Wuthering Heights

[GCAcademic]

Anyone planning to see this? From the trailer I was expecting it to be marmite and not in any way a straight adaptation of the novel, but the reviews I've seen so far are universally uncomplimentary. I'd already booked to see it, so will go in with an open mind!

It’s not a love story at all it’s gothic horror.

Margot Robbie is way too old to play a 17 year old. What were they thinking?

Horrible book. I won’t bother with the film. DS is 25 and saw it. Said it was a pile of shite.

It’s a story of obsession rather than love. If Cathy posted about H on MN, she’d be told to LTB.

Right, I don’t usually post but I’m at my wits’ end and need some outside perspective.

I’ve known this guy since we were kids. And yes, I’ve always had a soft spot for him. But honestly, his behaviour lately is getting beyond a joke.

He disappears without so much as a note, then storms back in acting like I’ve personally betrayed him by getting on with my life. He glowers at everyone, refuses to speak in full sentences, and when I call him out on it he acts like I’m the unreasonable one. He's a sort of friend of the family so comes around often.

DH is lovely, stable, and actually capable of holding a normal conversation, but he insists on treating him like an enemy.

I know he's had a rough past, and I do care about him, but I’m exhausted. I can’t spend my whole life mediating between a grown man and his own temper. AIBU to think he needs to sort himself out before I even consider speaking to him properly again? Or am I being heartless and missing something?

Why are there so many people posting on a thread about a film, in the film section of Mumsnet, to let us know they won't be a watching it?

I want to discuss it with people who have seen it. I don't think that's too much to ask for.

Perhaps they are answering the OP's question:

Anyone planning to see this?

I asked our school librarian if she fancies coming to see it with me...her response, based on her really disliking the book, was 'I'd rather shit in my hands and clap' 😂

But no one’s ’gate keeping’ it. It’s on Project Gutenberg. Anyone who is on Mn could nip across and start reading now. It’s just gets tiring when, every time it’s mentioned on Mn, there’s a tirade of identical, often outraged, comments about how ‘unromantic’ it is, Heathcliff is a puppy-hanging psycho, and how you’d have to be weird to think it was a love story etc etc. Bit Emily Brontë didn’t sell it as a love story, and her earliest readers didn’t read it as such — they were shocked by its violence and coarseness. The idea that it’s a love story stems from adaptations, particularly the 1939 Hollywood version, which pretty much invented the standard adaptation, by depicting H and C as in love and sneaking off for romantic walks before she marries Edgar, deleting the second generation and artificially inflating the role of their relationship.

I really like the book, I love how dark it is.

From the trailer the imagery and mood doesn’t hit the mark for me. I don’t want it spoiled.

😂 Fair point.

But now the movie is out...

OP asks if anyone is planning to see this. No, I'm not. I read the book years ago. As far as I can make out the trailer is suggesting that Cathy and Heathcliff are a love story but I think there's something more than that about their relationship. Hindley loves his wife. Edgar loves his wife. Hareton and young Cathy are a lovely, gently-growing love story.
I quite liked the adaptation with Tom Hardy, and with Hareton and young Cathy walking away from the old house.
Instead of going to see the film I could save money and eat Butterkist at home and read the last chapter of the book because I love the moths (butterflies?) flitting about the harebells and never an unquiet spirit in all that earth, and I have tears in my eyes. Poor unquiet Heathcliff.
I have seen many adaptations of novels and taken on quite a lot of changes but this one looks like a push too far for me.

I mean 'unquiet Heathcliff' when he's alive.

I think the casting has put me off already. Two towering buff beauties with Hollywood teeth don’t exactly scream 19th century Yorkshire moors to me. I know the director isn’t exactly going for historical realism but if it’s not grounded in some semblance of authenticity how good can it be? She would’ve been permanently bloody freezing not masterbating in skimpy corsets…

Saw it today. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting but it's not great.

It feels too stylised, too "try hard" & just a bit dull and naff tbh.
The style of Saltburn which worked so well in that film I thought, just didn't work with a classic novel.

I watched it today, I thought it was amazing and give it a very rare 10/10.
I loved the way it was done, it was almost like a play, most of the servants were invisible which I liked, the costumes were really good.

The movie is out, and question still stands! Are you planning to see it?

I'm not, as I'm sure you will be fascinated to know 😁

I love how most of the people on this thread saying they hate things about the film are the posters who are adamant they won't be watching it.

I saw it yesterday and in the main I loved it. It kept me absorbed for the full time, and I loved the whole 'over the topness' of it. Wasn't too keen on JE's generic Yorkshire accent but at least he had one unlike MR. I thought Martin Clunes and Owen Cooper were both excellent.

The film has stayed with me since I watched it which I think says a lot.

I knew this wasn't intended to be a faithful adaptation of the book. It's an interpretation of part of the story, in some ways a fantasy that brings to the screen a feeling - though today's eyes - of the emotions and tensions in the novel.

Finally, film adaptations of books have been unfaithful to original texts since the dawn of the cinema. I can just imagine a version of MN in the late 1930s with some posters folding their arms and saying 'well I won't be bothering going to see The Wizard of Oz, they've even changed the colour of Dorothy's slippers!'

I loved the setting and the mystical feeling

but the casting was all so wrong, the intensity of their relationship before she got married was flat and the bdsm was just plain stupid

it was ok as a film quite entertaining though at times not in th way the director is wanting it to be but the story has been completely rewritten which is a shame as it’s such a fantastic book the explores really interesting themes

I don’t think you can put the whole book into a film successfully but certainly has been done better

I think that the earlier comment of 'fan fiction' sums up my feelings.

I also kept being reminded of Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, which isn't really what I had expected regarding Cathy.

I was reminded of a mash up of la Voix on Strictly and something from the Masked Singer.

I saw it this afternoon.

Didn’t mind it - enjoyed it more than the book, which I read a few years back and hated, so not at all upset it wasn’t a faithful retelling of the story.

I could definitely have done without the BDSM elements and shagging around different locations, particularly as there seemed to be little chemistry between the two leads IMO.

Quite a few people seemed to be in tears at the end. I was not one of them!

I also knew it wasn't a faithful adaptation of the book but my criticism of it was that it just wasn't very good rather than it being a different adaptation.

You can’t be that bothered. It’s Haworth. It’s not even pronounced Howarth.

Predictive text.

Watched it last night. Didn’t go with high expectations. Loved it, like a previous poster 10/10. The cinematography was amazing. It’s a really good film and I cried.

So, I saw it last night. If you want the novel's narrative in film form, you definitely won't be satisfied. But as a piece of filmmaking it's very impressive. I felt it captured the essence of the novel (its violence, toxicity and bleakness) and delivered that on its own terms.The visuals are stunning - particularly the section of the film when Cathy arrives at Thrushcross Grange and the sets and costumes become surreal and symbolic. But, although it is stylised at times, I came out of the cinema feeling that I had been through something.

I'd say it's definitely worth seeing on the big screen rather than waiting for it to stream as the cinematography and sound deserve to be experienced in that format. But only go if you are open to it departing from the novel - if you want a more direct translation of the novel into film, there are other versions available (and I really don't see why anyone would expect Fennell to repeat those endeavours).