Transcript
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Speaker: Welcome to Adaptation, the book to movie podcast.
Speaker: I'm Nate.
Speaker: And I'm Chris.
Speaker: And we are back to discuss Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, as well as mostly Emerald Fennell's adaptation, but I think we'll cover several others.
Speaker: But we're back from a brief unexpected hiatus.
Speaker: Chris, what's up with that?
Speaker: Yeah, sorry guys.
Speaker: I know everyone thought we fell off the face of the earth for two weeks.
Speaker: We unfortunately made an awesome recording and episode with our dear friend Hannah about Hamnet, which was delightful and so much fun.
Speaker: And then we lost the freaking audio content.
Speaker: And that's a super bummer.
Speaker: But we'll have her back on later in the year.
Speaker: Have no fear.
Speaker: But yeah, that's where we've been.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I just to qualify, we didn't lose the audio content.
Speaker: Yes, correct.
Speaker: So we are switching hosting platforms.
Speaker: Everything will be in the same exact spot on your streaming service here.
Speaker: And we're just excited to be back at it for this pretty crazy text, both in and of itself and the culture surrounding it.
Speaker: I think before we dive into Wuthering Heights, Chris, what have you been reading?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm really excited about this one.
Speaker: I just Googled it to find the author's name, and I'm seeing a bunch of controversies about appropriation and perhaps mistreatment of the content.
Speaker: But for my part, just as a reader, I just finished T.J.
Speaker: Klune's House on the Cerulean Sea.
Speaker: Have you heard of it?
Speaker: Sounds familiar.
Speaker: Is it like big right now or something?
Speaker: Why does it sound familiar?
Speaker: I think, yeah, we're a little behind the curve.
Speaker: It was pretty big, I want to say two years ago now, maybe less than that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Very cool book, very on-the-nose sort of perspective of all of this controversy I'm seeing.
Speaker: I'm going to ignore and let people explore for themselves, but in a nutshell, how does society treat people who are different and other and why?
Speaker: And, you know, the consistency with which people get to know someone and suddenly they realize they're ignorant jumping to conclusions was incorrect.
Speaker: Just a delightful book.
Speaker: Very heartwarming.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: conclusion.
Speaker: So I guess maybe I need to explore these accusations a little more before I recommend it.
Speaker: But still knowing that, and having seen them, I'm going to say go read it.
Speaker: Cool, cool book.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Makes you feel good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's been on the screen for you?
Speaker: You know, I'm
Speaker: It's been a little dry lately because I was sick over the last couple of weeks.
Speaker: There's stuff going around here.
Speaker: So I really feel like going and sitting in an enclosed room with strangers and subjecting them to that.
Speaker: So the one that I have seen is Send Help, which is that island survival.
Speaker: thriller drama horror comedy thing with Rachel McAdams.
Speaker: It's so fun and so funny.
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: I really love that movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It's like hooting and hollering the whole time.
Speaker: It's so fun.
Speaker: I saw an ad for it and it looks like something I'd really enjoy.
Speaker: Yes, I think it is.
Speaker: It's a little gory.
Speaker: Oh, if you had to cover my eyes a couple of times.
Speaker: Oh, but you know, I'm I'm a little squeamish, more squeamish probably than the average bear.
Speaker: Yes, you are.
Speaker: So, you know, grain of salt.
Speaker: But is it is it just in theaters right now or is it streaming already?
Speaker: Still just theaters.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'll track that down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I've literally only seen, I think one trailer for it or one little blurb.
Speaker: I wasn't sure.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Yeah, I haven't heard much.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: And I think it's second weekend drop.
Speaker: I think it only dropped like 5% or less in its second weekend, which is lost unheard of.
Speaker: You usually drop close to 50%.
Speaker: So, so yeah, people are really enjoying it.
Speaker: It's not like setting the box office on fire, but the people that are going to see it are really enjoying it.
Speaker: Okay, I'm gonna track that down.
Speaker: Speaking of things that may or may not be enjoyed by certain groups of people, Chris has got a stunned look on his face while I say that.
Speaker: Let's talk about a wild transition.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I'm over it.
Speaker: I don't even care.
Speaker: You're not wrong, but... Yeah, I know.
Speaker: We'll dive into it a little bit, but there's been some controversy around this movie.
Speaker: And before we talk about that, Chris, tell us about Emily Bronte's book, Wuthering Heights.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: First of all, I should have said it after the first one, Bronte.
Speaker: Oh, Bronte.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Sorry, Emily.
Speaker: I kind of went back and forth a lot on this one.
Speaker: I mean, the fact is we owe like an entire dedicated episode to this family.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so in light of that, I have kept the sort of author introduction and summary perhaps less detailed and more brief than usual.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Just disclaimer there.
Speaker: Because it's a fascinating family of writers.
Speaker: So Wuthering Heights was published in 1847 by Emily Bronte.
Speaker: She had some poetry that her sister, Charlotte Bronte, convinced her to have published.
Speaker: But otherwise, this is literally her one and only novel.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: One and done.
Speaker: Isn't that crazy?
Speaker: I mean, I'm sure she wrote it all the way to the bank for her whole like 40 years of life or whatever was expected back then.
Speaker: So I'm sure she's fine.
Speaker: The poetry book that they submitted and got published, you know, this was coming up on 200 years ago.
Speaker: So who knows how accurate this was.
Speaker: But supposedly the folklore is that the publisher told them only two copies sold.
Speaker: And Wuthering Heights is another one of those books that has done much better since than it did, you know, in her lifetime while she was still there.
Speaker: And part of that is due to, as I said, crazy family history, Charlotte Bronte.
Speaker: I guess maybe it's just to me, but arguably the more famous sister with her book, Jane Eyre.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, arguably.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, context, perspective, whatever.
Speaker: But, I mean, nonetheless, this is inarguably a classic.
Speaker: Born in 1818, we see a lot of parallels, as we've discussed with many authors, you know right about what you know, a lot of parallels between her life and setting, especially, of the book, which actually led me to really ask myself a lot of questions throughout the book, but I'll save that and kind of ask you in the discussion section.
Speaker: Obviously in Victorian England, incredibly difficult to even get published as a woman.
Speaker: So all three published under pseudonyms.
Speaker: So Wuthering Heights was published under the name Ellis Bell.
Speaker: And then her name was added...
Speaker: not even as by Emily Bronte initially, but after her death, it was added to an editorial page near the front of the book.
Speaker: Just exactly the amount of sexism we expect.
Speaker: But I did think it was fun when they published the poetry together and her sister's publications.
Speaker: So she wrote under the pseudonym, the pen name, Ellis Bell, and wrote under the name Acton Bell, and Charlotte under the name
Speaker: Curer or Curer, which first of all, crazy names, what is this?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I really love that it maintained each of their actual initials.
