Emerald Fennell defends bold ‘Wuthering Heights’ vision amid backlash
Emerald Fennell is standing firm amid the growing backlash over her bold take on ‘Wuthering Heights’. The director’s adaptation has sparked heated debates over its steamy trailer, casting choices and unapologetically sensual vibe, but she is not backing down.Emerald Fennell first fell under the spell of Emily Brontë’s novel at age 14, and it has haunted her ever since. Speaking at the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival, she shared, “I’ve been captivated. This book has driven me to madness,” as reported by The Guardian. “I realize that if someone else were to adapt it, I would be outraged. This material is deeply personal for everyone. It feels very illicit. The way we connect with the characters is extremely intimate.”
Emerald Fennell describes her vision behind the movie
Emerald Fennell described her vision as raw and instinctual. “I wanted to make something that made me feel like I felt when I first read it, which means that it’s an emotional response to something,” she told the audience, according to BBC coverage. “It’s, like, primal.” She dove deeper into the story’s dark heart, saying, “There’s an enormous amount of sado-masochism in this book. There’s a reason people were deeply shocked by it [when it was published]. But it’s been a kind of masochistic exercise working on it because I love it so much, and it can’t love me back, and I have to live with that. So it’s been troubling, but I think in a really useful way,” as quoted in The Guardian.
Defending her cast vision
Critics have zeroed in on Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, slamming the choices as too glamorous and racially mismatched to Brontë’s brooding orphan. Emerald Fennell pushed back with personal conviction. On Jacob Elordi, she recalled a moment on the ‘Saltburn’ set: “He looked exactly like the illustration of Heathcliff on the first book that [she] read,” per ScreenRant. For Margot Robbie, Emerald Fennell told The Guardian, “She is unlike anyone I’ve ever encountered, which is how I envisioned Cathy.” She painted Catherine as a ‘sadist’ who toys with others, adding, “Honestly, she could go on a killing spree and no one would bat an eye. It required someone like Margot. Someone who possesses a powerful, otherworldly presence, a godlike aura that drives people to lose their sanity.”Emerald Fennell also noted the film sticks to the novel’s first half, with “an immense amount of dialogue is taken verbatim” because “I couldn’t improve upon it, and who could?” Addressing the uproar, she shrugged, “No one agrees on any aspect of it. I can’t create something that will please everyone.”Fans remain split, but Emerald Fennell’s unfiltered passion keeps the conversation alive and burning.
