"Nothing screams Wuthering Heights more than a blonde Cathy, whitewashed Heathcliff and Charli XCX, am I right?" was just one of the many scathing comments left underneath the trailer for Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights. Upon the teaser’s release last November, everything from the ‘posh’ accents – unfamiliar in 1800s Yorkshire – to Cathy’s ‘inaccurate’ wedding dress and the seeming addition of BDSM on a level with 50 Shades Of Grey, was heavily criticised. Fans of the novel blasted Fennell for what they called a ‘butchering’ of the source material.
And since that eagerly anticipated trailer drop, the final reviews of the movie have been released, with many critics savagely blasting the movie, giving it one or two stars. The Independent's Clarisse Loughrey said Fennells' adaptation had "no interest in narrative tensions, or in any of the emotional drive of Brontë’s novel," while Kevin Maher at The Times said of the film's proximity to the original text: "There is maybe 10 to 15 per cent of the original narrative in the movie, while the rest belongs to Fennell’s reimagined and self-described 'fever dream'." Elsewhere the movie was called "emotionally hollow" by The Guardian and The Sun claimed it was "sex over substance".
The movie, due for release on the eve of Valentine’s Day, is one of many recent adaptations of novels. We’ve seen Frankenstein, Regretting You, People We Met On Vacation, Hamnet and The Housemaid all getting the big-screen treatment, with adaptations of The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping, Lord Of The Flies and Homer’s Odyssey also on the way.
Since the dawn of moviemaking, books have served as inspiration for film-makers (the first-ever book-to-screen adaptation was Georges Méliès’ version of Cinderella in 1899). With a ready-made fan base to pull in a big audience, it’s easy to see why Hollywood studios rely on existing IP to create smash hits. Take Harry Potter, Lord Of The Rings and James Bond movies, for example - all prove that films based on novels can dominate the box office. But just because a movie takes inspiration from a book, does that mean it must follow it blindly?
There is definitely an argument that, yes, movie versions of novels should be as accurate as possible. One of the main concerns Brontë fans have about Fennell’s version of Wuthering Heights is the erasure of Heathcliff’s ethnicity. It’s a long-standing debate among scholars: Heathcliff is first described in the novel as a ‘dark-skinned gipsy’ and later on as ‘a little Lascar [a sailor from India or south-east Asia], or an American or Spanish castaway’. While Heathcliff’s exact ethnicity remains uncertain, it’s widely agreed he was not white. So, the casting of Caucasian Jacob Elordi was seen by many as a wasted opportunity for an actor of colour to excel in the role and another example of whitewashing in the film industry.
For Mercedes Ron, the author of the Culpable trilogy, which has been turned into a hugely successful movie franchise on Prime Video and developed a cult following, the main priority in seeing her work adapted for the screen was maintaining the feel of her novel, without worrying about translating the narrative specifics to screen.
"The non-negotiable element was preserving Noah and Nick’s unique dynamic. Noah isn’t your typical 'good girl; – she’s rebellious and determined. Nick appears to be just a bad boy, but has tremendous emotional depth. Their chemistry drives everything, and Nicole [Wallace] and Gabriel [Guevara] captured this perfectly on screen," she explains.
Certain elements of Ron’s works were changed for the big screen. The story’s location, for one, was moved from sunny Los Angeles to equally sunny Spain, an alteration Ron was not worried about because, as she points out, "each tells the story in its own way" and overall, "faithfulness to me means preserving the heart of the story – the feelings it evokes – rather than recreating every page exactly as written".
Arguably, some of the most successful adaptations – both culturally and at the box office – have been those that kept the integral elements of the story but gave it a fresh twist. Baz Luhrmann’s stylised 1996 version of Romeo And Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the titular roles, isn’t entirely faithful to the play. Set in a Miami-like ‘Verona Beach’, packed with parties and glamour, the tragic love between the pair still feels just as crushing as it is in Shakespeare’s text.
And if the majority of movies getting green-lit are those that are deemed more likely to be commercially successful because of the existing IP, then getting new interpretations of the stories we’ve seen countless times is surely good for entertainment?
These retellings often add depth, such as the expansion of the friendship between Red and Andy in The Shawshank Redemption. They can also make casting more inclusive by ignoring period considerations, such as when Dev Patel played the eponymous hero in The Personal History Of David Copperfield; the role had previously always been played by Caucasian actors. Sometimes, endings are changed for a more satisfying conclusion, such as Steven Spielberg’s choice to have the T-Rex, not the military, save the protagonists in Jurassic Park.
It’s also worth pointing out that when translating texts from page to screen, it’s usually impossible to condense everything from a 300-page novel into a two-hour movie, so there are always going to be changes and compromises to make it work as a film. So, when it comes to adaptations, perhaps the question we should really be asking ourselves is, "Why do we care so much about preserving the 'original vision' of the text?"
Another issue raised by Brontë fans is the apparent romanticisation of Heathcliff and Cathy’s relationship in Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. For those who haven’t read the novel, their fraught relationship is anything but romantic – it’s layered in abuse, pain and trauma. Seeing the exaggerated sexual undertones on screen has led fans to question whether the film-makers truly understand the novel’s deeper meaning. This inevitably sparks comparisons between text and film, often leading to the age-old refrain, "The book was better."
However, for Dr Frances Kamm, director of education and a lecturer in film at the University of Kent, the phrase comes with its own problems. When we say it, she feels that what we’re really saying is, "It didn’t encapsulate that particular vision or interpretation of that text that I had." And most of the time, we assume our interpretation aligns with the author’s – something that is, of course, impossible to know for sure.
Dr Kamm argues that once we have expressed our love for a book, it is unlikely that anything will match up. "If you are truly in love with Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, for example, nothing is ever going to compare, because there is only one Shelley’s Frankenstein," she explains. "There also has to be an understanding of a contract between viewer and text. If you truly love the book, that is always going to be the true one for you. An adaptation is engaging in a translation, a retelling, a reimagining, which means that for you there are going to be aspects of it you may love and there may be aspects you won’t because it can never be, for you, that one text."
Ultimately, an adaptation is just that – one person’s unique interpretation of a story. When reading Wuthering Heights, my vision of how the ragged moors look will be vastly different to your own, as will Fennell’s, even though we’re all reading the same text. So, yes, while the movie’s casting issues can’t be overlooked, the film is still just one version of the story, alongside more than 50 adaptations in various forms over the years – while Brontë’s original will remain on your bookshelf. It’s up to you which version you choose to experience and put your cash behind. Now, where can I listen to that Charli XCX remix?