Speaker: Initials, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, maybe I'm just dense, which unfortunately I think I say that every episode.
Speaker: I was just going to say, stop saying that.
Speaker: This is not the first time that I've seen that it was originally published under the pseudonym Alice Bell.
Speaker: Never put that together, that it was... Oh.
Speaker: EB.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I felt a little dumb when I saw that, but it's a fun little morsel, a little tidbit for you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, like I said, we owe this family so much more than what we have time to commit here, but like real broad scope, their father was a curate, clergy or parish priest, meaning there was much more emphasis on education, literacy, writing, especially for women.
Speaker: to be expected in the average rural English home of this time.
Speaker: There were six children in total, so Emily had five siblings.
Speaker: I believe only four of them grew to adulthood, survived to adulthood, which we see echoes of in the book, of course.
Speaker: And then, as I said, arguably her most famous sibling, Charlotte Bronte, the author of Jane Eyre.
Speaker: I did see a wild, I didn't corroborate this, so I didn't want to present it as 100% fact, but I did see there's speculation that they had a somewhat unsanitary home living conditions, partially due to their water source being contaminated by runoff from the church graveyard.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Yikes.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Which, of course, as we know, life expectancy far lower than anyway.
Speaker: Larger families, because there's some infant or adolescent mortality rate expected.
Speaker: But still, that was like...
Speaker: There's so much here, obviously.
Speaker: I mean, the biographies on this entire family, so much here, so, so much here.
Speaker: So unfortunately, we kind of need to move forward to get to what was already a controversial episode without this crazy family history.
Speaker: I have chosen for two reasons to remain basically spoiler free for the book.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And we have discussed this, usually a book this old, we are not concerned with that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But for one thing, it is a classic for a reason.
Speaker: We've also discussed that on previous episodes.
Speaker: I'm not a big, you have to read the classics guy.
Speaker: But I do think some need to be allotted their fair share of sort of being held sacred.
Speaker: And this is one that I really think needs to be allowed to unveil its own secrets to a reader firsthand, even if you've seen the movie that is, in this case, perhaps more than any, not the same as consuming this text yourself.
Speaker: The other reason is because to a certain extent, the depth of this story, as a reader, you are beholden to consuming it in whole.
Speaker: There is not an easy way to unravel it into digestible pieces, which I think is part of the magic of the writing and why it's a classic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think that plays into how difficult it's been to adapt.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: As well.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, so, um, too long, didn't read.
Speaker: I'm, uh, I'm not going to give you spoilers because I can't, and I won't.
Speaker: Uh, the, the copy I tracked down for this reading, the first time I read this, I, if I remember correctly, I believe it was an audio book.
Speaker: This is my second reading.
Speaker: It included a,
Speaker: I think it was 40 pages, a very in-depth primer on the text, an entire sort of pseudo dictionary of the angry, grumpy housekeeper man's, what I've always read as a Scottish brogue.
Speaker: I guess I don't know if that was the accent she was going for, if it's just funny.
Speaker: such rough Yorkshire that it leans that way.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I think in the writing it's understandable, but they included an entire little dictionary of what the heck he's saying.
Speaker: That's hysterical.
Speaker: There was an entire family tree, which I found...
Speaker: indecipherable and unnecessary.
Speaker: But again, I know this was my second reading, so I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe first time readers would find all of that more efficacious.
Speaker: But point being, it is a dense, twisting, winding.
Speaker: This is not a difficult path with low light through the woods.
Speaker: This is a monkey's fist, you know, the Celtic knot rope thing that they make.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: in a delightful way.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Good metaphor.
Speaker: I hadn't thought about that till just now.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: In a tempted summary, the setting is essentially where she grew up.
Speaker: The Western England, rural, I think Yorkshire moors, picture rolling hills and marshes and not a lot of people, a bunch of cows, right?
Speaker: Rural Victorian England.
Speaker: And as such, again, as we've discussed nearly ad nauseum at this point, home life and social customs that modernize will find quite baffling.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It is a tale of one foster child, Heathcliff, two estates, Thrushcross Grange and the titular Wuthering Heights.
Speaker: By the way, when did we quit naming houses and estates?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: It is cool.
Speaker: A little mad about that, but anyway.
Speaker: The entire book, which is not a short book, a 460-plus page book, is just going back and forth.
Speaker: This, again, we've discussed previously.
Speaker: It is extraordinarily difficult to write an engaging and complex plot with fairly deliberately limited settings.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And I would argue Wuthering Heights is a masterclass of exactly that.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Within these two homes, we witness class struggle, malevolence, and essentially just a gaggle of people who are not happy, most die young, and gothic literature and modern readers have reaped the rewards.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yes, they have.
Speaker: I have obviously oversimplified, but more or less, this is the plot in its entirety.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: A lot of people dying young, a lot of people feeling strong feelings and talking about them or not talking about them.
Speaker: Or not talking, yeah.
Speaker: And then the book ends, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And yet you are drawn in and just magnetized to the strength of these characters.
Speaker: They are very much visceral, corporeal creations in your mind as you go along.
Speaker: Again, due entirely to the strength of the writing.
Speaker: And there's oftentimes maddening interactions, sometimes literal maddening interactions that create an overall truly just dark, dark tale that was originally split into two or three volumes.
Speaker: Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker: I knew that there was a clear break, but I did not know that it was ever at any point like sold separately.
Speaker: Yeah, initially that's exactly what they did.
Speaker: And both this copy that I had now and that first one, again, as an audio book, you never know if they just skip the page that says part two or something.
Speaker: There are some clear timeline breaks, which are where I would imagine these initial publications put their separations.
Speaker: Another brilliant literary device that Bronte used was the book essentially starts with quote-unquote present day.
Speaker: Almost the entirety of the book is narrated by this newcomer, this visitor, who is renting out Thrushcross Grange from Heathcliff, who now owns both, enters this desperately desolate place.
Speaker: landscape of unhappy people and kind of looks at Nellie Dean, the primary narrator for the entire story and says, what the heck?
Speaker: And we're, we are told the story through the eyes of her recollecting the last several decades to this newcomer in order to explain, here's why this place and the people in it suck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's kind of the omnipresent, um,
Speaker: I almost said handmade.
Speaker: That's not right.
Speaker: Well, maybe.
Speaker: Yeah, she is.
Speaker: She is a maid.
Speaker: Maid?
Speaker: Yeah, maid, maid, maid.
Speaker: You know, nurses the kids, cleans the house, whatever.
Speaker: Housekeeper, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So she's there for all of it and then is recollecting all of it to this newcomer.
