I wanted to love this. I really did. I’ve defended Emerald Fennell since Promising Young Woman, and I even enjoyed the chaotic excess of Saltburn. But sitting in the theater watching her 2026 take on Wuthering Heights, I couldn’t shake one specific feeling: I wasn’t watching a movie; I was watching a high-budget perfume commercial.
The moors look stunning, the costumes are impeccable, but the soul of the story has been scrubbed clean until nothing but a glossy surface remains.
The “Heathcliff” Problem We Can’t Ignore
Let’s just rip the band-aid off. The casting of Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff is the film’s fatal flaw.
In the novel, Heathcliff is an outsider—described as dark-skinned or Gypsy-like—whose race and class are central to his alienation. When I watched Elordi on screen, he brought that signature brooding energy we saw in Euphoria, but he simply isn’t Heathcliff. He is too polished. He looks too inherently “rich.”
There is a scene where he returns a wealthy man, and instead of feeling like a savage who donned a suit to spite his enemies, he just looks like he walked off a runway at Paris Fashion Week. It erases the grit and tension that makes the original story work. And Margot Robbie? She acts her heart out, but she feels miscast as Catherine—a character who is supposed to be wild, unhinged, and barely an adult. Seeing two Hollywood megastars in these roles broke the immersion completely.
It’s Just “Saltburn” in Period Dress
I honestly feel that Fennell is retreading old ground here. The film is obsessed with “vibes” over substance.
The dialogue has been modernized in ways that frankly made me cringe. Hearing Catherine deliver lines that sound like they were written for a TikTok caption rather than 19th-century England is jarring. It’s the “yassification” of classic literature. The toxic relationship isn’t portrayed with the ugly desperation of the book; it’s romanticized into a “toxic aesthetic” designed specifically for social media edits. It lacks the mud, the dirt, and the genuine cruelty of the source material.
A Visual Feast (With No Nutrition)
However, credit where it’s due: Wuthering Heights is undeniably one of the best-looking films of 2026.
The cinematography is breathtaking. The way the camera captures the wind sweeping across the moors is haunting, and the lighting shifts from warm candlelight to bruising blues to perfectly externalize Catherine’s madness. If you turn off the sound and ignore the casting, it is a visual masterpiece.
The Verdict
Wuthering Heights (2026) is a divisive, provocative mess. It will likely find a massive cult following among those who prioritize aesthetics over accuracy, but for Brontë purists, this is a hard watch. It’s beautiful, hollow, and frustratingly modern.
Score: 5/10.
Jordan Blake is a rogue film critic and former VFX compositor with over 15 years of industry experience. Tired of paid reviews and “safe” opinions, Jordan left the studio system to tell the audience what Hollywood won’t. He specializes in forensic frame-by-frame analysis, exposing bad CGI, and decoding hidden lore that others miss.
Known for his “no-nonsense” approach, Jordan pays for his own tickets and refuses to attend press junkets, ensuring his loyalty belongs only to the fans. If a movie is a cash grab, he’ll say it. If it’s a masterpiece, he’ll explain why technically.
Specialty: VFX Breakdowns, Script Analysis, Hidden Details.
Motto: “Cinema doesn’t lie, but marketing does.”
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