"The important thing about adaptations isn't what's taken out but what's put in. Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights"-or, as she'd have it, " 'Wuthering Heights,' " complete with scare quotes-is the season's second Frankenstein movie, because Fennell takes bits and pieces from Emily Brontë's novel and, adding much of her own imagining, reassembles them into a misbegotten thing that wants only to be loved. And paying audiences seem to love it, even if many critics don't."
"What's lovable about it is love itself: Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" is an unabashedly romantic movie emerging at a time when few such films are being made-at least, for theatrical release and by directors with some artistic cachet. It's unlikely that many viewers have been fretting about the quality of the adaptation, and I'm in sympathy with such indifference, whether it arises from not having read the novel on which the film is based or just not caring about (literary) fidelity."
Emerald Fennell's 'Wuthering Heights' recombines fragments of Emily Brontë's novel with significant original imagining to produce an emotionally driven, imperfect film. The movie emphasizes love and unabashed romanticism at a moment when few theatrically released films by prominent directors take that approach. Paying audiences have responded positively while many critics remain unconvinced. Some viewers accept adaptation choices out of unfamiliarity with the source or indifference to literary fidelity. Defending original texts often serves as a display of culturedness rather than a practical guide to cinematic judgment. Hollywood's formulaic tendencies have shaped critical expectations about film's artistic stature.
Read at The New Yorker
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