The portrayal of the supporting cast is no better. Edward Linton (Shazad Latif) has also been redecorated, now a good but boring man who lives in a house whose sensibilities are so defiant we are asked to believe he decorated it this way. His ward Isabella Linton is a simple young woman, corrupted by the fear of Cathy until she leaves her belongings in Heathcliff; Alison Oliver does the show and the comic relief, though the character’s rapid growth from innocent to submissive clearly feels like a big leap. The highlight of the show is the elderly Martin Clunes who is Cathy’s drunken father Mr. Earnshaw – the scene where he mocks Heathcliff’s love for Cathy stands out as one of the few instances where emotional Accommodations in Wuthering Heights feel sincere. But Fennell can’t help but play his own death for laughs, as if the film is averse to allowing anything so bad to stay on screen.
In softening Heathcliff’s brutality he becomes uncomplicated, reduced to a sad handsome man with a broad Keighley voice and flared shirts. Instead, Fennell casts Cathy’s maid Nelly (Hong Chau) as the true villain of the saga, a conspiracy, a disturbing complaint that keeps Cathy and Heathcliff apart out of jealousy and ultimately causes the former’s untimely death. Her consideration is also lost in this lavish reworking, written off as the jealousy of an illegitimate king’s daughter who can’t bear to see Cathy and Heathcliff happy. It’s a thankless role for Chau and he frees Cathy and Heathcliff, essentially dismissing their bad behavior as little more than friendship hair-pulling. (This is now the second film in which Fennell casts a lower-class character as the mastermind of a conspiracy to overthrow the poor, helpless rich.)
While being faithful to a novel is no guarantee of its success as an adaptation – some of the best ways to be dishonest are to be shamelessly dishonest – one can at least hope that the filmmaker understands the text he is trying to interpret. Maybe it’s Fennell’s honesty in speaking .“There is a version [of ‘Wuthering Heights’] what I remember reading is not really true, and there are things that I wanted to happen that never happened” is to be admired, but it is difficult to get out of it. Accommodations in Wuthering Heights in the sense that Fennell wanted to really consider what Brontë’s book is really about: class, abuse disguised as love, generational trauma and the stories we tell ourselves to justify doing bad things and doing bad things to ourselves. All of this has been removed to tell a more straight-forward tragic love story – one that is very much like it .‘Romeo and Juliet’ (to the extent that Isabella has a monologue that narrates the plot of the play) rather than .‘Accommodations in Wuthering Heights
Now it does Fennell will bring to this world? Beautiful dresses, beautiful hats, by the legend of dressing Jacqueline Durran, that however they feel completely different from the story being told. Suzie Davies’ production design is undeniably impressive, especially in making Thrushcross Grange feel like the Overlook Hotel if it’s decorated by Simone Rocha, and one Charli is guaranteed. XCX ft. John Cale anti-banger in .‘House’ (all of Charli’s songs used in the film sound weird, especially .‘Chains of Love’ over the climactic, yet oddly lacking, Cathy and Heathcliff sex montage). Fennell’s eye for detail and ability to assemble a large list of collaborators is unmatched; he swings enthusiastically for the fence and there is an impressive sight inside Accommodations in Wuthering Heights as there were too many Saltburn (also shot by DoP Linus Sandgren). But what’s the point of creating such a beautiful world if it’s empty? There’s nothing under the surface here; this is a slightly memorable story dressed up in a cute dress that seems more intended for TikTok fan edits and Pinterest status boards than soul-stirring catharsis. We are guided, told how to feel all the time, and trusted for nothing. If love cannot exist without trust, why do we do any of this?
The last idea: in anticipation of the release of the film, Fennell organized a series of The BFI IMAX of the articles that inspired his version Accommodations in Wuthering Heightsincluding Liliana Cavani’s The Night PorterDavid Cronenberg’s The crashPark Chan-Wook’s The maidBaz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, Photo by Mervyn LeRoy Random Harvest and Catherine Breillat Bluebeard. The real benefit of good films that should have been a promising sign of things to come, but in retrospect is only a warning that to love good art does not succeed to do great art in itself. Then again, maybe that was never Fennell’s intention. Fine art doesn’t sell H+M capsule collections or Kleenex product collaborations.
