Jacob Elordi was certainly given high expectations to live up to when he was cast as Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s new version of Wuthering Heights, as it is an iconic role that has been portrayed by such great actors as Laurence Olivier, Timothy Dalton, Ralph Fiennes, and Tom Hardy. Heathcliff is a character who can be considered to be both a tragic hero and a sinister villain, and the best adaptations of Wuthering Heights have made his role in the story somewhat ambiguous. However, Fennell’s Wuthering Heights leaves out significant moments of the story that make Heathcliff’s motivations confusing, resulting in an ending that doesn’t resonate. While it is not a requirement that an adaptation be faithful to the source material, Wuthering Heights includes one of the novel’s most iconic moments without putting in the work to justify it.

The romance between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie) is one of the most complex in the history of fiction. Although a young Heathcliff (Owen Cooper) and Catherine (Charlotte Mellington) fall in love with one another when they become adopted siblings, they are unable to consummate their relationship due to societal roles that keep them apart, and eventually locked away in different marriages. The presence of death is necessary in Wuthering Heights to create a sense of foreshadowing that complements the gothic overtones, and Fennell’s decision to cut out these components means that Elordi is working with a character of confused motivations.

Heathcliff’s Motivations Aren’t Well-Realized in ‘Wuthering Heights’

Not included within Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is the original opening of the novel, in which the traveler Mr. Lockwood travels to a worn-down, decaying version of the titular estate and comes across an older version of Heathcliff and his servant Nelly Dean (Hong Chau). Even though the new film only adapts the first half of the novel, Wuthering Heights needed to establish Catherine’s death from the beginning in order to put pressure on the fleeting time that she has with Heathcliff. Death isn’t a considerable factor in Fennell’s Wuthering Heights at all, as she completely disregards the character of Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine’s brother. Hindley’s death is a major turning point in the book that leads Heathcliff to acquire more power, but Fennell seems to have ascribed all of his traits to those of Catherine’s father, Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes). His death is treated as an inevitability, and does not significantly impact either Catherine or Heathcliff.

Although there is nothing about Wuthering Heights that is supernatural in nature, Heathcliff needs to be haunted by the fact that he was never able to be happy with Catherine, and is thus doomed to a life of misery, regardless of fortune. Fennell tries to build to this moment in the film by including a scene where Heathcliff asks Catherine to haunt him, but it is less effective because they have already been intimate with one another in the story. It’s more inherently tragic if Heathcliff and Catherine are denied the chance to be with one another because of their respective marriages to Edgar (Shazad Latif) and Isabella Linton (Alison Oliver). However, Fennell’s Wuthering Heights finds ways to keep them in each other’s company more often, with both Edgar and Isabella being largely ignorant of their affairs.

Jacob Elordi Is Wasted in ‘Wuthering Heights’

What’s most baffling is that Wuthering Heights itself is not a major factor in Wuthering Heights, as a majority of the film’s second half takes place in the Thrushcross Grange estate that is owned by the Lintons. Even though this is where Catherine lives during her marriage to Edgar, she needs to have spent enough time in Wuthering Heights so that Heathcliff can’t stand to be in the estate without thinking about her. Since the film changes the story so that Heathcliff has a greater presence at the Thrushcross Grange estate as he attempts to disrupt Catherine’s marriage to Edgar, it doesn’t register that her spiritual presence would be tied to Wuthering Heights. The only portion of the film’s latter half that is significantly focused on Wuthering Heights is when Heathcliff is plotting with Isabella to get revenge on Catherine; even then, the reason that he initially split from Catherine is pinned on Nelly, and not ascribed to a haunting sense of doom that is inherent to Wuthering Heights.

Fennell’s decision to tell the story straightforwardly, devoid of flashbacks, misinterprets what is tragic about the story. Wuthering Heights is a devastating work of literature because it explores the tragic events that lead to the present, in which Heathcliff is a recluse, and Catherine is preserved only in memory. Instead, Fennell seems to put more emphasis on going back to the scenes she established early on with Cooper and Mellington; while the two young actors have great chemistry, their chemistry is far different than the way that Elordi and Robbie portray the older versions of Heathcliff and Cathy, respectively. Even then, the references to being “haunted” made by Elordi’s Heathcliff are without consequence because Fennell never shows how Catherine Linton lives on to continue her mother’s legacy and form her own romance with Hindley’s son, Hareton. Elordi is a great actor who has the imposing physicality, brooding demeanor, and unabashed sincerity needed to embody Emily Brontë’s most iconic character. The failings of Wuthering Heights to bring the character to life aren’t a result of any faults in his performance, but because Fennell’s script is a failed work of adaptation.

Wuthering Heights is now playing in theaters.