'Wuthering Heights is a Yorkshire masterpiece - but the new film's just another lazy caricature of Northernness'
For the last month, buses, buildings, and billboards have been plastered with posters of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi locked in an embrace.The provocative depiction of these two silver screen stars - both Australian - is meant to represent the undying love of Cathy and Heathcliff - the two twisted protagonists of the great, Yorkshire-based story, Wuthering Heights. The adaptation of writer Emily Brontë’s work of the same name has been greatly anticipated since its announcement in 2024 - yet, after watching, I struggle to believe that two years of research, writing, and shooting in the Dales could have produced this film.After 136 minutes of watching these Aussies - talented as they are - frolic across beloved Yorkshire spots like Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, I believe my suspicions of it actually being another Yorkshire caricature were sadly true. Despite the beauty, culture, and warmth Yorkshire has to offer, director Emerald Fennell - the daughter of a jewellery designer from Chelsea - once again fell victim to the trope of using 'Northerness' to convey stupidity, beastliness, and savagery.Firstly, let's unpack the fact that this is not an adaptation in the way we traditionally view translations of novels to film. This is not what Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is to its BBC counterpart. This movie has the same likeness to the original plot as The Lion King does to Hamlet. Principally, I have no issue with artistic interpretation - yet when book covers are replaced with movie posters in Waterstones, one can’t help but think there is a duty to remain loyal to the source material. No amount of apostrophes around a title will fix this.Context: For those who have not read the book, Heathcliff’s otherness is explored through the intersections of race, class, and upbringing. Though his heritage is ambiguous, he is clearly marked as non-white; Brontë herself describes him as "a dark-skinned in aspect," who presents as "in dress and manners a gentleman."By stripping all of Heathcliff's otherness back to being a ‘tall Yorkshire bloke’, Fennell - who has a history of writing Northern men as less civilised and desperate for wealth (Saltburn's slimy protagonist Oliver Quick is from Prescot, for example) - fundamentally meddles with the intentions of the book.I am not saying that in the book, Brontë does not do something similar. We see Heathcliff’s accent change over the course of the story as he grows increasingly wealthy, and his Northerness is a key factor in his character arc. However, Brontë was deeply inspired by the Dales, and it is clearly intertwined within her work.Arguably, the original Wuthering Heights was a homage to the great variety of dialects and landscapes present during its time, and a well-told account of class disparity - albeit slightly biased. While accent is a weapon used to depict class, it is not the only one in Brontë's holster.Because the film lacks much of the nuance the book explores, coupled with Fennell's tendency to portray working-class characters as Northern, I can only see Elordi’s performance through Fennell's seemingly narrow lens: "I want to recast my 6ft 5ins hunking muse to play a dark and grizzled character - let’s make him sound like an extra from Emmerdale."While problematic, it may have been bearable if Elordi’s Heathcliff and actor Owen Cooper, who played the younger version of the same character, had the same accent.Cooper was acting phenomenally, but still speaking with his Warrington twang. Meanwhile, Elordi was offering a hodge-podge of John Snow, and an unplaceable ‘Northern’. Given the myriad of quite wonderful accents we have in Yorkshire - which is England's biggest county - to say this is disappointing is an understatement. But what seems worse is that the fact that this went unnoticed by Fennell, especially as Elordi would have likely required an accent coach, felt like another nod to her seemingly unconscious bias that 'all northern people are the same.'So, once the film started, it was hard to ignore that the hyper-saturated backdrop of the Dales did not celebrate Yorkshire in the same way Brontë did. Firstly, Fennell must have had a rotten summer because, unless the audience is looking at an amber sunset over the moors, it is always depicted raining. I don’t think poor Margot Robbie was dry once.The smut was slightly smutty, but Game of Thrones was far bolder. Moving so far away from the source material, I suppose Fennell needed something to cling to - Yet adding Charli XCX to a few brooding scenes is hardly groundbreaking. Either the film needed to be hyper-erotic in place of the plot, or the plot needed to be explored more deeply, and the film did neither.Truthfully, I think it was neither as good nor as bad as it has been sold. It was fun to watch with my friends, and we were shocked on occasion by some of the more macabre scenes. The set dressing was outstanding and one of - if not the only - strong points in the film.However, I truly cannot shake the feeling that Fennell clung to Brontë's ‘Wuthering Heights’ as an excuse to use the beautiful backdrops of Yorkshire and the complex, twisted love story of Cathy and Heathcliff to create something nicely wrapped in time for Valentine's Day.I think if it had been its own movie - inspired by but not dictated by - the title and story of Wuthering Heights, it could have been an excellent watch. It didn't need to be an adaptation of Brontë's book; therefore, it didn't need to split characters into civilised and uncivilised purely by accent. It didn't really need to be set in Yorkshire at all.Like this story? Sign up to our Explore Yorkshire newsletter where we showcase the best of Yorkshire locations and destinations as well as selected offers and competitions. Sign up here.Get breaking news in Yorkshire straight to your phoneGet all the latest big and breaking Yorkshire news straight to your mobile via WhatsApp by clicking here.If you don’t like our community, you can leave any time. We also treat members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. Read our privacy notice here.
