Wuthering Heights divides critics with ‘lewd, exhausting sex scenes’ that ‘combine Barbie and BDSM’ while Emerald Fennell is accused of leaving ‘Emily Brontë rolling in her grave’

Wuthering Heights has divided critics – with film buffs branding Emerald Fennell’s adaptation ‘astonishingly bad’, while others praised the ‘swoonily romantic’ movie.

Ahead of its release on Friday, the eagerly-anticipated movie, helmed by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, has been met with a slew of one and two star reviews while The Telegraph has stood out from the crowd with a whopping five stars. 

The Times’ two-star takedown of the ‘self-deflating’ movie features an onslaught of fury aimed at Jacob’s take on Heathcliff, who is ‘plonked in front of the camera’ while steamy scenes are branded; ‘exhausting sex scenes that overstay their welcome.’ 

Margot’s Cathy meanwhile is said to ‘combine Barbie and BDSM (Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission)’, in a nod to her iconic role in 2023’s Barbie movie, while the movie was also said to ‘define the poor as sexual deviants’. 

The reaction has not been entirely negative however, with the BBC joined The Telegraph in offering impressive praise, as the former lauding the divisive movie for being ‘resplendently lurid, oozy and wild’. 

Margot and Jacob play Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, the moody pair who give Romeo and Juliet a run for their money as literature’s most star-crossed lovers. 

Since the movie was announced, Emerald has made it clear the film is not a loyal adaptation of the book – with Daily Mail’s Brian Viner stating: ‘Fennell has pared back the story, either tinkering with characters and sub-plots or removing them altogether’.

Despite her candour over the changes, which have included accusations of white-washing the film by casting Jacob as the character who is said to have gypsy heritage, with dark hair and dark eyes, while at 35 Margot is far older that Cathy.    

Alongside a shocking one star review, The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey states: ‘Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s performances are almost pushed to the border of pantomime’ and brands Heathcliff a ‘wet-eyed, Mills & Boon mirage’. 

In another withering takedown of the movie, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw stated: ‘Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Brontë is an emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire that misuses Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’. 

Alongside a shocking two star rating, he went on: ‘For Fennell, it looks like a luxurious pose of unserious abandon. It’s quasi-erotic, pseudo-romantic and then ersatz-sad, a club night of mock emotion.’ 

The Times’ Kevin Maher meanwhile mirrored The Guardian with a two star rating and a branding of Margot as a Brontë Barbie, in the ‘vapid’ film which ‘fails to reflect the complexity of the greatest gothic novel in English literature’. 

Empire’s Beth Webb straddled the fence with a three star review and notes: ‘There is notably more plot to Brontë’s novel than in Fennell’s reimagining…

‘While the film doesn’t need a denser narrative, it could benefit from feeling more grounded — especially when Cathy and Heathcliff fight and fornicate like teenagers, ricocheting between lust and loathing’. 

Irish Times’ Donald Clarke joined in with three stars while noting the anticipation of aggresively lewd moments, which fall short in the actual telling. 

He writes: ‘By the time we learned that Warner Bros was to render the title of Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” within quotation marks, the rumour mill was already awash with suggestions the director had ripped the source apart with a bloody, sexy relish that might have given even Ken Russell pause for thought…

‘Remember the talk of an opening execution scene that ended with visible ejaculation and orgasming nuns? Inverted commas surely would not be enough. We’d need bold italics, multiple exclamation points and eggplant emojis. Right?..

‘Not so much. We do indeed begin with debauchery at a public hanging, but the scene is carried off with more bawdy mischief than pornographic subversion. It’s closer to Carry on Heathcliff than The 120 Days of Sodom.’

Despite the sea of negativity, The Telegraph was more positive, with Robbie Collin pairing his five star rating with: ‘Resplendently lurid, oozy and wild…

‘The new film from the director of Saltburn and Promising Young Woman is fixated on its central illicit affair, as conducted by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, to the exclusion of almost all else. It’s an obsessive film about obsession, and hungrily embroils the viewer in its own mad compulsions.’

The BBC’s Caryn James writes: ‘Fennell’s approach is an extravagant swirl: sexy, dramatic, melodramatic, occasionally comic and often swoonily romantic… 

As Fennell surfaces the sexual desire Brontë could only hint at, she creates a very long tease. Cathy and Heathcliff throw hungry glances at each other…

‘Each gets a masturbation scene. When he overhears the practical Cathy say “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff” – one of the novel’s famous lines – he runs away from Wuthering Heights before hearing her add how much she loves him.’

In September, Emerald herself spoke about the sex scenes in the book and how the novel ‘cracked her open’ when she read the tome as a teen. 

She said: ‘I’ve been obsessed. I’ve been driven mad by this book. I know that if somebody else made it, I’d be furious. It’s very personal material for everyone. It’s very illicit. The way we relate to the characters is very private… 

‘[It is] an act of extreme masochism to try and make a film of something that means this much to you. There’s an enormous amount of sado-masochism in this book. There’s a reason people were deeply shocked by it.’