Emerald Fennel’s new adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” has enamored the masses before its release. Two groups in particular await impatiently to enter this world, those who are fanatics of Emily Brontë’s novel and those who have been captivated by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s onscreen chemistry.
Through collaboration with Warner Bros. College Ambassador, a senior organizational and corporate communications student Jesus Guillermo Reyes and The Prospector had the opportunity to get a glimpse into “Wuthering Heights.” Student journalists participated in a college roundtable where actors Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, who portray Cathy and Heathcliff in the film, talked about what to expect from the upcoming project.
“Some movies are kind of designed to make you think, and some movies are designed to make you feel, and I feel like this is all feeling,” Robbie said.
The film invites audiences into a world where pleasure and pain, as contradictory as they are, blend so closely together that it may be impossible to distinguish one from the other.
“I think the most sadomasochistic relationship I can think of is Cathy and Heathcliff’s,” Robbie said. “Like, they torture each other, and they torture themselves, and they love each other, and they love themselves, and they hate each other, and they hate themselves and it’s why this whole relationship’s so intoxicating to watch or read or immerse yourself in as an actor.”
When bringing to life characters such as Heathcliff and Cathy, both actors embraced the challenges that come with personifying roles that have existed for nearly 200 years on paper, and that have been treasured by so many generations leading up to this interpretation.
“I think that’s the best part of it, there’s so much material. You have the original text, and then you have the different publications throughout the years that kind of changed with the edit as the times changed,” Elordi said. “So, you have all these different generations of outlooks on the original text, and then you have artists interpreting the text and regurgitating it in their own way. And it’s all inspiration, and you can draw from all of it.”
This film is not meant to adapt the book traditionally, instead it is a retelling that highlights the soul of the book, which carries the story of love, regret and childlike spirit.
“The essence that you felt from Cathy in the book is what I felt in her [Fennel] script, and I kind of felt like all I had to do was honor that spirit,” Robbie said. “Hopefully, lovers of the book end up watching the film and agreeing that the spirit of the book is in this film.”
If there is something audiences can learn from this story, it is how love without limits can transform itself into all types of beautiful and dangerous things. This message lingers throughout the movie, being represented in the soundtrack, costume, scenery and even with the use of color.
“It’s what color red evokes for you. It’s the blood that pumps through the heart, and his blood, to him [Heathcliff] is Cathy’s blood. You know, they share a heart. So, I think it is kind of like a theme throughout the film,” Elordi said.
Heathcliff and Cathy stand together forever stuck between being star-crossed lovers and masters of their own fates, both creating and destroying their own destinies.
“It’s a constant conversation, these dueling parts, and they exist because of each other,” Elordi said.
The passion conveyed through the film reflects the intense care that was put into building this reimagined version of Brontë’s classic.
“There was never a question of, will she [Fennel] be able to do this justice,” Robbie said. “I know that she approaches everything with such artistic integrity and passion, and that’s all you could really hope for, I think, if someone was adapting a book that I love, and I do love this book, but I hadn’t read it before Emerald’s adaptation. I’d want to know that the person adapting it, and depicting it and interpreting it, cared about it, and she does deeply.”
Where love and pain meet, that’s where one will find “Wuthering Heights,” a story fueled by passion and haunted by remorse. Get your gowns ready and your hearts open to dive into the addictive turmoil of “Wuthering Heights,” available in theaters Feb. 13.
Vivien Noe C is a Staff Reporter at The Prospector and can be reached at [email protected]
