"James Lorimer, writing in the North British Review, promised that the novel would 'never be generally read.' Nearly two centuries later, it's regarded as one of the great works of English literature."
"The most recent attempt comes from the director Emerald Fennell, whose new 'Wuthering Heights,' starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, reads as a romantic fever dream. The movie has been polarizing in part for the way it excises some of the weirder and wilder aspects of its source material."
"It's an audacious proposition to adapt a great novel . . . I don't think it needs to be faithful, necessarily. The adaptation itself becomes a portrait of the time in which it's made."
Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights' faced harsh critical reception upon publication in 1847, with reviewers predicting it would never gain widespread readership. Nearly two centuries later, the novel stands as a cornerstone of English literature. Critics at the 92nd Street Y examined the text's enduring influence and its numerous film and cultural adaptations, spanning from the 1939 Laurence Olivier version to Andrea Arnold's 2011 interpretation and Emerald Fennell's recent 2026 adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. Fennell's version presents the story as a romantic fever dream while omitting certain unconventional elements from the source material. The discussion emphasizes that adaptations need not remain faithful to original texts; instead, they function as cultural artifacts revealing the values and artistic sensibilities of their production era.
Read at The New Yorker
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