Chloe Frantzis

In my early twenties, I learned that flirting with a Brit requires a certain metaphysical finesse. This is because Brits don’t actually flirt. They say things at you that could be taken as either normal conversation or vague romantic inquiry. And if they want to pay a compliment, it will most likely come veiled as observation: "Your tea seems well steeped" or "you look like Gene Wilder from behind." In this regard, basic conversational protocol—question and answer, comment and reply—is upended into an unnatural, cryptic beast...all intention lost.

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This helps explain why the novel Wuthering Heights, first published in 1847, has remained the uncut gem of British literature for the last century and a half. Heathcliff doesn’t flirt. He acts.

 

Emily Brontë’s epic moorland tale ensures attraction between the two protagonists arises swiftly and with fervor. Cathy Earnshaw knows from first glance that she and this ragged boy from the streets of Liverpool are meant to be, despite prophetical signs (from both the universe and the author) that their romance will end in ruin.

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Yet the tragic and complex teleology of the Wuthering Heights tends to be overlooked by fans eager to find a story laced with a bodice-bursting gravitas. In the minds of today’s young audience—particularly those who listened to a certain Kate Bush song or caught wind of director Emerald Fennell’s recently announced 2025 film adaptation starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie—Wuthering Heights appears little more than a thirst trap. 

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I will admit that in comparison to other 19th century literary couples (think Estella and Pip, Lucy and Dracula), Cathy and Heathcliff hold a seductively cinematic charm. For better or for worse, the screen has been infatuated with these Yorkshire legends for more than a hundred years, and this is reflected in the novel’s many and varied movie and TV adaptations.

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In 1920, a silent film of Wuthering Heights was released. It was the novel’s first time on the big screen, yet none of the original prints remain. For that reason, William Wyler’s 1939 black and white production stands out as the pioneer adaptation. Thanks to Sir Lawrence Olivier’s brilliant performance alongside the dazzling Merle Oberon, it took over thirty years for the next version to come along.

 

In 1970, Robert Fuest directed an hour and a half long version in which many crucial scenes were simply left out. Next, Ralph Fiennes made his film debut alongside Juliette Binoche in Peter Kosminsky’s 1992 Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Skipping ahead, in 2009 a miniseries starring Tom Hardy debuted, and then a 2011 film in which Heathcliff’s ‘dark’ complexion is explored through the casting of a black actor. We also get a 2015 modern thriller set in a high school in Malibu, Florida.

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No thanks these films, upon picking up Brontë’s original work, many modern-day readers may be puzzled to discover that lurking behind Heathcliff’s handsome complexion lies a more dangerous creature—one very much incompatible with 21st century social respectabilities. Here is a man who cannot be ‘fixed’ nor coaxed out of his abusive behavior. Cathy is also not one to try.

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So, instead of asking if we need another Wuthering Heights on screen, the real question may be whether we can stomach one. Personally, I struggle to imagine a Gen Z viewer applauding at the more immortal lines of the novel:

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"Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad!"

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"If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave."

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Focusing in on Cathy’s character, she certainly fails to exhibit the acceptable kind of 19th century female agency we expect, given our encounters with the headstrong Jane Eyre and the proudly prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet. Uncomfortably, the heroine of Wuthering Heights makes clear that it is not just her happiness which is contingent on love: her very existence, sanity, and apparitional afterlife depend on Heathcliff’s reciprocated affections.

Film adaptations since 1939 have slowly and with greater success suppressed Cathy’s frenzied nature and dried up the text’s metaphysical charm. In the most recent versions, the character is rendered less manipulative and even pleasant to be around. This is ideal for a Barbie-Cathy (Margot Robbie recently portrayed the toy doll in Greta Gerwig’s 2023 film), but less ideal for a literary-Cathy, whose swerves between Heathcliff and the upstanding Edgar Linton proffers a mind beyond sensibility.

By making an example of Cathy, I don’t mean to suggest I disapprove of the choice to re-adapt, or fret over Fennell’s choice of casting (as the BBC does). Rather, I worry this latest rendition will continue to placate the irrational yet undyingly Romantic and mystical fatality of Heathcliff and Cathy, treating their madness for each other as an incidental contagion or  artistic mishap that must be rubbed out, washed away, and sanitized.

 

I only mean to offer up that if this 2025 film really wants to wow viewers, we should be asking whether this new Wuthering can do something, well, old.

Here I return to Wyler’s 1939 film, which I believe stays truest to the Brontë's novel. Instead of adapting to the times, this film simply adapted the novel.

 

Diving into Wyler’s production, Cathy’s frequent bouts of disdain for Heathcliff are brazenly on display in Merle Oberon’s portrayal. In response, we get a performance from Olivier that interprets Cathy’s trivial unloyalties as a sign not of waning devotion, but of lost providence. Like in the novel, the real tension in the film arises out of an anxiety over whether there is a meaning or meaninglessness to their love.

One of the more difficult aspects of adapting Wuthering Heights for the screen remains figuring out how to cover the substantial amount of plot that takes place when the leads are children. Yet a favorite moment of mine from the 1939 film comes early on, before we meet Olivier’s strappingly Shakespearean Heathcliff (Olivier gallantly tries to give his character a rugged Northern accent...yet he adorably fails to shake off his classical training).

The child actors portraying young Cathy and Heathcliff are superb precursors to the main act, capturing lawless life on the Yorkshire dales. When the audience first meet young Heathcliff, we see a scowling, disheveled boy on horseback with Mr Earnshaw. When the kind old man tries to lead the boy inside to get cleaned up, young Heathcliff attempts to steal his horse and run away. This raw tenacity soon finds a kindred spirit in young Cathy, who we see a few scenes later taking pleasure in whacking her brother with a riding crop. The two are clearly meant to be, joined in wild desire and impulse.

 

"I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have the notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning…"

Spoken by Cathy after ruefully accepting the hand of a man she does not love, this short admittance contains an unwavering hope in souls moulded from the same eternal substance. Cathy believes in a life for love; an eternity in another; a metaphysical bond between her and Heathcliff dating back to creation itself.

 

My hope is that these convictions will come to haunt viewers of the 2025 Wuthering Heights. Today, young romantics (like myself) need more faith in star-crossed happenings, not less. Thus, any future adaptation of Brontë's novel has the unique opportunity to imbue modern romance with a bit mystique. After all, if we all believed there was someone out there just for us—perhaps lurking in the Yorkshire moorlands—then maybe we would flirt with a bit more intention. To lose these miraculous, magical layers of love is to lose Cathy as Heathcliff does. And he, indeed, remains haunted.

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