Spoiler warning: This review contains spoilers for “’Wuthering Heights’” (2025) and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

“‘Wuthering Heights’” wasn’t a bad movie—it just wasn’t anything like the book. 

There were a lot of things I liked about “‘Wuthering Heights.’” The costumes were stunning, Charli xcx’s soundtrack was perfect and the fog was practically its own character. I was immediately sucked into the world of Yorkshire moors, contrasted with the decadence of Thrushcross Grange.

Despite being an enjoyable (if slightly disturbing) watch, “‘Wuthering Heights’” was not much of a faithful adaptation.

I didn’t love Wuthering Heights when I originally read it, but watching the movie, I felt like director Emerald Fennell’s “‘Wuthering Heights’” was missing one of the most interesting parts of the story—how awful Heathcliff and Catherine actually are. I mean, Heathcliff and Catherine’s love is quite literally destructive, resulting in more than a few deaths and the complete derailing of at least six people’s lives.

So, in order to create the “greatest love story of all time,” (a direct line from the trailer), the more difficult parts of Catherine and Heathcliff had to be toned down. No longer are Heathcliff and Catherine two terrible people who love each other to the detriment of everyone else—they become people to root for.

In the movie, Catherine is far less of a villainous character. Although she does have an affair with Heathcliff, she is far more conflicted about the affair than Wuthering Heights’ Catherine would be. Catherine makes the decision to push Heathcliff away following the affair, and doesn’t exhibit the violent and selfish behavior that book Catherine does. 

But perhaps most apparent is the change in Heathcliff’s character. In Fennell’s adaptation, Heathcliff is akin to a “Mr. Darcy” romantic hero. Sure, he has his problems, but he is tragically misunderstood. His love (obsession) for Catherine redeems him in the eyes of the viewer and his desperate horse ride to Catherine’s deathbed cements him as a romantic hero, if only in the movie. 

So, since Heathcliff and Catherine are no longer villains of the story, they must instead be victims. If Heathcliff’s twisted desire for revenge no longer drives the plot, Heathcliff and Catherine must instead be at the mercy of circumstance and other characters, which is most notable with Isabella and Nelly. 

One of my main gripes with the movie was the way that Isabella’s character was changed to make Heathcliff seem like less of a terrible person. In the book, Isabella Linton is young and naive, and makes a bad decision marrying Heathcliff. She eventually escapes that marriage to live in London with her son, and is one of the few people who makes it out of the nightmare that Heathcliff and Catherine create. 

In the movie, Isabella can only be described as odd. Her dollhouse, her violent tendencies, and her incredible wealth serve to make her less of a sympathetic character. She is no longer an unwilling participant in Heathcliff’s revenge against Catherine, she instead becomes a (slightly more willing) pawn. 

And of course, the movie doesn’t include the worst of the abuse Isabella suffers at Heathcliff’s hand (including, but not limited to, him killing her dog) which all culminates in Isabella escaping him. When Isabella no longer makes the decision to leave Heathcliff and protect her child, her character is completely altered.

Some people have argued that the change in Isabella’s character gives her agency, but to me, this decision seems like it instead reflects a desire to smooth the rough edges of Heathcliff’s character into something more palatable for the viewer. As a general rule, the romantic hero can’t kill a dog.

Unlike changes to Isabella, there is some precedent in “‘Wuthering Heights’” for the rewrite of Nelly. I could argue that since Wuthering Heights is told primarily in Nelly’s perspective, her biases are making her actions seem a lot more moral than they actually were. Throughout the book, Nelly does decide what information to share and what information to keep to herself.

I actually found Nelly’s villainous arc compelling and thought it added to the story. It makes a lot of sense for the villain role to transfer to Nelly, if Heathcliff and Catherine are no longer options. 

I could complain that the entire second half of the book was cut, but that’s actually pretty common in adaptations of Wuthering Heights. I think the latter half of the book (which follows the children of Heathcliff, Catherine and Linton) seeks to wrap up the horror of Wuthering Heights with the promise of better future generations. But without the same amount of violence and horror that the book shows, it wasn’t really necessary to have the second half of the book to show a “redemption.” After all, what’s there to redeem in the “greatest love story of all time?”

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