At this point, adaptations of “Wuthering Heights” feel almost doomed from the start. No filmmaker has been able to capture the dark complexities of Emily Brontë’s novel satisfactorily. “Wuthering Heights” (2026), directed by Emerald Fennell (“Saltburn,” “Promising Young Woman”) and starring Margot Robbie (“Barbie,” “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey”) and Jacob Elordi (“Frankenstein,” “Saltburn”), continues that trend in ways that are as frustrating as they are strange.

The casting does what it’s clearly meant to do. Robbie and Elordi are undeniably compelling on screen. They were cast to be “hot,” and they absolutely succeed. But that surface-level appeal works against the story. Catherine and Heathcliff aren’t supposed to be easy to root for—they’re messy, obsessive, and honestly kind of the worst.

Robbie feels miscast. Not because she performs poorly, but because she’s too adult to play Catherine. Her story is supposed to take place when she is a young teenager, making naïve choices. Instead of trusting the material, the film ages everyone up to compensate, which shifts the entire dynamic. What should feel like youth’s reckless and volatile nature instead comes across as the choices of a desperate woman who failed to grow up.

Likewise, Elordi’s Heathcliff doesn’t sit right. He’s intense, sure, but he never feels dangerous. Heathcliff should be the kind of character who makes you uncomfortable, who seems capable of hurting anyone to get what he wants. Here, he seems like a lovestruck puppy dog, conniving to get what he wants.

One of the film’s most frustrating choices is, once again, the casting of a conventionally attractive white actor as Heathcliff. In the novel, he is described as a “dark-skinned gypsy,” and those around him treat him differently because of this. His outsider status isn’t just about class; it’s also racialized, which adds another layer to both his isolation and his relationship with Catherine. That tension is important and, once again, it’s missing in this latest film adaptation.

Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar isn’t just about social mobility. By choosing Edgar, she is supposed to be choosing safety, whiteness, and legitimacy over something far more volatile and socially unacceptable. By casting Elordi as Heathcliff, the film erases that dynamic almost entirely, flattening their relationship into something far less complicated.

To be clear, Fennell doesn’t ignore race altogether—she displaces it. The decision to cast Shazad Latif (“Nautilus,” “Magpie”) as Edgar introduces racial difference in a part of the story where it doesn’t carry the same thematic weight, redirecting the novel’s central tensions and contradicting the original narrative.

In the novel, Edgar was always Catherine’s safety net; their relationship and his desire for her were strong enough for him to ignore her cruelty and still marry her. In the movie, the attempts to portray this relationship fall flat; Edgar’s romantic efforts are weird and, at times, creepy. No shame to those who found Latif’s efforts sweet, but by making Edgar behave in this way, he hardly seems like the socially acceptable option.

The decision to make the Earnshaws poor further weakens the story’s foundation. In the novel, the class divide between Heathcliff and Catherine is crucial from the beginning. Here, that gap is minimized early on, stripping their relationship of another key source of conflict. Without those layers—race and class—the stakes feel noticeably lower.

The film also softens the portrayal of Heathcliff and Catherine in a way that fundamentally misunderstands the novel. Instead of being cruel, obsessive, and almost destructive, they are portrayed as playful—borderline pranksters at times. Their wicked nature is what binds them together, drawing them back to each other. By stripping their relationship of this dark power, we are left with a foundation mainly built on sexual tension.

That said, not every deviation falls flat. Heathcliff’s relationship with Isabella takes a surprising turn into something overtly BDSM-coded. It is unexpected, and while I didn’t hate it, it feels wildly out of place in an adaptation of this novel. The choice to make Joseph into BDSM at least gives an idea of where Heathcliff learned the kink, but that’s not the pious, crotchety Joseph that defines his character in the novel.

Similarly, the film leans heavily into Heathcliff and Catherine’s physical relationship, showing them sneaking around and having sex in a way the novel never explicitly does. While it was satisfying to see that Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship was more than just obsessive pining, the visually appealing, steamy love scenes just can’t make up for the emotional and psychological intensity that the film sacrifices elsewhere.

In place of that complexity, the film leans heavily into aesthetic choices—striking costumes, strange props, and montage sequences that follow Catherine’s life with Edgar and Isabella but never quite say anything meaningful. Some moments veer into outright discomfort, including scenes such as Catherine’s skin walls or Joseph’s sex life. They are bold choices, but ones that feel more shocking than purposeful.

The bigger issue, though, is structural. Like many adaptations before it, the film completely abandons the second generation of characters. Based on the trailers, it was easy to guess the movie wouldn’t include the second generation, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. The absence of Hareton alone feels like a loss, but cutting Hindley’s role is even more damaging. Without him, the story loses one of its most important emotional engines. In the novel, Mr. Earnshaw’s favoritism toward Heathcliff fuels Hindley’s resentment, which in turn shapes Heathcliff’s later cruelty. It’s a cycle of bitterness and revenge that gives the story its depth. Here, that entire chain reaction is flattened and erased, as Mr. Earnshaw takes on the role of Hindley.

Instead of those complex relationships and long-brewing schemes of revenge—not to mention the lines of poetry Heathcliff gives us in his grief over Catherine’s death—we get stylized montages and scattered moments that never quite build into the emotional depth that makes the novel such a timeless classic. The film feels less like a fully realized narrative and more like a series of intense, disconnected impressions.

One change that works is the portrayal of Nelly (Hong Chau “The Whale,” “The Instigators”). While she is now Catherine’s childhood friend rather than Hindley’s, the film leans into her role as more overtly manipulative, highlighting something that’s often understated on the page. Granted, in the novel, Nelly is far from a neutral observer. She shapes events, withholds information, and, at times, actively fuels the conflict between Catherine and Heathcliff. Through the visual medium, we see how outside forces can influence our lives drastically–a critical theme in the novel.

Fennell has been clear that this isn’t meant to be a faithful adaptation. In an interview with the BBC, Fennel stated, “I wanted to make something that made me feel like I felt when I first read it, which means that it’s an emotional response to something. It’s, like, primal, sexual.” She’s described the film as “filling in the gaps” from when she read it at 14. The adaptation is something shaped by memory, imagination, and emotional response. She’s talked about wanting to create something that reflects how the story felt rather than how it strictly reads.

And honestly, that explanation makes a lot of the film’s choices make sense. The heightened sexuality, the stylized visuals, the focus on Catherine and Heathcliff’s physical relationship; it all feels less like an adaptation and more like a kind of personal memory of the novel. Unfortunately, it is the memory of a 14-year-old girl. Frankly, focusing so heavily on that specific, almost adolescent interpretation sacrifices the structure, complexity, and generational insight that make the original story work.

This adaptation isn’t just flawed; it’s incomplete. By cutting key characters, simplifying relationships, and prioritizing style over substance, Fennell turns a complex, generational story into something far shallower. The characters are like La Croix versions of themselves, carbonated and watered down. “Wuthering Heights” has yet to find a director willing to trust how strange, dark, and fully realized the novel already is.

“Wuthering Heights” is available for rent on Apple TV, Prime Video, and YouTube. It is rated R for sexual content, violence and language.