People are sooo mad about the photos of Margot Robbie in character as Cathy in Wuthering Heights. First of all, the white wedding gown is completely historically inaccurate! And people hate that 35-year-old Margot is playing a character who was supposed to be in her late teens! And don’t get me started on Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. [LaineyGossip]
Vittoria Ceretti talks about her relationship with Leo DiCaprio. [JustJared]
Let’s guess about who will die in The White Lotus. It better not be Chelsea! [Jezebel]
Mike Myers did an ad with Canada’s new PM Mark Carney. [OMG Blog]
Tiger Woods confirmed his relationship with Vanessa Trump. [Hollywood Life]
I didn’t even recognize John Goodman with this wig. [Pajiba]
33 movies which aged poorly. [Buzzfeed]
Law Roach is now a full-time Project Runway judge. [Socialite Life]
Jeopardy had a TV detectives category. [Seriously OMG]
Janelle Monae wore a cute look to the HRC dinner. [RCFA]
First look at Margot Robbie on the set of Emerald Fennell’s ‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’. 📷
— Film Crave (@filmcrave.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Is the new Wuthering Heights supposed to be a modern take on the book? That’s the only thing I can deduct from that wedding dress. It’s very 1980s Princess Diana-esque.
I wish people would stop re-making and re-making Bronte novels.
I wish people would re-make The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
I thought the same thing. That dress is so 1980s Diana coded. Whatever period it’s from, it doesn’t fit well. Not sure if this production is set in the correct time period or if there will be a younger version of Cathy played by someone else. I get really annoyed with historically accurate costumes but that’s just me.
Ok, SPOILER, but Cathy dies in childbirth at age 18 or 19, so unless they’ve completely rewritten the ending, she’s always going to be a teenager.
WH, the first codependent couple, a murder suicide waiting to happen. I have never understood the appeal of these two as a romantic pair. They are perfectly awful characters.
He defines the cruel hero. Too many contemporary romances still glorify a cruel hero as the passion must mean true love. Blegh.
Many years ago, I had my students act out one of Cathy’s scenes: the one where she slaps little kid Hareton, tears a pillow with her teeth, and bashes her head against a couch. By acting it out, the students saw how utterly depraved she was. She and Heathcliff deserved each other. Two selfish, self-destructive, violent people with no redeeming qualities. Romantic? Hardly!
Read this book on college. I despised it. Most of the women in my class loved it. To this day I don’t understand the appeal.
For me, I love how it ends. Catherine and Hareton rise above their abusive upbringing and escape WH together. The dead stay dead and the living are no longer trapped by their parents’ abusive legacy. It’s a deeply optimistic take on the idea that you don’t have to be trapped by generational trauma. You can do better and be happy.
I’m sure that was Emily Bronte’s intention, no?
I think there’s a kind of trainwreck appeal in the sort of obsessive, unhealthy fixation they have for each other, the idea of wanting somebody so bad it destroys anything and everybody around them. It’s place is definitely in fantasy and fiction, though. It’s fascinating to read about and imagine, but hoo boy, not a couple I’d want to know in real life. 😂 In the case of WH, though, I think the author was definitely making A Point. I’m a third into the novel for the first time, and I do not get the sense I’m meant to find this enviable.
The only good thing about Wuthering Heights is that it facilitated the creation of Jasper Fforde’s books and the appearance of Heathcliff in those books.
Miscasting of the century.
Sorry this just looks forced…miscasting. And that cheap wonky bouquet, cringe.
More is Wuthering than just the Heights…
There was a time I loved WUTHERING HEIGHTS like no other and wrote multiple papers in high school and college on it. I see it through a different lens now, but still appreciate what it was able to inspire and make me (and generations of others) feel. I’ve learned not to expect much from adaptations, as they seem to often fundamentally misunderstand the universal archetypes, enduring themes, etc. that make the novel itself so enduring in favor of modern hot takes (whenever “modern” may be for a given adaptation) tropes about “bad boys” and tragic romance. The adaptations want Cathy and Heathcliff to be sexier, and more sympathetic and heroic than they ever could be. They are, in the novel, a study in unresolved trauma, toxic codependency, and destructive love that obliterates instead of transforming things for the better. That’s what makes them so haunting and memorable and why the story doesn’t leave you when it’s over.
