How Emerald Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ Movie Changes Emily Brontë’s Novel, From More Sex to Missing Characters

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SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for Emerald Fennell‘s “Wuthering Heights,” in theaters now.

Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” has just been released in theaters, but there have already been weeks of discourse surrounding her adaptation (or “reinterpretation”) of Emily Brontë’s groundbreaking novel.

Actually, make that years — social media has been buzzing ever since the film’s stars, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, were revealed in September 2024.

Fennell — no stranger to provocation, having directed “Saltburn” and “Promising Young Woman” — has made it clear from the start that this would not be a by-the-book adaptation of Brontë’s 1847 original. “Everyone who loves this book has such a personal connection to it, and so you can only kind of ever make the movie that you sort of imagined yourself when you read it,” Fennell said at the L.A. premiere of “Wuthering Heights.”

“It’s such a gargantuan masterpiece, I couldn’t possibly attempt even to touch its coattails,” she told Variety. “What I could do, though, was look at how it made me feel, and hope that that would connect with some people. That’s all you can ever do — because Emily Brontë’s the best — so, I hope to make somebody’s favorite movie.”

Though the premise of Fennell’s film is the same as the book — following the tortured romance between Cathy, a childish and impulsive girl who marries into the wealthy Linton family, and Heathcliff, the brooding boy her father took in off the street and she grew up with at Wuthering Heights — the director takes many liberties throughout, starting with the casting itself and through to the movie’s ending. This has sparked many a debate among literature lovers and scholars alike, including on the topic of Heathcliff’s race (which has been discussed for nearly 200 years to little consensus) and just how horny Fennell’s R-rated adaptation is (the same can’t really be said of the book). The movie has also divided critics, with some miffed by its stark departures from the original text, while others — like Variety‘s Peter Debruge — praise Fennell’s “bold and engaging” take.

To settle the score, we read Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” so you don’t have to — though I really would recommend it — and came up with five of the biggest differences in Fennell’s screen adaptation. Read on below.

Casting contrasts

The casting of Elordi has been questioned from the start, as a long-debated aspect of the book is Heathcliff’s race. The character of Heathcliff is first described as a “dark-skinned gypsy” with black hair and eyes, but is also referred to at other times as a “lascar” (a sailor of Indian or Southeast Asian descent) or perhaps an American or Spanish castaway. Some scholars suspect that his race was deliberately kept vague and note that, at the time, even those from other European countries like Italy or Spain would have been discriminated against by Brits. It should also be noted that the descriptions given in the book are from different characters who may have their own prejudices, leaving the reader without hard facts. Either way, Heathcliff is immediately othered for the way he looks. Therefore, many felt that Elordi — who is of Australian and Basque descent — did not fit the bill. Indeed, in Fennell’s movie, Heathcliff’s race is not explicitly stated, and his otherness seems to center more around class, with emphasis placed on the fact that he was found on the streets of Liverpool and isn’t able to read or write.

Book purists also shared concern about casting the 35-year-old Robbie as Cathy, since in the book, the character is only 15 when she accepts Edgar Linton’s marriage proposal and 18 when she dies. In the film, Fennell introduces younger versions of Cathy and Heathcliff (played by Charlotte Mellington and Owen Cooper), then ages the characters up. According to Robbie, Cathy is intended to be in her early to mid-20s once she appears on camera, and the plot spans approximately six years from there. Cathy’s relative agedness is hinted at throughout the film, with her maid Nelly (Hong Chau) mentioning at one point that she is “well past spinsterhood” and should therefore marry Edgar, underscoring the societal pressures of the era. However, Robbie’s performance keeps Cathy’s childish nature intact with many obsessive outbursts.

There were also several changes made to the Linton family. Edgar, Cathy’s betrothed, is described in the book as having “light hair and fair skin,” but in the film he’s played by Shazad Latif, who is of Pakistani, English and Scottish descent. And Isabella Linton — who in Brontë’s text is Edgar’s sister — is instead introduced in the film (played by Alison Oliver) as his “ward,” which in the Victorian era denoted an orphaned minor who has been placed under the protection of a guardian.

Several original characters are missing

In the book, Cathy’s father, Mr. Earnshaw — who brought Heathcliff into their home and always had a soft spot for him — dies, leaving Wuthering Heights to be managed by his eldest son, Hindley, who hates Heathcliff. However, in Fennell’s film, Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) is alive and Hindley is nonexistent, though Mr. Earnshaw takes on some of Hindley’s qualities — mainly his dislike for Heathcliff and penchant for alcohol. Midway through the film, Mr. Earnshaw dies, which is one of the catalysts for Cathy and Heathcliff’s affair. Cathy’s mother is also dead in the film, whereas in the book she is briefly present; and the same for both of Edgar’s parents.

Fennell’s film also does away with the book’s first narrator, Mr. Lockwood, and though Nelly serves a key role, she does not tell the story of Heathcliff and Cathy as she does in the book. Instead, the film is presented without a primary perspective, though Cathy seems to be at the heart of the plot.

The film focuses on the first half of the book

Fennell’s movie centers solely on the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff, meaning that only the first half of the around 300-page book — through Chapter 16 — is included. The second part, as readers know, tells of Heathcliff’s behavior after Cathy’s death and how he continues to torture her daughter and his son (whom Isabella Linton births shortly after fleeing Wuthering Heights), who eventually marry. Since Heathcliff seems to lose all redeeming qualities after Cathy’s death, turning into a truly miserable and vengeful man, book devotees likely have a far less romantic vision of him than what is presented in the film.

The movie is much steamier

As with “Saltburn,” Fennell delivers another sexually provocative film with her adaptation of “Wuthering Heights.” Even in the trailer, scenes of slapping dough, Robbie and Elordi kissing in the rain and Elordi licking a wall were telltale signs that this would be a heightened version of the actual romance depicted in the book. In fact, there is no explicit mention of sex in Brontë’s novel, which isn’t too surprising, as to write about such things would have been incredibly taboo at the time. The book’s eroticism mostly comes from the words exchanged between Cathy and Heathcliff, many of which do make it into Fennell’s film.

One of the more charged moments of the book comes when Heathcliff visits Cathy just before her death, and the two share a passionate embrace, though Nelly is in the room the entire time. As Brontë’s text reads: “She put up her hand to clasp his neck, and bring her cheek to his as he held her; while he, in return, covering her with frantic caresses, said wildly — ‘You teach me now how cruel you’ve been — cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself … I have not broken your heart — you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.” This is about as saucy as the book gets, whereas in Fennell’s film, there are plenty of sex scenes, secret meetings to hook up and feverish kisses in the rain.

The ending

Since Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” only takes us halfway through the novel, the ending is entirely different. In the book, Cathy dies shortly after giving birth to her and Edgar’s daughter — also named Cathy — though she had been ill for months following her fallout with Heathcliff. The story then continues with Cathy’s daughter at the forefront. In Fennell’s film, Cathy still gets pregnant and dies of her illness, but the baby does not survive. In one of the final shots of the movie, Cathy’s death — and that of her child — is apparent when a pool of blood begins to gather below her waist, dripping down onto the floor in a quite disturbing fashion.