Speaker: And it's brilliant because this drives me nuts sometimes.
Speaker: Videos, I think maybe it's just the ones that I consume, but I've been seeing it more lately where they give you the highlights right up front.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: The rest of the video, I'm kind of looking for them.
Speaker: It's a let off of anticipation to me in most cases.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In this case, it does the exact opposite brilliantly.
Speaker: You look at this and you go, wow, so I already know how it ends right from the beginning.
Speaker: I know where this is going and I am still fully engaged in the journey.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The characters suck.
Speaker: All of them.
Speaker: Nellie is probably the least abhorrent, but still not fully lacking of culpability in some circumstances.
Speaker: If you were going to make an argument for anyone, you could perhaps say she is... The best?
Speaker: The best.
Speaker: Certainly the best.
Speaker: I was going to say without fault, but I disagree with that.
Speaker: She is not without fault.
Speaker: They all suck.
Speaker: They all suck.
Speaker: She doesn't suck.
Speaker: There are just a couple of instances of poor choices on her part.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: I had these two quotes that literally made me laugh out loud, which is just beautiful to me for a book written in 1847.
Speaker: That makes me happy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But just a couple little tidbits, pieces of evidence.
Speaker: The other main character, obviously, across from Heathcliff is Catherine.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And she sucks.
Speaker: Big sucks.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And here's my evidence.
Speaker: Exhibit A. She's talking with Nellie.
Speaker: They're in a fight.
Speaker: And she says, but I begin to fancy you don't like me.
Speaker: How strange.
Speaker: I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me.
Speaker: We all know somebody like that, don't we?
Speaker: Yup.
Speaker: Yup.
Speaker: And why is that so?
Speaker: Because for the most part, it is truly baffling in modernity.
Speaker: And even at the time of its publication, people directed a lot of scorn toward what they perceived as exaggerated characters, unrealistic, forcibly dark, forcibly unhappy.
Speaker: But that's real as heck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: This second one, truly, I mean, I probably wasn't crying, but I was laughing heartily.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: A gentleman that she is professing her love for and wants to marry, Nellie is rightfully trying to talk her out of it unsuccessfully.
Speaker: And so Nellie says to Catherine, he won't always be handsome and young and may not always be rich.
Speaker: Catherine, the imbecile, that was my words, not from the book.
Speaker: He is now, and I have only to do with the present.
Speaker: I wish you would speak rationally.
Speaker: Oh my God, Kathy.
Speaker: Girl, think.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: Yeah, strong characterization in this book, if nothing else.
Speaker: They are phenomenal characters.
Speaker: And I have pondered a bit, perhaps that's part of what makes them so compelling.
Speaker: They are so irrationally abhorrent that there was really a lot of room to play.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Because if on the reverse end of the spectrum, if we can call it a spectrum, if the characters had been this level of magnitude, irrationally kind and happy and pleasant, it would be sickly, it would be cloying, right?
Speaker: Right, totally.
Speaker: So maybe that's the magic in it.
Speaker: You know, we've discussed with the Shakespeare stuff, like why, why are we as humans drawn to tragedies?
Speaker: Why do we love a murder mystery?
Speaker: There's, there's a depth that can be achieved that just, oh, this individual is so kind and so nice.
Speaker: Like, okay, well now we've exhausted that direction.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I'm trying to picture, I guess it would be like the Sound of Music sans Nazis.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I can't even picture it.
Speaker: Yeah, just the part on the hillside.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Maybe that had to be the case in order for her to explore such depths.
Speaker: Again, I have some curiosities about that that I want to save for the discussion section.
Speaker: So I am leaving a ton out, obviously some crucial details deliberately in hopes that this is enticing to you.
Speaker: And rather than bug us about it, you choose to find them for yourself because this book does deserve that.
Speaker: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker: Let's take a quick break.
Speaker: And when we come back, we'll dive into the movies, plural, and the discussion questions.
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Speaker: Welcome back to Adaptation.
Speaker: We are talking Wuthering Heights, both Emily Bronte's version that Chris gave us a rundown for.
Speaker: Bronte.
Speaker: Bronte, whoops.
Speaker: And I'm going to dive into the adaptations of it.
Speaker: This, I think,
Speaker: I'm trying to recall what other ones I've said this about maybe Frankenstein and, and little women.
Speaker: This is an extremely famous text that has been adapted many, many, many times over the years.
Speaker: I couldn't even find like a complete list because it also goes into stage and television as well as film and crosses several languages.
Speaker: You know, it's been adapted into other languages.
Speaker: The hosts of the big picture podcast estimated there being a
Speaker: roughly 35 or more adaptations of this throughout the years and sort of in varying degrees of like fame you know some of them have really lasted a lot in the sort of public consciousness more than others and it began as early as the 1920s and leading us all the way up to the 2020s um in this new like when they started making movies
Speaker: Yes, and the very first version of this is considered a lost film.
Speaker: There's not thought to be any like surviving copies of it, you know, really, really ingrained sort of in the history of what movie making is.
Speaker: The most famous version of it came out in 1939, and that's really maintained until probably now maintained its status as sort of the.
Speaker: I don't want to say definitive because I think that that almost goes against
Speaker: the concept of adaptation, but but it's the the movie version that people turn to when they're looking for Wuthering Heights.
Speaker: But it's been adapted.
Speaker: I mean, there's like television movies.
Speaker: MTV made a movie out of it.
Speaker: It's set in modern day and it's a musical and there's just tons of like weird people have taken big swings at this throughout the years.
Speaker: Of course, most of these adaptations only examine the first half of the book.
Speaker: it always ends with the death of the character Catherine and it's posed.
Speaker: Most, most versions of this story are posed as a tragic romance, almost in a Shakespearean manner, which obviously I would argue is a really gross misinterpretation of the, the full text, but that's sort of just how the story has been told or retold, I guess, for almost 200 years since the book was published.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: you know, you kind of have to examine it through the lens that it's been adopted under, you know?
Speaker: I guess what I'm saying is most adaptations kind of get the book wrong, so you can't really hold it against any one adaptation.
Speaker: And I want to push back on your, you know, if we're going to be fair to everybody and say adaptation is adaptation.
Speaker: Is it getting the book wrong or is it, you know, what was their goal setting out?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And I mean, you know, in the 1930s, Hollywood had what was called the Hays Code, which was the sort of unofficial set of rules of what you would and wouldn't put on a screen.
Speaker: And that's why movies didn't have like sex or swear words or.
Speaker: black people, you know, things like so it makes sense that they would take the story and turn it into some sort of swoony Shakespearean romance instead of telling it, you know, as a story of like intoxication and infatuation and all of the things that it actually session stalking a dark poltergeist.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: There are a handful of versions that have adapted the full story.