The failure to understand that or the need to soften it or make it sexier or the characters’ romance more “rootable” is why, I think, it’s been so hard to create iconic adaptations that resonate the way some of the takes on THE GREAT GATSBY have (almost all of those understand the core assignment out of that novel).
Right off the bat, I’m less concerned with Robbie’s age than her inherent strength, decency, and presence. You get a confidence and surety from Robbie as an artist and peformer and her “wide eyed, beautifully, kindly blonde” aesthetic, in Western culture, makes her at, worst, a tragic heroine, and victim of circumstance, particularly vulnerable to a cruel man.
All of that runs counter to the moral weakness, selfishness, casual cruelty, and ambition that DEFINE Cathy — the unpleasant and ugly aspects of Cathy’s core damage are central to the story and doomed romance. Cathy is so often reimagined as a tragic character, but she’s very much participant and causal to what follows. Heathcliff is of course, deeply damaged, calculating, abusive, and terrible, as well — all the more so for Cathy’s casual cruelty and game playing regarding him, serving her passion when she needs to, then joining in with the others in their society to reject, other, and mock him when it serves her–push and pull, push and pull.
I’m not concerned about Elordi playing Heathcliff’s darkness, though I hate how it’s often framed as sympathetic “tragic, broken boy” who any woman (reader/viewer) might want to “fix,” just to juice the the romantic and sexy mystique of the adaptation. Core trauma isn’t cute. Abuse (of Heathcliff when he’s young and by Heathcliff as he ages, and the inverse for Cathy) isn’t sexy or romantic and toxic relationships aren’t rootable, but they FEEL that way when you’re in them, sometimes, and THAT dichotomy and conflict is more than enough compelling story and has powered the book for generations–but the adaptations want more conventional story.
My main issue with Elordi is a dealbreaker that has nothing to do with him. Heathcliff is othered from the START, in part, for his dark skin that marks him as “not one of them,” his defining and immutable visual image marks him for ridicule, mockery, and rejection as rough, working class, and “just vaguely ‘impure’ enough,” in ways that just won’t do in proper society, class dynamics, and romance, especially then. Bronte knew exactly what she was doing and she knew exactly who she was writing about when she wrote it. Elordi embodies exactly the kind of man Cathy and her friends would WANT to end up with. No one, then or now, would mock or other Jacob Elordi for looking like he does in English society. He would not be mocked, ridiculed, and othered for his unchangeable appearance, and rendered good enough for physical desire but not for commitment in polite society.
And losing Heathcliff’s dark skin and rough aesthetic is HUGE, because that rejection (over things he can’t change) it’s a core part of why he is so damaged and broken and vindictive and cruel once he has power to wield. With Elordi’s good looks, height, and high-class carriage presence, he’s a sexy English ideal (see also: SALTBURN) and that just makes him a “broken bad boy” for far less substantial reasons.
So I think I’ll pass. This would probably hurt my heart as a longterm WH fan. I’m always open to being surprised, but I doubt I will be.
I just wanted to say that this is such a thoughtful, well-written analysis and critique based on the literature and the cultural implications of modern aesthetics being superimposed on a historical context. Thank you for sharing your insights. I almost want to you *to watch* it so you can share your thoughts again!
Dang, Mario.
Another vote for you to watch it and tell us more of how wrong it was.
💯
@Mario, you’ve actually convinced me to go and finish reading* Wuthering Heights, after giving up on it at school for precisely the reasons teenagers are supposed to love it: overblown romance, doomed love etc. With your perspective I might appreciate it!
* or listen to the audiobook – full disclosure 😅
Ok now I’m tempted, but if I’m mad, you’ll hear about it.
(If I’m pleasantly surprised, you’ll hear about it, too, lol.)
Thank you!!! Really well said.
