Emerald Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ had purists losing their minds from the get-go.  They lost their minds at the casting – Margot Robbie is too old for Cathy; Jacob Elordi is too white for Heathcliff – and then lost their minds at the trailer, which is all heaving bosoms and kinky vibes set to Charli XCX beats. But Fennell has made it clear that it is her vision of Emily Brontë’s novel, hence the quotation marks around the title, and that she wants it to feel as she felt when she first read the book at 14 years old. I was willing to cut her considerable slack but did her 14-year-old self, I had to wonder, make it to the end? Who, in their right mind, would sell it as a Valentine’s date film if they had? I may be on #TeamPurist here.

This ‘Wuthering Heights’ is a teenage sex dream that ends halfway through the book

Fennell, who is a provocateur and usually a splendid one (Promising Young Woman; Saltburn), starts as she means to go on.........

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