Content warning: Discussion of sex, racism, child abuse, domestic violence, and animal cruelty.
Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for the movie “Wuthering Heights” (2026)
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The story of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff in Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel “Wuthering Heights” is one that has drawn commentary, controversy, and analysis over the two centuries following its publishing. “I absolutely love this book,” says Mina Moriarty, a historian, author, journalist, and content creator on her Instagram, @minamoriarty. “It’s one of the most incredible examples of gothic literature with a love story that is passionate, toxic and harrowing.” “Wuthering Heights” has inspired many adaptations — movies, TV series, spin-off books, Kate Bush’s debut single, and even an opera that premiered at our very own Portland Opera.
In 2025, it was announced that Emerald Fennell — the critically acclaimed director of “Saltburn” — would be adapting “Wuthering Heights” into a movie once again. The trailer for “Wuthering Heights” (2026), a dramatic combination of sunset horse riding, sensual bread kneading, and a Charli xcx soundtrack, released on Sept. 5, 2025. It immediately garnered tension and controversy for nearly every aspect of its substance — costumes, themes, casting, and storytelling.
The “Wuthering Heights” (2026) trailer featured the bold tagline, “The greatest love story of all time.” While “Wuthering Heights” (1847) is about love, it is also about abuse, revenge, and puppy-killing. “It’s more a novel that focuses on relationships in general, as opposed to just romantic love,” says Ava Imbert-Diaz, a junior at St. Mary’s Academy. The novel’s plot is complex and morbid, following two generations of families on the blustering moors of Yorkshire, England, where the rippling effects of Catherine and Heathcliff’s doomed romance ruin the lives of a handful of English elites and servants. Like many film adaptations, “Wuthering Heights” (2026) cuts out the second half of the novel, which focuses on Catherine’s daughter and Heathcliff’s generational revenge plot.
Heathcliff, Catherine’s love interest and childhood friend, is depicted as a person of color in the original novel. “Heathcliff’s race is ambiguous in the novel … he’s referred to by somewhat racist terms,” says Imbert-Diaz. Multiple parts of the novel reference Heathcliff’s non-whiteness — he is described as “dark skinned,” and multiple characters refer to him with a racial slur used for Romani people.
“The way Heathcliff is perceived due to colorism, as well as racism and classism, tinges every single interaction he has throughout the novel, and informs his growth and decisions, effectively making him fall into a self-fulfilling prophecy mechanism,” says an anonymous Tumblr user. The abuse Heathcliff faces at the hands of the other characters does not have an apparent reason beyond his poverty and skin color.
With all of this nuance around Heathcliff’s race and his position as the only person of color for miles, “Wuthering Heights” (2026) cast Jacob Elordi, a white man, as Heathcliff. Portraying Heathcliff as white is nothing new — there are over 30 movie and TV series adaptations of “Wuthering Heights,” and almost none of them feature Heathcliff as a man of color. “Whitewashing his character erases a huge element of Heathcliff’s identity and thus, the story,” says Moriarty.
Some counter this criticism by arguing that he is too evil or irredeemable to be the only character of color in the story, and that, by making Heathcliff white, Fennell and the other creators of “Wuthering Heights” adaptations are avoiding harmful stereotypes about men of color. However, it is wrong to insist that all marginalized characters must be morally perfect. Holding characters of color to a higher standard of morality than white characters is simply another way of watering down racialized stories.
On top of Jacob Elordi the casting of Shazad Latif, a half-Pakistani man, as Edgar Linton, and a very interesting racial narrative is shown. In the novel, Heathcliff is shown to be envious of Edgar, Catherine’s other love interest, who is rich and white. He goes so far as to plainly say, “I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!” In the 2026 movie, rather than choosing a man of color over an affluent white man — something that is incredibly subversive for the 19th century — Catherine chooses the brutally handsome white ruffian over the soft, uninteresting brown man.