Speaker: They tend to not be very good or at the very least, the major criticism is that they're way too long and dense because the text is way too long and dense to put into an hour and a half or two hours chunk of time.
Speaker: And like I said, perception of those adaptations are sort of warped because we've come to know it as this tragic romance.
Speaker: So I remember the first time, you know, I've never read the book.
Speaker: I've seen several versions of this movie, including one that
Speaker: told the full story.
Speaker: And when Kathy died about 45 minutes into the movie, I was like, what the hell is going on here?
Speaker: This is not Wuthering Heights.
Speaker: And then I had to like look it up and I was like, oh, yes, this 100% is Wuthering Heights.
Speaker: So people sort of leave with the sour taste in their mouth because it isn't the Wuthering Heights they expected.
Speaker: Because like I said, for 200 years, the story has been retold, whether it's through cinema or
Speaker: word of mouth or whatever as a tragic romance, which it is not.
Speaker: So really complicated history that leads us to nobody liking almost any of the versions of this movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I personally have not seen a version, including this 2026 version that I thought was really all that good.
Speaker: So I'm just going to run through the ones that I've seen really quickly just to contextualize our conversation here.
Speaker: This 1939 version, I've seen probably the best one, but again, it's one that's operating under that Hays Code.
Speaker: And so it's certainly a tragic romance more than it is a story about bad people, really.
Speaker: A lot of what's toxic about that story doesn't make it on screen.
Speaker: Stars Lawrence Olivier, who's one of the actors of all time.
Speaker: So very, very famous.
Speaker: I don't think there was really another major version until 1992.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And this version starred Ralph Fiennes and his first film role as Heathcliff.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: And this is the one that I've seen that tells the whole story.
Speaker: And it's also the one, the first one that I've seen that actually
Speaker: Tracy Heathcliff as a monster too.
Speaker: So I went from the 93 or the 39 version to the 92 version and was like, Whoa, which one of these was wrong?
Speaker: Because it was just picking up on, yeah, which was more faithful or which was, I don't, I don't know a better story.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: These, these, some of the changes end up being distracting from version to version, which I think is a valid criticism as opposed to some of the criticisms we'll talk about later.
Speaker: The third version that I've seen is one that came out in 2011.
Speaker: Pretty notable because it's one of the only ones that cast Heathcliff as a person of color, which is something that Bronte alludes to in the book, but never really has the cojones to say.
Speaker: Plus, I think there's a lot of critical race theory politics that go into everything.
Speaker: Like the fact that Heathcliff goes away and gets rich and educated, I'm like, well, he can't.
Speaker: He had to be white passing for that to happen.
Speaker: I've heard this argument and I was kind of half expecting because I didn't get a sniff of that in my first reading.
Speaker: I was like, nothing here tells me this is a person of color.
Speaker: And so I thought this second reading years later would be like, oh, how did I miss this?
Speaker: Still not the impression I get at all.
Speaker: Yeah, I think, I mean, there's a few.
Speaker: I wrote an essay that's on the blog page of our website.
Speaker: I'll link it down below.
Speaker: that largely gets into kind of why I think it's okay for Heathcliff to be played by a white actor.
Speaker: And it talks about that sort of ambiguity and how this isn't like a great representation of race.
Speaker: The character of Heathcliff, like Emily Bronte is no civil rights hero for writing
Speaker: a character that may or may not be white.
Speaker: It's pretty ambiguous.
Speaker: And the evidence that people have that he is not white is just a handful of like poll quotes that refer to his skin as a little bit darker.
Speaker: And then of course there's this entire othering around him that exists.
Speaker: But I think, you know, there's so many ways to represent othering that are not black skin.
Speaker: and that are all far more present in the actual text.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And like I said, I can't get past the fact that he goes away and gets educated and gets rich and that doesn't happen unless you look like you're white.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And so I think the general consensus is that he's probably Romani, that 39 version that used the G word quite a bit.
Speaker: So that's that's sort of the vibe that I got throughout.
Speaker: But that's more because
Speaker: There's been this we'll talk about the discourse around this movie that's just been impossible to avoid.
Speaker: It has like permeated the way that I'm seeing this.
Speaker: So I don't know, like read it how you want to.
Speaker: I guess she didn't she didn't straight up say it.
Speaker: She could have gone that extra mile.
Speaker: That brings us to 2026, which this new version is written and directed by Emerald Fennell.
Speaker: who previously wrote and directed Promising Young Woman and more notably Saltburn.
Speaker: I'm sure a lot of people listening will have seen Saltburn.
Speaker: That was a pretty big hit on streaming.
Speaker: Very, very safe to say that Fennell is like a provocateur filmmaker.
Speaker: All of her films are about making you uncomfortable, making you wonder why you will have sat through the whole movie.
Speaker: She's, I think she's doing something.
Speaker: There's definitely a joke that she's in on that I think most people are not.
Speaker: And I'm not saying that I'm in on it 100%.
Speaker: I just think that a lot of people are ready to attack her with like knives out.
Speaker: And I don't think that they're really seeing the forest for the trees when it comes to her movies.
Speaker: She stated many, many times since this movie was announced that this was the version of Wuthering Heights that she imagined when she was 14 years old and read it in school, which again, I think accounts for like Heathcliff being white and Catherine being blonde hair, blue eyed, most beautiful woman in the world, Margot Robbie.
Speaker: This like an acronym also is in the movie, Alison Oliver and Owen Cooper, most recently seen in adolescence and winning a billion awards for adolescence.
Speaker: So kind of cool to see him get a big movie right after that.
Speaker: And as I've alluded to, more than alluded to really, this movie has been the subject of a lot of controversy online and garnered a level of hate from,
Speaker: quote unquote, fans of classic literature that I've never really seen levied against a movie like this.
Speaker: It's it's very similar to the hate that you see when Star Wars fans don't get what they want out of a Star Wars movie or Game of Thrones ends poorly or a Marvel movie is bad like it.
Speaker: I I'm really stunned.
Speaker: I've never seen this population react this way.
Speaker: But any time you get online and start
Speaker: sifting through tweets or tick tocks or instagram reels about weathering heights so many of them are i guess again fans is the best word i have for it snobs maybe uh that like the book that are just ripping this movie to shreds saying awful things about the people that are in it and made it i just am really dumbfounded and kind of upset by that and i want to point out too
Speaker: I'll get into this later when we talk about the ratings and recommendations and whatnot.
Speaker: I didn't love this movie.
Speaker: I don't love any of Emerald Fennell's movies.
Speaker: I think she has some serious flaws as a filmmaker, but I love that she's trying these big, bold things and I will always defend that.
