Wuthering Heights gets skewered in first reviews: Margot Robbie's film is called ‘smooth-brained’, ‘hollow’

Wuthering Heights first reviews out: The first reviews of Emerald Fennell’s much-anticipated Wuthering Heights have arrived, and they paint a sharply divided picture of the filmmaker’s audacious take on Emily Brontë’s classic novel. Starring Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, the adaptation has sparked intense debate among critics, with most calling it a hollow misfire.

An excerpt from The Independent review read, “With its title stylised in quotation marks, and a director’s statement that it’s intended to capture her experience of reading the book aged 14, it uses the guise of interpretation to gut one of the most impassioned, emotionally violent novels ever written, and then toss its flayed skin over whatever romance tropes seem most marketable. Adaptation or not, it’s an astonishingly hollow work.”

The Guardian echoed similar concerns, calling the film an “emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire” that misuses its leads, though it praised Martin Clunes’ performance. In a more detailed critique, the outlet argued that the film lacks the “live-ammo impact” of Fennell’s previous work Saltburn and even Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation, which it described as flawed but spiritually faithful. “For Fennell, it looks like a luxurious pose of unserious abandon. It’s quasi-erotic, pseudo-romantic and then ersatz-sad, a club night of mock emotion,” the review said.

Collider, in their review titled ‘Emily Brontë Is Absolutely Rolling in Her Grave’, also took issue with the adaptation’s departures from the source material, claiming Fennell “has taken a knife and gutted out some of the most pivotal characters of the book.” The review criticised both casting and characterisation, arguing that Robbie appears too mature for Cathy and that the character has been reimagined as a “whiny rich girl” rather than a fierce, defiant presence. It further noted that the film reframes Cathy and Heathcliff’s toxic dynamic into a more conventional star-crossed romance, diluting the psychological tension that defines the novel.

“Evoking elements of bondage, the movie opens with the creaking of rope and what sounds like orgasmic gasping, and though Fennell plays a trick — the image doesn’t necessarily match what you imagine — she’s essentially planted an erotic suggestion from the start,” the review read.

The BBC offered a more balanced and ultimately positive take, describing the film as an “extravagant swirl”, sexy, melodramatic, occasionally comic and often swooningly romantic. While acknowledging its stylised excess, from Oscar-ready costumes to overt sexual frankness, the review contended that Fennell successfully channels something essential from Brontë’s novel. “Jealousy, anger and vengeance are as natural to Cathy and Heathcliff as their endless passion for each other. If you embrace the film’s audacious style and think of it as a reinvention not an adaptation, this bold, artful Wuthering Heights is utterly absorbing,” the BBC review read.