LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. — Once again, Emily Brontë’s novel, the beloved “Wuthering Heights,” has been adapted into a motion picture, this time directed by Emerald Fennel, known for her unique style of imagery and storytelling.

The cast of the film consisted of Margot Robbie, who played Catherine Earnshaw, Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton and her brother Edgar Linton played by Shazad Latif.

The film followed Cathy and Heathcliffe as young children who are raised alongside each other as siblings, who eventually try to push down the feelings they have for each other. Heathcliffe departs to an unknown location for three years, returns with a vast wealth and discovers that Cathy is now married to Edgar Linton. This begins their love affair, which ends in Cathy’s death and Heathcliff’s eventual marriage to her sister-in-law, Isabella Linton, purely for the satisfaction of making Cathy jealous.

“(‘Wuthering Heights’) was shocking yet underwhelming at the same time,” said Naomi Dixon, a sophomore at Los Alamitos High School.

It was obvious that the infamous director, Fennel, used every dime of her $80 million budget through loud costume choices and the luxurious energy of the Linton family, displayed through elaborate set designs, Cathy’s plethora of fluffy skirts and what looked like an uncomfortable amount of jewels. These costumes were changed throughout the movie, with Fennel placing obvious symbolism in the color red to emphasize passion and later death as it was woven throughout the walls of the Linton mansion and made a frequent appearance in Cathy’s dresses. 

“I feel like throughout the movie a lot of passion and lust was built in the worst possible way,” Kaylyn Kekaks, an LAHS sophomore, said, “I was expecting to see a slow, calm bonding interaction between Cathy and Heathcliff, not an intensely lustful relationship between them, ruining my view of the pair.”

The film adaptation version of Heathcliff and Cathy’s romance can be characterized as caring solely for lust and passion, although their selfish nature is synonymous with the book. The feelings between them didn’t come off as authentic; there was no buildup or stable relationship to begin with. In contrast, the novel focuses more directly on the obsession Heathcliff and Cathy have with one another and their tragic ending, with the two never having an affair but instead, their love being portrayed as destructive to those around them.

Film adaptations have an opportunity to change the storylines of a book such as through new characters – while others may use it to widen the themes of the story’s narrative further from its original plot. However, in “Wuthering Heights,” neither seems to happen. The movie changes the premise of Emily Brontë’s novel in abnormal ways that can be seen as not only unnecessary but deviating to the point where the only thing that stayed synonymous with the original text was the concept of Cathy and Heathcliffe having a doomed romance.

Even Cathy’s brother, Hindley Earnshaw, was removed from the film’s storyline; instead, his character was merged with his father, Mr. Earnshaw, who went from being kind to adopting his son’s alcoholic and abusive characteristics.

Furthermore, Cathy and Heathcliff’s narcissism results in generational trauma for their children, who have with their respective partners, the siblings Isabella and Edgar Linton. The movie, like many adaptations before it, fails to expand on the novel’s events after Cathy’s death. It is here that the consequences of their tumultuous relationship result in a cycle of generational trauma.

These changes reveal that the film’s adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” was a superficial retelling. While the cinematography was beautiful and the actors are good-looking, prominent figures in Hollywood, it felt like an obvious attempt to transform the story into simply an aesthetically pleasing film without regard to the true source material.

However, an example of where “Wuthering Heights” shone was the complexity added to the narrative of Nelly, who stepped beyond her previous role as a narrator simply detailing the events she witnessed. Instead, the movie brought forth a new interpretation of Nelly as a reserved, yet opinionated caretaker who adds another level of tension to the story. This seems to be the only interpretation, although not faithful to the original, that this rendition got right. 

In the movie adaptation, Nelly is the one who burns Heathcliffe’s letters without Cathy’s knowledge and tells Edgar about the affair, out of a desperation to keep her job and home – although, one could argue that it is ultimately Cathy’s selfish actions of picking desire over stability that doomed her not Nelly – it is her deep depression which, depending on your personal opinion, is indirectly and accidently caused by Nelly that kills her, which Nelly admits to Cathy she played some role in and blames herself for all of the pain caused.

Beyond all of this, the “Wuthering Heights” film has received backlash since the casting choices of Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff were announced. Notably, a main drive of this controversy isn’t just that these actors are visibly their characters’ seniors, but also that in the book Healthcliffe is described as “tan skinned” and as a “gypsy.” Although the novel never explicitly mentions his race, leaving room for interpretation, it remains a central theme of the novel that he is of a different ethnicity, which adds to one of the main themes of the novel.

When details are altered to the point where the messaging of the book and core ideas are lost, these movie remakes aren’t just misinterpreting the value of the original text for a modern audience. Oftentimes, they are also forgetting things like the commentary embedded into a story that made these books so controversial or beloved, and ignoring the reason why these classics have been adored across generations.