Speaker: So I'm going to defend this movie, despite the fact that it was kind of just okay to me.
Speaker: And I want to point out that it had an $82 million global opening weekend at the box office, which accounts for its budget.
Speaker: So like it's,
Speaker: It's on track to break even and make money for the studio.
Speaker: So there's people spending money on it, even though it doesn't have great reviews.
Speaker: It's got a 59% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Speaker: Technically, that's a Rotten Tomato if you drop below 60, but you know, that's barely below 60 and a 55 on Metacritic.
Speaker: So the reviews are actually very much like middle of the road, which is kind of where I've landed as well.
Speaker: But
Speaker: it's making money.
Speaker: The screening I went to yesterday was full, chock full.
Speaker: I just have to throw that out there because I want to again, you know, sort of bolster the fact that even though we're hearing these really loud voices that are saying, this movie is obviously bad, this movie is a bastardization of Bronte's vision, like most people aren't really caring.
Speaker: So
Speaker: stuff it, I guess is kind of what I'm saying.
Speaker: Now, sorry, I'm a little, I feel very passionately about this because criticizing an adaptation for making changes to the text, I think is like inherently anti-art.
Speaker: This has been adapted, like I said, roughly 35 times.
Speaker: There are 34 other versions that you can consume if you're upset about this one.
Speaker: You don't need to be
Speaker: adding to the hate, you don't need to just be swallowing TikToks and tweets and Instagram reels that are negative, like they're painkillers, form an opinion based on what you actually see instead of what other people tell you.
Speaker: And I think if you're mad about this being sort of anachronistic and more sex forward, maybe is kind of one of the bigger changes.
Speaker: I think you're missing the point of film and art itself.
Speaker: And I just really would have expected more from fans of classics because
Speaker: This happens a lot.
Speaker: I don't know why this movie is getting this level.
Speaker: I don't know if it's because Fennel's a woman.
Speaker: I don't know what is going on.
Speaker: But I'd also push so far as to say you're probably not a real fan of Wuthering Heights if you're mad about this.
Speaker: Because the theme of Wuthering Heights is like defying expectations and getting stuck up in what everybody expects of you.
Speaker: Everything.
Speaker: It's just crazy to me.
Speaker: I can't I can't get past it.
Speaker: And I just wanted to throw this in there, too, because I think it shows kind of it contextualizes the criticism and kind of the vitriol that it comes with.
Speaker: I've been accused of, quote, worshipping at Emerald Fennell's feet for defending this film, which is not true.
Speaker: I hate the movie, Saul Byrne.
Speaker: I really do.
Speaker: This one.
Speaker: This movie, I think, is, like I said, middle of the road.
Speaker: I I
Speaker: I think that the point of this movie was to sort of hold up a mirror to the novel to highlight why it's not the great romance that everybody thinks it is.
Speaker: And to do so, the mirror that Fennell used was like a funhouse mirror.
Speaker: I think making all of these bonkers choices, like stuffing it with sex, which I don't think there's a ton of in the book.
Speaker: In fact, I've heard that there is speculation that Bronte never had sex, so probably it couldn't even really
Speaker: write it, you know, that like, certainly couldn't write it an erotic.
Speaker: It is not a spicy book.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: So I think making all of these weird choices was a way to, to kind of make the toxicity an easier, not an easier pill to swallow, but it makes it easier to see because in a lot of these past versions, the emphasis is always placed on this bond.
Speaker: Like you said, this bond between
Speaker: Kathy and Heathcliff.
Speaker: So I think that the toxicity can go over so many people's heads.
Speaker: And that's why we are 200 years later expecting it to be a tragic romance when it's really not when like dying was like the best case scenario for Kathy and Heathcliff.
Speaker: Like a lot of the characters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's very much the lens that I or the reading that I got as I was watching it is I think that it was a takedown of
Speaker: the way that we've viewed this text for 200 years.
Speaker: And I think that's why people are getting so upset.
Speaker: because it's hard to hear that you're wrong.
Speaker: Or it's hard for you to hear that you're right, but to hear it in a way that you didn't necessarily want to hear it.
Speaker: Anyway, can you tell that I'm fired up?
Speaker: Well, this is, at the induction of this podcast, that was why one of the first rules we made for ourselves was we are not going to say which was better, the book or the movie.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because why?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I completely agree with you.
Speaker: I see the defense, and I adore classics.
Speaker: I consume all of them that I can.
Speaker: I see the defense of them as little more, typically, not always, but typically, little more than gatekeeping.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's exactly what we talked about with the ivory tower academics response to Vineland.
Speaker: Suddenly Pinchon was digestible for everyone.
Speaker: And so the hipster academics who were quote unquote there first or something had to throw a little tantrum.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Because that's brilliant.
Speaker: Can I ask you one of my discussion questions?
Speaker: Yeah, please.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Because you very much unintentionally answered it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I've had a lot of trouble picturing this movie in movie form because, to me as a reader, so much of the driving force that sucks you in is this dark weightiness of individual and entirely intimate interactions.
Speaker: And so my question was, how on earth do they capture this on the screen?
Speaker: All I can picture is some uncomfortable eye contact.
Speaker: But I feel like you kind of hit the nail on the head with how at least this director approached it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like I said, there's, there's definitely some of those visual cues through that sort of fun house mirror metaphor.
Speaker: But I think to specifically answer your question, Nellie in this movie is given more agency than I, in any of the versions that I've seen.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: A lot of the, I guess, tension or conflict comes out in conversation between Catherine and Nellie.
Speaker: They're very much, um,
Speaker: They're pretty much enemies, maybe frenemies, you could say, in this 2026 version.
Speaker: So a lot of it comes out there.
Speaker: I've also never seen, oh, I'm going to forget the character's name now.
Speaker: The Linton sister.
Speaker: Isabella.
Speaker: Isabella, yeah.
Speaker: I would not say she has agency in the new movie.
Speaker: True to the book.
Speaker: But she's utilized in such a way...
Speaker: that could not have been put on screen probably before 2026.
Speaker: And I think it's a moment where you really realize just how fucking sick Heathcliff is.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So like I said, she sort of goes for it.
Speaker: And I say sort of because I think one of the pitfalls of the movie is that Fennel doesn't
Speaker: land any of the punches that she swings.
Speaker: But that's kind of a different conversation.
Speaker: But they just, I would say that they just kind of turn everybody's actions up to an 11.
Speaker: Like, Kathy doesn't stop crying this whole friggin' movie.
Speaker: Everything you're describing is just so true to the text, which is what's fascinating here.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: And this, as you were going through it, I was like, maybe this is a more faithful adaptation than I think...
