Featured Image Credit: Curzon Artificial Eye
Michael Slavin
The brand new Wuthering Heights has had first reactions drop ahead of the Valentines Day release of the erotic film.
Starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie and directed by Saltburn creative Emerald Fennell, the film’s overtly sexual and borderline smutty tone has led to huge debates on social media.
Add to that accusations that Jacob Elordi’s casting is ‘white-washing’, the theory that the film is actually set in the modern day, and the bizarre PR-quotes about Elordi and Robbie’s relationship and you have a social media storm in the lead-up to the film’s release.
Despite this though many fans are being urged that they don’t even need to spend their Valentines Day watching the new film because a ‘harrowing’ version of the movie already exists and is a hidden gem starring Skins star Kaya Scodelario.
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Over the years there have been a number of huge names to star in adaptations of the book, dating all the way back to a film in 1920.
Between Tom Hardy, Ralph Fiennes, and Timothy Dalton though, there is one issue people have with the Heathcliff’s over the years – him being played by a white guy.
Criticism of the new Emerald Fennell film starring Elordi has centred around the fact that many read Heathcliff in the book to not be a white man, with references to him having Romani heritage and comparisons to ‘Laskar sailors’.
Fans therefore have been pointing to the 2011 Wuthering Heights starring Skins star Kaya Scodelario, newcomer James Howson as Heathcliff.
Howson’s casting marked his first ever film, having been found by a nationwide casting call, and is one of the first non-white actors to be cast in an English-speaking adaptation.
When news of Robbie and Elordi’s casting broke one viral tweet said: “sorry but there really is no reason for more adaptations of wuthering heights when the 2011 movie directed by Andrea Arnold exists.”
Another tweet following the news pointed people towards the film, specifically noting that Arnold’s version accurately ‘engages with the novel’s racial subtext’.
Fans over on Reddit have been debating the new film extensively, with one thread discussing how the best adaptations of Wuthering Heights don’t focus on the sexuality, but by treating it almost as a ‘psychological horror’.
One popular comment on this thread said: “All of the reasons you state are precisely why Andrea Arnold's harrowing, visceral 2011 release, while heavily abridged, remains for my money the most faithful adaptation of any to date.”
The adaptation received mixed reviews at the time, with a 69% on Rotten Tomatoes, with Time Out saying in their four star review: “This weird, yearning movie could become beloved to many, just as the novel has been.”
Speaking about the film, director Andrea Arnold said that the decision to have Heathcliff played by a non-white actor came from the book, saying: “To me it seemed quite clear that he wasn’t white skinned.
"It seems to me Emily was playing with something she didn’t fully commit to, actually. Her descriptions of him are vague, but not.”
Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights is available to stream on Disney+ in the UK and AMC+ in the US.