To ask if you're looking forward to the "re-imagined" Wuthering Heights?

[Toeragg]

I can't wait! Jacob Eldori's wig looks a bit dodgy in the first part but he scrubs up well when Heathcliff becomes rich. Not sure about the Yorkshire accent.

Margot Robbie looks a bit too old and glowy to be Cathy but I'm there for the frocks, the interiors and the scenary!

Anyone else going?

The comment was not specifically about Cleopatra, but she was unlikely to have looked like Liz Taylor or Adele James.

I don't have a problem with color blind casting and it can work both ways. It's not inherently wrong to have a white actor play a character originally written as black and vice versa. But, in the case of Heathcliff it removes some of the depth of the original story so as an artistic choice it's open for criticism like all artistic choices. I think the general intention of the film is not depth however and that's clear in lots of other ways too. It is what it is - soft porn on t'moors.

It's a sort of racism really. The producers think 'well we've cast someone non-white, job done. No further need to think about it'. I think that's why you see such under-representation of South Asian people on British tv.

It's not filling me with must go and see it vibes.

Have this week been to see the National Theatre's "re-imaged" Hamlet. I lasted until the interval and then gave up. I had to check to see if the director had ever directed Eastenders. Everyone was shouting at each other all the time. I have seen three other productions of Hamlet and enjoyed all those. Shouting does not equal drama.

See also the "re-imagined" Dalziel and Pascoe which has been talked about recently. Starring two women. It's not Dalziel and Pascoe then is it. By all means have a drama with two women leads (Cagney and Lacey, Scott & Bailey) but don't call it something that is taken from the books (Reginald Hill) and previous TV series about two male detectives.

How a film interprets Bronte's descriptions of Heathcliff's skin tone has never been so widely discussed. I think it detracts from the more important anomaly of this version presenting a 35 year old Cathy, who was written as a teenager.

Cathy has always been a brunette. Margot Robbie is ridiculously miscast.

No. Desperately sad that most 'Tik tok' influencers can't/won't/haven't read the book. Says so much about them and their limitations.

I'll call this version Withering Hates.

God no!

I re-read the book quite recently. Heathcliff is a total git I have never understood why some people see him as a romantic hero.

Maybe it is because a lot of earlier film adaptations left out the end of the book. Certainly the first time I encountered it was the 1970 film with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff and that ends when Cathy dies. But when you read the proper story, no, he is horrible.

I read the reviews this week and am not tempted in the least. It sounds awful.

Well I loved it.

We went last and loved it.

I heard the director say she was trying to capture the intensity of her reaction to the book age 14 - I can’t argue with that basis for the film. We can’t tell artists what to make can we?

I saw two young girls maybe 16 in the loo afterwards and asked them if they liked it and they loved it and were totally blown away. I think that says a lot to me about generational response.

It’s inspired by the book and the films made of it too.

I don’t know if I would have enjoyed it as much on tv at home. It was really good in the cinema though. Margot Robbie was great and the cast was brilliant. The whole thing was really over the top but it worked for me.

My impression is that the only thing that was taken from the book was the names of the characters.

Casting wrong, story misrepresented through the eyes of a 14yo. The trailer is what I thought the book would be before I ever opened it. It just comes an across like a shallow money grab for Valentine’s Day.

Where is the depth, where are the themes from the book? What is the point? They could have made a steamy romance without calling it Wuthering heights. They could have adapted the book into a modern setting which would have been interesting. There have been several modern Romeo and Juliet adaptations.

The reviews I’ve seen are not positive. 1 star from the independent is top search.

@ipanemagirl if the generational response is to love Heathcliff then that is a sad indictment of how women think they should be treated today

unkess they have no idea who Heathcliff is from the book which is fine

and that is it really isn’t it it isn’t Wuthering Heights it is a fantasy of what teenagers (and I don’t think that is a generational thing) want him to be or think love can somehow change him to be

because he never was the romantic hero he was an anti hero a narcissist bully whose treatment of the generation below was awful - th redemption arc wasn’t Heathcliff it was Cathy (jr) and Hareton

I made the mistake of going.

I don’t think characters from novels need to be cleansed for modern tastes do they? I loved Mr Rochester when I read it in my early teens and he’s pretty monstrous. I don’t think Heathcliffe is really supposed to be real, he’s an imagined character. a film isn’t supposed to be an A level essay 🤦‍♀️.

Fennell said the novel for her is about nature suppressed. That’s a valid position.
Heathcliffe to me is an idea, a force in the narrative, an energy in the plot, he represents the extremity of human passion maybe. That’s allowed in drama. This extreme relationship is the drive of the film - that’s fine to me. It doesn’t have to try to do the book. It is full of a sense of fairy tales, beauty and the beast. Beauty and the Beast would not work in any media if you sanitized the beast from the off. Women are drawn to monsters - that surely is an unassailable fact; so films can explore that.

I guess it’s a bit of a dark gothic romp inspired by how she felt on reading it at 14. On those terms it’s fine.

I really didn’t like Saltburn but I did enjoy this. It was over the top and a bit mad but then so are Terry Gilliam’s films. Films are not required to be sensible nor do they suit every taste. I don’t personally like horror films but I thought The Exorcist was brilliant.

It’s only a film and I think it’s good to support female directors who are such a minority. There are so many terrible films being made and this was not at all terrible and we really enjoyed it - what else is there to say? It will work for some and Haworth will get loads more business and some people will go back to the book and the agony of the plot and that’s great. I just listened to the unabridged audiobook with all the dialect and loved it.

Also what a lovely surprise that Edgar Linton is played by none other than Clem Fandango from Toast 🙌

What was it like. I thought about it but didn't. Noticed it was a long film. Didn't fancy sitting in the cinema all that time. I like a film no more than 1 hour 45 max at the pictures.

Yes.. going in with an open mind. Love MR, looking forward to it.

I think it’s 136 minutes (!) but it didn’t feel like it to me. More noticeable is that my husband really enjoyed it and didn’t feel it was overlong; but he is a huge Margot R fan which may undermine our position 😆
He often starts looking at his watch in movies that go over 90 minutes unless he is fully captured.

It's my all time favourite novel and I'm a huge Bronte fan. I am also a purist and refuse to sit through a terrible, skewed retelling of WH. From the stills and clips I've seen and the droning on from EF, it's coming across like very poor fan fiction.The casting is appalling - MR is a ridiculous choice, she's far too old and JE looks like lurch! No thanks. EF has missed the entire point.

Saw it tonight. As much as I did enjoy it, it wasn't enough of the novel for me. The lack of other important characters from the novel was my main issue.

I thought it was fab. Beautiful cinematography. Thought Margo R was miscast tho, just too fresh faced and Hollywood teeth. Wtf were the hanging scenes for? Are they even in the book??