Speaker: it was because I've just been bombarded by social media messages that say it's not, you know, or social media posts that say it's not.
Speaker: Yeah, because that's exactly what we were discussing with, you know, how frankly detestable.
Speaker: I mean, you are sickened at these characters.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, Catherine's entire choice to marry Linton is like, yes, there is the beautiful discussion of how she views Heathcliff, but end of the day, it is nothing more than a good old-fashioned have-her-cake-and-eat-it-too.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I know he's so obsessed with me.
Speaker: He's not going anywhere.
Speaker: So in the meantime, I'll marry this guy for money and I'll just have both.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That sucks.
Speaker: That is using both.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: And she carries on for a long time.
Speaker: A long time.
Speaker: And Nellie and Catherine being frenemies.
Speaker: Yeah, that's Nellie spends the whole time going, that's a bad idea.
Speaker: Don't do that.
Speaker: Oh, you did it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well, I'm the servant class and you're the master.
Speaker: So that's it.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'd just be curious to hear what you think, having just read the book and knowing that you've also seen some of these things online about the hate for the movie.
Speaker: I'd be curious for you to go in and see whether it's really as bad as some of these people are saying.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think in a lot of ways, this movie was made.
Speaker: for the trailers to piss off fans of the book because sitting through the movie like it's not nearly as sexy well i'm giving up some of my um discussion later but it's not exactly what it was advertised i guess is what i'm getting at yeah yeah yeah which is interesting yeah okay i'm curious what your reaction is i know that you didn't learn this today because it's a pretty well-known fact i think about this book
Speaker: But what are your reactions to the idea that only half of this book is often adapted?
Speaker: Honestly, I don't mind it.
Speaker: It's front-loaded.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: You definitely get that.
Speaker: It certainly develops more, and there is more there.
Speaker: But I wouldn't have minded if this book was 100 pages shorter.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I can see why they would do that.
Speaker: I'm surprised they wouldn't approach it as a...
Speaker: you know, like a twofer, let's make a part one and part two.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it is odd because it doesn't carry the gravity necessarily, especially because, as I said, the sort of flashback, flash forward literary device, after Catherine's death, knowing where it ends, you can more or less piece it together for yourself.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Heathcliff isn't going to turn around.
Speaker: Right, right, right, right.
Speaker: Do they start the movie like that with Heathcliff sitting there in the house with Kathy?
Speaker: And who is with, I think it's just Kathy and Harrington.
Speaker: No, some of them are.
Speaker: The 92 and I believe the 39 both start with Heathcliff kind of sitting in the decrepit second estate, which the name is escaping me right now.
Speaker: Oh, they're at
Speaker: thrush cross no they're at weathering heights no well maybe you're right because yeah they're not allowed in certain rooms of the house and yes they're not allowed um you're right it's at weathering heights but i think in the 2011 version and and certainly in the 2026 version it's kind of just told from kathy's perspective so there's no um there's no flashback nelly is not a major character in any of the versions except for this 26 version
Speaker: See, she absolutely has like the third most lines in the entire book.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, huh?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Interesting choice.
Speaker: Yeah, weird.
Speaker: Yeah, so I can see why they would, and there's definitely plenty there to entail an entire story of its own, but it is almost certainly missing the full picture, which again, as we've discussed, would take so long.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, you know, we touched on that a little bit in our Wicked episode, too.
Speaker: It just doesn't translate quite as well because the book was so vastly different from the stage musical, which is kind of what was adapted to screen.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And actually, to your credit, I did not know that most of the movies were only the first half until you told me.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I think it's one of the things that has been coming up in all of this social media bombardment.
Speaker: So I guess I figured a lot of people knew.
Speaker: You'll be shocked to be reminded here that our social medias look very different.
Speaker: I know, but you've even told me that you've seen some of the hate pointed towards this movie.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: And for it to permeate your limited...
Speaker: social media usage means that it's really freaking out there well it's funny for me because i only see it from like the strict classics book side which is comical because without you i would have no information about the movie and i'd be like why are people scared for emerald fennel to get her hands on classics right right i think it'd be fun i think she should do more i agree no i would love i mean we don't need more faithful adaptations
Speaker: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: You want something?
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: Anyway, the other question that I kind of started getting into earlier but wanted to save for now...
Speaker: We have covered multiple stories at this point where there are many, many unsavory characters.
Speaker: But there is no one likable in this.
Speaker: Again, like kind of Nellie, but at certain points, even not her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How do you enjoy stories like this?
Speaker: Like during the movie, did you find yourself rooting for anybody?
Speaker: I guess the root of the question is, is the movie as much of a drag as the book is?
Speaker: That's an interesting question.
Speaker: I don't know that I would say the movie's a drag.
Speaker: It is too long.
Speaker: So the ending is a little bit of a drag.
Speaker: But I think one of the reasons that she stylized it, Fennel stylized it and sensationalized it so much was to sort of give you a reprieve from some of that.
Speaker: So even though everybody sucks, you're also like two people, two really hot people like have sex.
Speaker: So it's all good.
Speaker: You know, like it'll hold you over for a little while.
Speaker: How do I enjoy stories like this?
Speaker: I guess I'm not necessarily looking to root for somebody in a story, especially if I am prepped for it.
Speaker: You know, I watched three versions of Weather Heights before watching this 2026 version.
Speaker: So I was well aware of the fact that I didn't like anybody.
Speaker: So I think I just sort of lean more into I like how this works.
Speaker: I like the characterization that I'm seeing, which is that every step somebody takes is very much in line with who they are.
Speaker: It's like liking, what was his name in Dallas, JR. Everybody loved to hate him because he was such a good, delicious, soapy villain that he really permeated pop culture.
Speaker: Everybody's the best in this.
Speaker: Well, I know, but I mean, pretty much everybody gets their friggin' comeuppance in this movie, too, you know?
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They end up dead or heartbroken or alone or... Actually, in most cases, all three.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So there's at least a sense of justice.
Speaker: So you heard it here first.
Speaker: The true protagonist of Wuthering Heights is tuberculosis.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is that what she dies of?
Speaker: It's kind of implied for a couple of them.
Speaker: Linton, certainly.
Speaker: He's coughing up blood.
Speaker: I mean, it was the predominant killer of the time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: If you were charged with writing a screenplay for a film adaptation, what are the details that are key?
Speaker: Like, what would you keep and what would you get rid of because it's too dense to put into one?
Speaker: I think I would advocate for exactly what I suggested.
Speaker: Make it, what do we call a trilogy that's only two?
Speaker: Duology?
Speaker: Is it a duology?
Speaker: I think technically, yeah, but why would we ever say that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What would I leave out?
