Wuthering Heights accused of casting 'stitch-up': KATIE HIND
As soon as fashionable filmmaker Emerald Fennell announced she was turning Emily Bronte’s 1847 love story Wuthering Heights into a film, it was clear that the classic novel would undergo some modern and exchange rate risk.Fennell, one of the most highly acclaimed young female directors, is described within the film industry as something of an ‘envelope pusher’, and she certainly loves to shock.Who could forget her 2023 movie Saltburn, a black comedy set in a country pile which became notorious for its eye-watering sexual scenes?So when the Wuthering Heights trailer was released in November, a compilation of sweaty bare chests, heaving bosoms and kinky imagery all set to a throbbing Charlie XCX soundtrack, there was much outrage.It’s all carefully calculated. Indeed, just days ago, Fennell said she wanted a ‘primal response’ to her adaptation.That is surely guaranteed, but with the film’s impending release – on the eve of Valentine’s Day – it’s Fennell’s behind-the-scenes decisions that have prompted anger, at least within the acting world because, as one insider put it: ‘It was all a big stitch-up.’Fennell frequently collaborates with a close-knit group of friends and Wuthering Heights is no exception. For a start, she used the production company LuckyChap Entertainment – which her leading lady Margot Robbie runs with her British husband Tom Ackerley and two of their best friends – to make the film. Director Emerald Fennell (left) with co-stars Jacob Elordi (centre) and Margot Robbie (right) With the film’s impending release – on the eve of Valentine’s Day – it’s Fennell’s behind-the-scenes decisions that have prompted anger, at least within the acting world because, as one insider put it: ‘It was all a big stitch-up Emerald Fennell, one of the most highly acclaimed young female directors, is described within the film industry as something of an ‘envelope pusher’, and she certainly loves to shockLuckyChap also produced her two previous hits Saltburn and Promising Young Woman. And it was Robbie, a former star of the Australian soap Neighbours, who lobbied Fennell to play the iconic role of Catherine Earnshaw.So keen was Robbie to take the role that she returned to work just five months after she gave birth to her first child, believed to be a boy. She and Ackerley left their home in the Hollywood Hills to stay in Britain to make the movie.Meanwhile, Fennell’s signing of Jacob Elordi for the role of Heathcliff is the second time she has hired him in three years after he played the starring role of aristocrat Felix Catton in Saltburn.This decision has also prompted accusations of bias and unfairness because, as one source says, it ‘hardly meant there was a fair audition process’.My insider says: ‘It has all the potential to be the biggest film of the year, yet the cast has been decided over WhatsApp, so it seems. 'This is a group of friends who have worked together many times. What about all of the brilliant talent in the UK? 'There are so many young stars who could have been chosen but, instead, it has all stayed in-house, as a little private members’ club.‘It is wonderful to see such a young and vibrant production company doing well, and Emerald choosing them, but it would be great if perhaps these roles were dished out more fairly.’ Fennell frequently collaborates with a close-knit group of friends and Wuthering Heights is no exception (pictured, right, with Margot Robbie, left)It is Fennell’s casting of Robbie which has really caused a stir among the agents who represent British talent. Bronte’s Catherine is just 18 in the book, yet, talented as she is, the Australian actress is 35. Those who have watched the trailer have already suggested that Catherine looks ‘too old’.Fennell, just 40 herself, has also been criticised for not choosing a British starlet to play her main character. And movie industry insiders are stunned that Robbie hasn’t attempted a Yorkshire accent, instead speaking as if she’s from the Home Counties.‘You’d think if Margot was so keen to play Catherine then she would at least learn the accent,’ says one observer. ‘Maybe she doesn’t want to be lambasted like Anne Hathaway was for her attempt at it in One Day.’American Hathaway played Yorkshire-born Emma Morley in the 2011 movie and was heavily criticised for her accent.Although Elordi, who was born in Australia like Robbie, does speak as if he is from Yorkshire it’s his appearance which has led to much chatter within acting circles and among Bronte’s fans that Fennell has ‘whitewashed’ Heathcliff by casting someone so classically handsome.For many argue that in the novel he is meant to be of Romany descent, with Bronte suggesting that he is swarthy. However, sources tell me that Fennell ‘found her Heathcliff’ on the Saltburn set and was never going to change her mind. FFennell and her team, I’m told, don’t believe that they have made any wrong decisions, and take the view that it was just a book and it can be interpreted as she wants.