Wuthering Heights Review: Fennell’s Gothic Rebirth With Margot Robbie

If you thought you knew Wuthering Heights, Emerald Fennell’s 2026 take might make you rethink it. This Wuthering Heights review looks at a version that embraces both the novel’s stormy heart and a distinctly modern cinematic pulse — all while leaning into the raw, untamed chaos that makes this story unforgettable.

Margot Robbie’s portrayal of Catherine Earnshaw insists on someone unlikeable and unstoppable — torn between love and self-destruction — and Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff comes across as both magnetic and terrifying. Together, they make screen chemistry feel like an emotional hurricane.

A Gothic Classic Through a Contemporary Lens

Director Emerald Fennell doesn’t just retread Brontë’s classic; she feels its pulse. Forget sanitized romance — here, Wuthering Heights is visceral, bruising, and startlingly modern in its emotional clarity.

Fennell leans into the story’s rage and yearning with unflinching visuals, making the Yorkshire moors feel less like a backdrop and more like a character that presses against every frame.

This isn’t a period piece that keeps its distance. It’s a version that confronts the pain, the fury, and the darkness front-on — and asks you to sit with it.

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi — A Pair That Feels Dangerous

Robbie’s Catherine is no wistful ingénue. She’s volatile, dizzying, and unapologetically impossible — a performance that feels fierce enough to burn the screen.

Elordi’s Heathcliff, equally intense, matches her gaze for gaze. Their chemistry doesn’t whisper. It haunts — the kind of pairing that turns love into an almost carnivorous force. For audiences ready for passion without pretension, this duo delivers.

A Version that Doesn’t Soften the Edges

One of the boldest choices in this adaptation is how it preserves Brontë’s emotional brutality. There are no soft focus moments here; every longing look feels weighted, every embrace feels urgent, every betrayal echoes. It’s not what you call “comfortable viewing.” And honestly? That’s the point.

Fennell’s Wuthering Heights doesn’t ask you to fall in love with these characters. It wants you to feel them — even when they make choices that hurt.

In this Wuthering Heights review, it’s hard not to admire how confidently Fennell reimagines the material. She doesn’t tame the classic — she leans into the psychological grit that makes it timeless.

If Wuthering Heights is a storm in literature, this film is thunder touching skin. Expect beauty, expect heartbreak… but above all, expect something unforgettable.