Speaker: Because also part of the brilliance is...
Speaker: Given its length, it is truly masterful that you are constantly gripped.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: And so I think that's the essence I would want to carry over.
Speaker: I think what would be important to me in making this an adaptation would be clearly and unforgivingly portraying these creatures of malice and temperamental rages and...
Speaker: I mean, what permeates the text is just a selfishness on what we want to be in otherworldly level, and the sobering aspect that you are confronted with is, this is quite realistic.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: At our heart, day-to-day decisions, this is what we want to do.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: They're just in such a position that these are incredibly harmful decisions for those around them.
Speaker: So I think that's what would be important to get across, and I think you could manage it within one film.
Speaker: What I'm struggling with is what do you cut in that sense for the sake of time?
Speaker: Because there is this pensive, I mean, time itself is very much another character of the story.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: It's a multi-generational, it's damn near an epic because of how long the story is.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And so who does that well?
Speaker: Honestly, okay, so we're discussing this next, Fellowship of the Ring.
Speaker: That's important at the beginning there.
Speaker: And Peter Jackson did a good job of including, yes, time has passed, but we can marry those ideas.
Speaker: We can still include what that entails without, you know, you don't need a 15-minute montage of, oh, what did we do in this boring estate for 13 years in between Isabella dying, or in between Isabella fleeing to London and then subsequently dying and her son having to come back, right?
Speaker: I think it is well within a filmmaker's means, again, should they choose to make a true adaptation to capture these intimate dialogues that give you the necessary glimpse into the individual's minds and souls.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Without that requiring 17 hours.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because there are absolutely discussions and monologues that are not throwaway by any means, but you could skip.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: You know, they go down there and Catherine gets hurt.
Speaker: Heathcliff runs back to Wuthering Heights and she has to stay there to convalesce for five weeks.
Speaker: That scene can take 15 seconds and you're not losing much emotionally.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: I mean, dramas exist, right?
Speaker: We don't have a lack of means here.
Speaker: So that is...
Speaker: by no means objective.
Speaker: That is personally what I would want to see if I were to say, let's try to distill this.
Speaker: Because, I mean, the ghost part is not this weird, wild right turn at the end.
Speaker: That is also an entirely necessary level of meaning.
Speaker: Like, he really...
Speaker: As a character, he's horrific.
Speaker: But we are also presented with exactly why.
Speaker: which you can very much empathize with.
Speaker: And as you said, the sense of justice, his loving was by no means abated or satiated when Catherine dies.
Speaker: And do I hope anybody seeks this strange, hell-bent, lifelong pursuit of revenge to the third generation?
Speaker: Literally, like...
Speaker: a Alfie from Peaky Blinders level of biblical fire and brimstone.
Speaker: No, I don't think we should be indulging in that.
Speaker: But as a character, that's masterful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And again, I think the scary part is not, this is not nearly as far from the human experience as we would hope it would be.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's the story that Bronte presented us.
Speaker: And that would be a cool movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know one of the, one of the versions that I didn't get around to seeing, I think it's a television movie is called Wuthering High and it's set at a high school.
Speaker: All of the characters are high schoolers and it sounds kind of immediately stupid, especially when I say it's a television movie, but after like watching how Catherine and Heathcliff behave,
Speaker: you're kind of like, well, I don't know, there's something very teenage-y about all of this.
Speaker: I knew kids who did this in high school.
Speaker: I've seen kids do this recently.
Speaker: She literally says, actually, I cut it out, but the paragraph just before that one I read you of Catherine saying, I thought everybody loved me.
Speaker: She says, if I knew it would kill him, I would kill myself.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: God damn.
Speaker: What kind of level of petty bullshit?
Speaker: Gabby, Gabby, Gabby.
Speaker: But again, step back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: American high school today.
Speaker: Who didn't know someone that thought it was a brilliant idea?
Speaker: Oh, he's pissing me off.
Speaker: I'm going to go kiss his friend.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: That's the brilliance.
Speaker: It is exaggerated.
Speaker: It is, I love the term you used, funhouse mirrors, deplorable creatures.
Speaker: But when in literature do we not require this outlandish caricature to get at that true sense of humanity in a way that's not just laughable and immediately dismissed?
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: Woof.
Speaker: Okay, well, what did you rate the book?
Speaker: Yeah, so this is tough.
Speaker: Firm, firm three for me.
Speaker: That might be one of your lower ones.
Speaker: I know, and I feel guilty about it, and I don't want to.
Speaker: The problem is in no way in the writing, and that's what's tough.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Unfortunately, due to the nature of this book, it is going to hit you very differently depending on the context in which you consume it.
Speaker: Obviously, for this episode, we're under a bit of a time constraint, and this text demands more.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I wish it were a multi-volume, like two, even just two volumes, but three I could very much see as a trilogy.
Speaker: This would be so much more digestible.
Speaker: There is just so much here that is important.
Speaker: You know, these little tidbits that she sneaks in.
Speaker: You cannot turn your brain off for a single page, and it's just too many pages to be that.
Speaker: wrapped up to be operating at that level.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If I remember correctly, I believe that's exactly what I rated it the first time to like 10 years ago.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: So not true to my own self.
Speaker: It was not a five star and I did reread it, but I just, I didn't enjoy it.
Speaker: You reread it because I made you reread it.
Speaker: Yeah, well, I definitely did not feel confident in my remembering from that long ago to do it justice.
Speaker: And I'm so glad that I did reread it.
Speaker: But will I ever read it again?
Speaker: Goodness gracious, I hope not.
Speaker: Yeah, I know you do have a hard time with these ones with the morally gray and or worse.
Speaker: I mean, I mean, once.
Speaker: Yeah, this is not morally gray.
Speaker: Choosing choosing to take a child to deliberately raise them poorly.
Speaker: And then he gets a second crack at it.
Speaker: Oh, my biological son.
Speaker: I will raise him exclusively because he is my son.
Speaker: I care not for him at all, but I will continue to make your lives miserable through my progeny.
Speaker: That's nuts.
Speaker: That's bad.
Speaker: That's why I asked you that question that I did about the characters because I need someone to root for.
Speaker: It's the same.
Speaker: I can't watch a sports game without arbitrarily choosing one side to root for.
Speaker: Like just sitting alongside neutral does nothing for me.
Speaker: And I think that was the difficulty here too.
Speaker: So I could see a different context where I would enjoy it more.
Speaker: Again, perhaps just getting through it slower.
Speaker: But there were nights where I would read this for like two hours at a time and get done and be like, I need to go watch Instagram reels of golden retrievers doing silly things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I need that all the time.
Speaker: Tell me about the movie.
Speaker: I'm in a similar boat.