Wuthering Heights isn’t my favorite but now I want to reread it so I can properly drag this movie, lol.
but I think you hit the nail on the head with why adaptations of this fall flat. They’re trying to make the story into something its not and they’re doing Bronte a great disservice in the process.
She’s 15 years too old. She needs to to be dark haired, wild and super self involved teenager. I studied this at 14 and hated Heathcliffe hanging a dog: give me reformed Mr Darcy over him anyday!
Mettle Oberon was 28 and Laurence Olivier 31 when they made the movie in 1939; thought to be the first and best version.
Emerald’s movies tend to be pretty weird so I think this won’t be some straight adaptation and it will be weird
That bouquet looks like it was made at a Hobby Lobby.
I’d selfishly like White Lotus to spare Rick and Chelsea both, Walt Goggins is so dayum good. Rick’s life seems very much on the chopping block however.
Gaitok was previously the bumbling Don Knotts of Thai security guards but now that he’s become accurate with a gun is he foreshadowed for a redemption arc in the danger ahead? Lord knows he wants to be a hero.
I am now convinced that Gaitok will be the one shooting the gun. My two theories:
1. Gaitok kills Greg to save Belinda
2. Gaitok kills Valentin to save Mook
Option two makes more sense from the perspective of Gaitok as a character, but option 1 makes more sense for the multi-season story arc.
I still think Gaitok fails to secure that gun and a monkey gets hold of it and starts shooting
OMG, I am so dumb. It absolutely is going to be a monkey! There’s only a million references to monkeys. You’ve nailed it @lightpurple, but can we still hope that Greg is on the receiving end?
In addition to who dies, I’m also interested in who stays – at the meditation retreat. I don’t think it will be Piper, honestly. She wants to escape her family’s world, but twentysomethings do that all the time by moving to Portland or wherever and *getting a job*.
Talking her parents into a luxury vacation so she can research a year abroad (that they will fund) says she’s not serious about being on her own, and she’s about to realize that.
I do think there’s a chance that Lochy or Tim might decide to stay there, though.
Vittoria girl you in danger. 1st Leo girlfriend rule: you don’t talk about Leo. She even says that *gasp* she wants kids!
She’s either extremely secure in that relationship because she’s “the one” or it’s ending tomorrow
A British friend once observed that Americans always show their teeth when posing for pictures like they’re doing a promotion for the American Dental Association.
Definitely what comes to mind with the first Robbie pic!
Isn’t she Australian? But yeah she has a career in the U.S. I always think of the young detective on Shetlands saying that she wants “beautiful American teeth.” I mean, we do have a real obsession with gleaming white smiles.
You’re right — but she does have those beautiful American teeth!
Very funny when Tosh said that on Shetland
Add to Robbie’s impressive teeth ‘her inherent strength, decency, and presence. You get a confidence and surety from Robbie as an artist and performer and her “wide eyed, beautifully, kindly blonde” aesthetic’ (as @Mario puts it so eloquently, above).
Very odd casting. Can’t imagine what complex changes would be needed to make this work. But maybe the director has an unexpected twist in mind?
I hate this casting. I love Margot Robbie and think Elordi is good looking and reasonably talented but how does this work? What is Fennell planning? I have a feeling I will like it about as much as I did “Saltburn,” which is to say not that much. She’s gifted but to me that movie was style over substance: well acted, visually gripping and certainly unsettling, but kind of hollow. Maybe I just can’t forgive her for ruining “Lord Of All Hopefulness” for me. I always loved that hymn, and now I can’t dissociate it from….well, I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t watched.
I feel like you could forgive the anachronistic color for a production so it’s a visual cue for viewers, but the off-the-shoulder cut and deep cleavage is absolutely too modern for the era. Completely and immediately takes you out of the feel of a classic novel. This is also a rare case where the actors are actually too old for the role. I’m wondering if they’re intentionally going anachronistic with period mixing for stylistic purposes (ala Dunst as Marie Antoinette), which is fine…but then the rest of the production around it better hold up to justify the choice.
The main issue with WH is that they always tried to categorize it as a romance with a misunderstood hero and it never was.