Jack Wagner, Editor

Despite being plagued with controversy from announcement to release and beyond, Emerald Fennel’s “Wuthering Heights” had a strong opening weekend, collecting $38 million in the domestic box office and a total of $83 million worldwide. But can the initial success quell the displeasure of those who were hoping for a faithful adaptation of a classic 19th-century Gothic romance novel? And does it deserve to?

The film faced backlash from the very beginning when Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi were cast as the story’s central characters, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. Robbie’s casting was controversial due to her age – the star is 35, whereas Catherine (in the novel) is a teen. Picking Elordi drew accusations of whitewashing, as Heathcliff is heavily implied to be a person of color in the novel, which plays a central role in crafting the character’s role as an outsider. 

“Wuthering Heights” casting director Kharmel Cochrane was unbothered by the criticism,  stating, “You really don’t need to be accurate. It’s just a book. That is not based on real life. It’s all art.”

 While many adaptations of the novel have featured white actors as Heathcliff, this is only one of a long list of inaccuracies that bother fans of Emily Brontë’s genre-defining work. Like most other adaptations, the movie completely ignores the second half of the book, which depicts the effects of Catherine and Heathcliff’s toxic romance on their descendants. More so than any other, however, Fennel’s version seems to gleefully run away from any illusion of an accurate portrayal of the novel.

Several key characters are completely absent from the film, including Catherine’s brother, Hindley, and Mr. Lockwood, the nosy neighbor who serves as one of the primary narrators of the novel. The greatest change, however, is most likely the relations between the characters. In the book, there is very little actual physical intimacy between the characters. The movie is very little but physical intimacy between characters.

One review, by Jordan Ruimy from “World of Reel,” wrote the movie was “stripped of emotional nuance and full of salacious detours that serve shock value.”

Another from “The Independent” says the movie transforms the “brutish dynamic of lust and loathing into basic, Fifty Shades kink.”

A third by Justin Chang of “The New Yorker” called Robbie and Elordi little more than paper  dolls dressed up in the world, with some passion but nothing at all beyond the surface.

Of course, the movie is not without its proponents. Many reviews enjoyed what one called “a marvellously asinine exercise in style and panache, both as sumptuous and breathtaking as it is completely terrible.” One early reviewer called it a “bodice-ripping crowd-pleaser,” and the film’s success does seem to speak for itself.

Caryn James from BBC called it an “extravagant swirl: sexy, dramatic, melodramatic, occasionally comic and often swoonily romantic” in her review, a stark contrast to more critical reviews.

Fennel is no stranger to controversy, with her previous films “Promising Young Woman” and “Saltburn” sparking some level of outrage due to their salacious nature. When asked about the controversy surrounding “Wuthering Heights,” she said that it was more based on the version she remembered reading when she was 14, full of things she wished had happened but didn’t. “It is “Wuthering Heights,” but it isn’t,” Fennel said.

The film currently sits at a 60% rotten tomatoes score, and critics remain split over the movie’s merit. But, looking at its box office performance and the director’s previous work, one has to ask: Is it really about the controversy?