‘Emerald knew she was going to hire Jacob again,’ says a well-placed source. ‘It didn’t matter what he looked like, she thinks he’s great.’Fennell and her team, I’m told, don’t believe that they have made any wrong decisions, and take the view that it was just a book and it can be interpreted as she wants.Wuthering Heights, considered a classic of Gothic literature, was the only book Emily Bronte, who died aged 30 in 1848, finished. It focuses on the destructive passion between the cruel Heathcliff and Catherine, the daughter of his adoptive father.Fennell says it’s her favourite novel and one she rereads annually, so this is definitely a passion project.The daughter of jewellery designer Theo Fennell, she was educated at the £30,000 Marlborough College, the public school attended by the Princess of Wales.Starting out as an actress, she starred in the 2012 movie Anna Karenina, and latterly portrayed Camilla Parker Bowles, now the Queen, in The Crown – for which she won an Emmy nomination.But she always had aspirations to go behind the camera, and in 2018 got her first big break from close friend Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who brought her in to write the second season of Killing Eve.Then, in 2020 she made her debut as a movie director with the thriller Promising Young Woman, for which she won an Oscar for best original screenplay. Fennell says Wuthering Heights is her favourite novel and one she rereads annually, so this is definitely a passion project It is wonderful to see such a young and vibrant production company doing well, but some industry insiders say it would be great if perhaps these roles were dished out 'more fairly’Mother-of-two Fennell next went on to write the book for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 2021 musical Cinderella followed by Saltburn, one of the most controversial films of the past decade thanks to its strong sexual content and graphic nudity. And now she has achieved the headlines she wanted for her favourite novel – mostly courtesy of Robbie, who has embraced the promotional trail for the past fortnight in a series of show-stopping outfits.At the London premiere on Thursday night she wore an ethereal sheer Dilara Findikoglu gown with a corset and green knotted trim, adding a ‘Yorkshire touch’ with a bracelet woven from Emily Bronte’s hair from the Bronte Parsonage Museum.Elordi, meanwhile, wore a green suit, complete with a frock coat for a period twist.As well as using high fashion to grab column inches, Elordi and Robbie’s off-screen chemistry has also attracted attention.And Elordi previously raised eyebrows when he declared that he and Robbie were ‘obsessed’ with each other while filming and claimed that he made sure he was no less than ten metres away from the Barbie actress ‘at all times’.‘We have a mutual obsession,’ he told US entertainment platform Fandango. ‘I think the thing is, regardless of plot or screenplay, if you have the opportunity to share a film set with Margot Robbie, you’re going to make sure you’re within five to ten metres at all times. 'Watching how she drinks tea, how she eats her food, how she does it. When is it going to slip? When is the thing going to come undone? And it never comes undone.’The mutual ‘obsession’ helped with getting into character, as Elordi added: ‘There’d be a moment where we’d be running hand-in-hand through the moors, maybe not even in the scene, just setting it up, where I’d look across at her and she’d be looking at me and you really realised you are looking at Catherine and she was looking at Heathcliff.‘And in that moment, we really were a part of their love, for real.’Meanwhile Margot said: ‘I’m so co-dependent with people I work with and I love everyone so much and I’m always that person who’s so devastated when a job’s over and I never want it to end. 'I think I developed that quite quickly with Jacob, too.'Such press will no doubt ensure that Fennell will have no regrets about her casting.‘She just loves to be talked about,’ says one observer. ‘Margot and Jacob have made sure of that.’
