It is very rarely that I plan for a movie to be bad, I try best as a lover of the medium to approach all things with an open mind and very limited expectations, but I am human and am, of course, partial to bias. That being said, I am a considerable fan of the novel “Wuthering Heights;” and the second the details of this film were brought to light – the director, the writer, the cast – I had this film proverbially circled on my calendar for review as I knew it was gonna be a train wreck.

The third feature film from the impossibly posh Emerald Fennel  and her second collaboration with muse Jacob Elordi has, as usual for Ms. Fennel, caused quite a bit of controversy mostly from the cast. Margot Robbie and the aforementioned Elordi would be the leads, Robbie being 35 years old playing a teenager and Elordi, a white person, playing a man who is implied to be South Asian or Romani. Now color blind casting is not necessarily something I have a problem with. For example, I greatly enjoy Denzel Washington in “Much Ado About Nothing” as Don Pedro and as Macbeth in the “Tragedy of Macbeth,” both traditionally white characters being played by a black man. However, those are both characters that are defined more by personality and ambition rather than physical race. Heathcliffe from “Wuthering Heights” is not one of those characters. His racially ambiguous nature is an important part of the themes of colonialism and white British anxiety in the late 18th century. This kind of character requires a physical and cultural depiction that Elordi is not capable of giving. His casting was based entirely on his previous collaborations with Fennel and his popularity with young women who were clearly the target audience of this adaptation. 

What we have here with “Wuthering Heights” is a textbook example of style over substance, something that has plagued the career of everyone involved with this production. Although frequently very popular, when you look critically our stars do not have much to show for. Elordi can be forgiven as he is a relative “newcomer” to the business. But even someone as iconic as Robbie has had difficulty choosing worthwhile projects, whether it be the slew of Harley Quinn adjacent superhero slop or the admittedly fun but nonetheless corporate and commercial “Barbie.” Robbie has a tendency to treat herself more as a brand rather than an actress. That definitely shows in this performance, which is as stiff and fake as any Barbie you’d find on a Walmart shelf. I am not interested in the “romance” that this movie is trying so desperately to sell me – from the trailers to Valentine’s release date. Within the eyes of Robbie and Elordi, I see nothing but dollar signs. Elordi, of course, while having a little more of my sympathy is not innocent. I quite enjoyed his portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster in Guillermo del Toro’s recent film, but that charm and mystique does not carry over to this movie. Elordi is just so boring and lame I felt more like I was conversing with a DMV clerk and not watching what was billed as an erotic thriller. When reading the book, Heathcliffe had a constant dark and overbearing presence. He felt more like a personification of vengeance and control, while Elordi’s version is more akin to apathy and juvenile edginess. 

But as much as the actors are to blame, I know that they have talent. I’ve seen it within fleeting moments. Fennel is not so lucky. Her thesis for this movie was that she wanted to capture the feeling she had reading the book as a teenager, which is an interesting approach but quickly falls apart when you realize she very clearly was not paying attention in English class. With this outing and her previous works, it is painfully obvious that she wants to be a provocateur in the ilk of Haneke and Von Trier but comes across more like a Pinterest mood board of different surface level vibes to sell to teenage wannabe “freaks.” The gist of a film disguised by the visuals of a Phoebe Bridger’s music video. Whether it be the sexually violent turn in Promising Young Woman or another sexually violent turn in Salt Burn or the spoiler alert sexually violent turn in “Wuthering Heights,” the schtick is becoming tired on top of it not being very interesting to begin with. If Fennel wants to really shock people, to get a rise out of the public, she should consider making a good movie as that would be the most surprising twist of them all.