Divisive Wuthering Heights film called 'resplendently lurid' and 'emotionally hollow'

"Under it all, Fennell channels something essential in the book - the corrosive behaviour that can result from thwarted desire. 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."

"It's an obsessive film about obsession, and hungrily embroils the viewer in its own mad compulsions. Is it as lewd as Saltburn? I'd say it's lewder, if slightly less graphic. In some ways, it's a traditional bodice-ripper - bosoms heave, flanks trickle with sweat - though again, bodily fluids are savoured, while Saltburn's Alison Oliver makes a devilishly funny and unsettling return as Miss Isabella, Linton's initially meek and genteel ward."

Emerald Fennell directed a very loose adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. Fennell said the adaptation aims to recall her own experience of reading the text as a teenager. The film premiered to sharply divided critical responses, with some critics praising its audacious style, lurid energy and exploration of jealousy, anger and vengeance. The BBC awarded four stars and highlighted corrosive behaviour from thwarted desire. The Telegraph offered five stars, calling it resplendently lurid. Other critics, including The Guardian, rated it lower and questioned its emotional impact compared with Fennell's earlier films.

Read at The Independent