The worst 2h 16min I've invested this year. I can't believe I made it to the end.
The film started decently enough, maybe it was the dark humor of a whole town celebrating Hangman's Day. It had its moment. But things went downhill the second the children became adults.
Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Catherine is simply ridiculous. I get it — Margot was co-producer and Elordi is the "it boy" of the moment — but was it really necessary? Honestly, yes, because without them this film wouldn't have grossed over $200 million worldwide.
Catherine was practically a child, which Margot no longer is, and that makes her childlike behavior in the second half genuinely painful to watch. Heathcliff's delivery grates on me, and his constant grimacing makes every interaction between them feel overacted.
As for the aesthetic — the only reason this single star exists — the color grading and cinematography have their moments. There's a visual intention there.
Bur... What I can't justify is Catherine's room in the Linton house. Almost empty, skin-toned walls, barely any furniture. A room that reminded me of a psychiatric ward. Is it perhaps an attempt to project the emptiness of the bourgeois life Catherine chose over Heathcliff? A metaphor for marriage to Linton as choosing a beautiful but hollow cage? Because if so, it didn't work.
Which brings us to Fennell's context — poor, in my opinion — She declared she wanted to recreate "the feeling of a teenage girl reading the book for the first time," which explains a lot. If I, who still have the book sitting on my shelf unread, found it a struggle to get through, I can't imagine what it's like to watch this having actually read Brontë.
One star. For the cinematography when it works, and nothing else. Some bad films become comfort watches for days when you don't want to think. This one, at least for me, will not be one of them.