The controversy for the 2026 adaptation of Emily Brontë’s beloved novel Wuthering Heights has been stirring in the media since its announcement. There have been quarrels about casting, wardrobe, soundtrack, and the script itself.
Although money is coming in fast following its four-day box office opening, fans are not as happy.
If the movie were to be judged on its cinematography, it would be a ten out of ten. The dark set designs, camera shots, and cuts are beautiful and haunting. Linus Sandgren, cinematographer, pulled no restraints in putting his all into this film. Sandgren has received an Academy Award for Cinematography for the film La La Land and was nominated for films like Saltburn, Babylon, and Oppenheimer.
But to look at this film outside of its cinematography?
One letterboxed review by Allain said, “Emily Brontë died of tuberculosis 177 years ago, yet this adaptation is still the worst thing that has ever happened to her.” This brutally honest review got over 34,000 likes.
What is it about the film that fans are so disappointed by?
When it comes to casting, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are award-winning performers with no lack of talent. But like most book to film adaptations, fans don’t believe they were the right fit for the character. Sometimes, no matter how talented an actor is, they just do not fit the character.
The main protagonist, Catherine “Cathy” Earnshaw, was described by her author, Bronte, as a striking beauty with dark “gypsy” eyes, long brown curly hair, and a spirited and wild facial expression. She is meant to be seventeen years old when she is married, and yet she is played by thirty-five-year-old Margot Robbie.
The infamous Heathcliff was described as a dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed, handsome man. He is the age of twenty when he returns to find Cathy married. Elordi is a twenty-eight-year-old Australian actor. Although it’s typical in Hollywood for adults to play teenagers, it seems like a far stretch in this situation.
Another large issue viewers had was the soundtrack. Charli XCX created the soundtrack for the film, and while she’s a well-loved artist, she might not have been the best fit for the film. Her pop style techno-beats conflict with the time period of the film. It is almost as if the directors tried to modernize the gothic romance.
The final piece of criticism is the story itself.
As happens too often, movie adaptations pick and choose which details to leave out. In this case, they changed the ending. In the original book, Cathy gives birth to a baby girl and dies shortly after childbirth due to “brain fever”. The baby is named after her, Catherine Linton. Heathcliff has a son named Linton Heathcliff with his wife, Isabella Linton, but is consumed with grief and resentment. He is cruel to his wife and son.
Heathcliff dies under mysterious circumstances and is buried next to Catherine and Edgar Linton, who died of a broken heart. It is supposed to offer a hopeful ending: Cathy and Heathcliff’s souls are reunited in death, and they can finally be together.
The film did not choose this hopeful angle. In the 2026 adaptation, Cathy dies from neglect and miscarriage. Heathcliff holds her body and mourns her, and the movie ends there. There are no children, no hope, no resolutions to the other characters.
It does make the story more heartbreaking, to feel no hope as you leave the theater. But does it pay off?
Critics say no but the box office results say yes.
One of the most famous books from the book is: “Whatever souls are made of, his and I are the same.”
Brontë fans know the novel is about much more than romance and costumes- it’s about souls. It delves into the nature of obsession, love, societal rejection and the cruel consequences that revenge can bring. It’s a truthful motif that love is not always pretty or right, but the true center of it surrounds the soul.
It’s ironic that that seems to be the one thing this movie is missing: a soul.
As cinema, it’s stunning. As Wuthering Heights, it’s hollow.
