This is the best Wuthering Heights I have ever seen. There are at least fifteen versions of the film out there, and I have seen a majority of them so I expect I can be a fair judge.
This is the best Wuthering Heights I have ever seen. There are at least fifteen versions of the film out there, and I have seen a majority of them so I expect I can be a fair judge.
This was the best version for several reasons – it is the only one to successfully capture the raw passion of the book. It demonstrates exactly why Heathcliff is insanely in love. It shows his vast suffering without explaining it, so that love – the crazy love – is understandable.
The next reason why this film works so well is because of the children, they are marvelous. The actors who play the young Cathy and Heathcliff are raw, animalistic, ghastly and beautiful. There is a certain level of sexualisation, especially in a scene where they roll in the mud, however it is carefully dealt with, and it is never overt.
Some of the early scenes as the children play together fully justify the title of ‘Best Wuthering Heights Award’.
Finally, the best element was that it explained why Cathy picked Edgar Linton over Heathcliff. The house ‘Wuthering Heights’ that the children live in; is ghastly and Cathy would be a fool not to try and leave. This is so unlike the earlier movies with Laurence Olivier or the more recent Ralph Fiennes version where Cathy seems selfish to disregard her lover; in this remake she seems justified in leaving Heathcliff to escape poverty.
The casting of a black Heathcliff has caused some surprise and poor reactions, which seem unfair, because it works extremely well. The prejudice that Heathcliff receives makes sense if he is black, and the two actors who play him are just great in the role, especially the younger Soloman Glave.
However legally and historically it might not work because inter-racial marriage in the UK was against the law. Secondarily if you have read the book, you would’ve known that Heathcliff’s son, Linton is describe as ‘weak-looking, blonde and pale’ therefore he is unlikely to be the child of a black man. However since the film somewhat ignores the Isabella connection, perhaps that viewpoint can be ignored.
That is not to say that the film is not peppered with flaws the first section is far far too long. It requires an editor to cut the rolling hills of Yorkshire and the wet scenery by at least twenty minutes. The inbalance between the first and later section is completely uneven which probably unfairly cuts short the abilities of Kaya Scodelario and James Howson.
It is over-long and doesn’t include the ending of the novel, but it works because it cleverly captures what Emily Brontë tried to write about – passionate doomed love.
