to think that the new Wuthering Heights is pretentious drivel...

[Asteria]

My little sister and I very excitedly went to see the new Wuthering Heights last night, only to be enormously disappointed... If you loop this and play it for 2 hours then you needn't bother going to the cinema.

I am all for bold statements and pushing the boundaries when it comes to art, however Andrea Arnold's treatment of one of my favourite novels left me lost for words. I was lucky enough to watch it in a small cinema, near to where the larger majority of it was filmed (my friends are the real residents of the Linton's house), that was handing out signed 1st edition copies of Heathcliff's Story by Emma Tennant - perhaps by way of apology for the film.... My sister and I ended up in fits of giggles at the umpteenth close up of a dead rabbit's eye or moth floundering against a window - and would it have hurt to use the focus on the camera - or even a tripod???

I was really excited about the stripping back of the story and it being taken away from the usual flouncy period drama - however the result was incredibly disappointing.

has anyone else had the dubious pleasure?

Haven't seen it but I always get annoyed at adaptations anyway. I even get annoyed at people watching the film who haven't had the decency to read the book first

I loved it and didn't think it was pretentious at all. A lot of the images were breathtakingly beautiful and I loved the minimal soundtrack of the wind, rustling leaves etc. The decision to go handheld made me feel as if I were on the moors, in the house, totally immersed in the story and in their lives. Thought it got right to the heart of the furious, savage, hopeless love aspect of the story, plus made me see Cathy as a victim of her time, gender and social origins for the first time (I have previously always just struggled to understand why she is such a beeeyatch).

am kind of looking forward to this, even though it has been really slated!

andrea arnold's last two films have been exceptional and have high hopes this one is on the same vein

I really like Andrea Arnold's stuff, and quite like the moody handheld idea, so will probably go and see it, even though I'm a passionate fan of the novel and get very cross with adaptations generally (if anyone saw the recent Jane Eyre with Michael Fassbender and Mia Whatsit, were you also wondering why there was no veil-tearing scene, and why the Riverses weren't Jane's cousins? And why did Blanche Ingram look so constipated?), and WH is particularly prone to shite adaptations. I'm still laughing at the one that had Juliet Binoche as a bizarrely French-accented Cathy ('Eathcliff, let us go roll in ze 'ay!') and whoever cast Olivier as Heathcliff was just being funny.

OP, is it true that AA just omits the second generation entirely? Mind you, that's always the problem - that you either do that or introduce an entirely new set of characters midway, having killed off the apparent 'heroine'.

It's cool that you have visiting rights at Thrushcross Grange, though...