casting of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi was announced.

Some critics argued that Robbie, 35, was too old to portray Catherine, who is a teenager in the novel, opposite Elordi, 28. Others raised concerns that Heathcliff — described in the book as “dark-skinned” — was being whitewashed again for the screen.

Fennell has said she envisioned Elordi for the role after working with him on her 2023 film Saltburn. Speaking at the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival, she said Elordi resembled the illustration of Heathcliff from the first edition she read. Of Robbie, who also serves as a producer on the film, Fennell described her as “so beautiful and interesting and surprising,” adding that she shares Catherine’s magnetic, unpredictable qualities.

The film also makes structural changes. It omits key characters from the novel, including Mr. Lockwood and Hindley Earnshaw, and covers only the first half of the story. Fennell told Entertainment Weekly that a full adaptation would have required a 10-hour miniseries. “If you’re making a movie, and you’ve got to be fairly tight, you’ve got to make those kinds of hard decisions,” she said.

One of the most controversial changes involves Isabella Linton, played by Alison Oliver. In the novel, Heathcliff’s relationship with Isabella is abusive, including a scene in which he kills her dog. In Fennell’s version, the violence is reinterpreted through a provocative scene suggesting a consensual submissive dynamic between the two characters.

Elordi described one scene — in which Isabella appears in a dog collar — as Fennell’s way of translating some of the book’s darkest elements into a visual moment. Fennell said she intentionally included a wink from Isabella to Nelly (played by Hong Chau) to signal consent. “It is almost all Brontë,” she said, adding that the novel itself was controversial and “very transgressive” when first published.

The film carries an R rating and features an original soundtrack by Charli xcx, underscoring its modern tone. While some literary purists have criticized the creative liberties, not all reactions have been negative.

Staff at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in England, who attended a preview screening, told The Guardian that the film captures key emotional themes from the novel. One staff member described it as “a fever dream,” while another said it conveys “some essential truths to the book and the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy.” A third summarized: “Is it faithful? No. Is it for purists? No. Is it an entertaining riff on the novel? Yes.”

Despite the debate, the film opened at No. 1 at the global box office over Valentine’s Day weekend and is currently playing in theaters worldwide.