Imbert-Diaz explains that, when it comes to adaptations, not all every adaptation needs to be book-accurate. “To some extent, they are trying to capture some of the story, or capture some of the morals, or capture some of the vibes … Where you run into problems with adaptations I don’t think is when people, to some extent, take creative liberties.” A major underlying issue with “Wuthering Heights” (2026) is the fact that it is an adaptation of Fennell’s teenage memory of the original novel, which Fennell has affirmed and leaned on as a defense against criticism. “The thing for me is that you can’t adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book,” stated Fennell in an interview with Fandango. “I can’t say I’m making ‘Wuthering Heights.’ It’s not possible. What I can say is I’m making a version of it. There is a version that I remember reading, that isn’t quite real.”
One of the most compelling moments of the film is Heathcliff’s famous speech to Catherine after her death, which in the movie, is made more dramatic by depicting Heathcliff embracing Catherine’s pale corpse in her bed. “Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you — haunt me, then!” he pleads. “Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!” This moment was one of the most poignant and moving in the movie, and also one of the scenes that plays most closely to the original text.
To leave out the saturation of sexuality in “Wuthering Heights” (2026) would be an incomplete review. The introduction of sexual elements to an extremely chaste 19th-century novel could be interesting, but the specific ways “Wuthering Heights” (2026) chooses to erotically express its story are strange, at best. Perhaps the most glaring instance is the revenge romance Heathcliff sparks with Catherine’s sister-in-law, Isabella. In the novel, Heathcliff forces Isabella into marriage with him to get revenge on Catherine for marrying Edgar, and after attempting to kill Isabella’s dog, holding her captive back at Wuthering Heights, and terrorizing her emotionally; she moves away, has his child, and dies. In the movie, Isabella falls for a brooding, handsome stranger who climbs into her window and seduces her. Translating Heathcliff’s brutal abuse of Isabella into a seemingly consensual sexual scenario is distasteful and, quite frankly, boring.
“Wuthering Heights” (2026) tries to tell a tale of blurred morality and messy love, but its need for opulence and screencap-ready moments dilutes every bold choice Fennell tries to make into shock-value attention-grabbers with no real substance to them. Even as a lifeless corpse, Catherine — portrayed by Margot Robbie — is unrelentingly stunning. That is not necessarily a compliment. “Wuthering Heights” (2026) is a movie that refuses to let its picture-perfect leads have a strand of hair out of place or a blemish on their skin. Through sobbing and screaming and sickness, Catherine retains her immaculate beauty. Heathcliff, similarly, is always artfully mussed, and never as filthy as he was portrayed in the novel.
In the novel, Catherine dies during childbirth before she turns 20. Margot Robbie is 35 years old. Catherine’s frequent outbursts of emotion and sadness in the book make sense for a free-spirited teenager confined to the bounds of her home, but in the movie, it just makes her seem immature. The grizzled, 27-year-old Jacob Elordi playing a supposedly teenage Heathcliff runs into similar troubles. “Wuthering Heights” (2026) forgets the youthfulness that defines the original novel.
One last note — this article would be incomplete without mention of the skin room. Edgar Linton gives the blue-eyed, blond-haired Catherine a room with walls colored to look like her skin. “You cannot have a Brown man presenting his wife with a padded room upholstered to look like her white skin, freckles and veins included, have him declare that it’s ‘the best color,’ and not have it sound both racist and very, very creepy,” adds the Tumblr user. To have a man of color proclaim that his white lover’s skin — not even her eyes or hair — is the “most beautiful color in the world” is disturbing, and very representative of the white fantasy that is “Wuthering Heights” (2026).
Though the movie has its moments in terms of both acting and dialogue, the final product of “Wuthering Heights” (2026) is radically displaced from the original story through its inconsistent historical accuracy, poor casting, and tonal dissonance. It may have been an entertaining movie, full of pretty people, but it remains empty of thematic depth or sensitivity.
