Wuthering Heights

A young woman makes a big mistake and consequences proliferate. Most reviewers, it seems, considered this to be luxe trash, but for me it is by far the most affecting adaptation (of the half-dozen I’ve seen, including Wyler’s and Rivette’s). The over-the-top aesthetic, which is almost hysterical, has a slight Baz Luhrmann feel about it, but to this viewer’s mind is more cohesive and convincing than Luhrmann was ever able to achieve after the thirty-year-old (and very good) ROMEO + JULIET (1996) (whose plot is conspicuously described at length here). Great, too – and somewhat unexpected, given the thematic concerns of Fennell’s far less impressive PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (2020) – is the decision not to focus on all those predictable contemporary “revisions” to do with themes of race, class and so on, and instead to fashion something both gorgeous and primordial. The actors are a bit too old for this story, but what are you gonna do? Margot Robbies aren’t a dime a dozen. A complete surprise.