Speaker: I'm only rating this 2026 version because there's just too many and they're too different and I couldn't really keep the lanes separate.
Speaker: The ones I've seen are on my letterboxd if you're really that interested in what I think about any of them.
Speaker: I did give this Fennel's version 3.5 stars.
Speaker: It's probably a little closer to three and I'm rounding up a little.
Speaker: because I'm so worked up about the things that we talked about.
Speaker: But I kind of think this movie does Wuthering Heights about as well as it can.
Speaker: Like I said, I don't love any of these versions of this movie.
Speaker: Maybe it's the same thing that you're experiencing.
Speaker: It's just not a story that I like super enjoy.
Speaker: I don't know if it could ever get a five star out of me because I just am like kind of everything's bad.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But it does tip into the positive side for me because I think I'm sort of in on or maybe I'm just like knocking on the door of this sort of
Speaker: fuck you joke that Fennell has seemed to put into all three of her films.
Speaker: I'm giving her a lot of credit because she's never like said that that's her goal.
Speaker: But it's she's three for three with it right now where I'm like, what the hell?
Speaker: You know, that being said, I don't think that the movie is perfect.
Speaker: I don't think that the like I'm probably never going to watch it again.
Speaker: I think that there are criticisms that you can level against this film and even some of the changes that she made that people are upset about.
Speaker: I think there are criticisms that
Speaker: make sense and are fair.
Speaker: Our friends over at Based on a Book podcast, they said that some of the changes were distracting.
Speaker: And I'm like, see, that makes more sense to me.
Speaker: That's a good criticism as opposed to like, I'm mad because it's anachronistic.
Speaker: It's not very meaty.
Speaker: It's not very meaningful.
Speaker: You know, there's a lot that you can say that is negative about this film that I think is a very fair criticism.
Speaker: I don't think it's terribly confident in itself.
Speaker: That's really the biggest one.
Speaker: I think, like I said earlier, most of the punches just don't land.
Speaker: But I will always, always, always be excited when an artist does something like this and does something weird and bold and tries to piss people off.
Speaker: I think that's, you know, we can't afford to be anti-art.
Speaker: now or ever, but I think, you know, despite its flaws, it's worth checking out.
Speaker: Yeah, as you discuss that, I keep thinking about like Saltburn, the number of people who have said, oh, you got to see that.
Speaker: Oh, wait.
Speaker: No, no, Chris.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: You will be terribly uncomfortable.
Speaker: Yeah, you would hate Saltburn.
Speaker: But at the same time, this needs to exist.
Speaker: What kind of world would it be?
Speaker: I'm chewing through the James Bond movies left, right, and center.
Speaker: That's not social combat.
Speaker: I mean, he's an objectively bad person.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But guns, bang, bang, cute girls, fun car.
Speaker: No, we can't live like that.
Speaker: Over and over and over.
Speaker: This did feel like a dark cloud of a bludgeon hitting me over the head.
Speaker: But once again, I'm glad that I returned to the text.
Speaker: Sure, yeah.
Speaker: And we need to do that.
Speaker: It's not like ignoring that or not representing it in entertainment makes it go away.
Speaker: It just makes us not look at it.
Speaker: It is an objective fact that you would read this
Speaker: Yes, I'm going to say 10 out of 10 people would read this and say Heathcliff is grossly mistreating his charges.
Speaker: And yet we know for a fact there are kids of the same age with guardians of the same age being treated the same way right now in a city near you.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yes, sir.
Speaker: So ignoring it is not the answer.
Speaker: And that's why I say I think the context is incredibly important.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because I do not want to look away.
Speaker: I do not want to say, cool, I love reading.
Speaker: This year, I'm going to read 65 sci-fi novels.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's not that's not the answer.
Speaker: That's not going to make society better.
Speaker: Am I am I arguing that Wuthering Heights is going to make society better?
Speaker: No, I don't think so.
Speaker: But I will never be unhappy with a marker that creatively points us back to this is how humans can be.
Speaker: But you don't have to.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Or you'll die of TB.
Speaker: Everything is tuberculosis.
Speaker: Everything is tuberculosis.
Speaker: Another great book.
Speaker: That's not happy, but it was a great book.
Speaker: I think that's, I think that's in, well, frankly, a pretty medium segue, but we're going to segue anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I think you were about to ask me who I would recommend this to.
Speaker: I was.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Because I do think people need to read this book, but a classic that seems to come up for us one time after another,
Speaker: I think people who have not read it that I know would not enjoy it.
Speaker: And I think people that would enjoy it that I know have already read it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was surprised at the number of people just kind of chatting this week with folks who read it in school because my school did not.
Speaker: I don't think I did either, but I did talk to a few people.
Speaker: I went with a group of friends and at least one of them read it in high school.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I think I did try to poke around like, because I obviously give a lot of book recommendations to folks when it comes up.
Speaker: I think if someone read a modern gothic novel and was like, whoa, I enjoy this way more than I do.
Speaker: than I thought I would.
Speaker: Frankenstein or Mexican Gothic are a couple that have come up for us.
Speaker: I think I would maybe say, well, you want to go back?
Speaker: Because as we discussed on the Gothic literature episode, this was really a turning point for the genre.
Speaker: And in that sense, I think it would be invaluable to say, well, you dig this, go look at how it started, you know, in the way that people are like, even if you don't dig the Beatles, they objectively change.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker: So maybe that's I off the top of my head thinking about the people I know that I discuss books with.
Speaker: Besides maybe my mom, who, of course, has already read it.
Speaker: I don't know a single person that I could in good conscience send a copy to and be like, hey, you're going to thank me.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, I get it.
Speaker: Mine is mine is similar.
Speaker: It's hard to say who I would recommend this movie to given
Speaker: some of the social media reaction to it.
Speaker: I almost just don't feel like engaging in conversation about this movie or almost even feel safe recommending it because I know it's so hard to not fall prey to negative content on social media.
Speaker: That's like what it's made for.
Speaker: So I guess my recommendation is if you think that you can go in with an open mind and an open heart,
Speaker: then maybe you'll enjoy it.
Speaker: Just stylistically, I wanted to throw out a few other directors that I think are kind of in line with what Fennell was getting at.
Speaker: She's being compared to Basler Menelot right now who did Moulin Rouge and the Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio.
Speaker: He did The Great Gatsby and the Elvis biopic because he does a lot of that stylized imagery and kind of over the top visuals.
Speaker: So
Speaker: she's getting compared to him quite a bit.
Speaker: I think maybe there's a more accurate or equally accurate comparison to be made between her and John Waters, who calls himself the king of trash, or maybe it's the king of garbage, something like that.
Speaker: Like he's he's he makes these very transgressive queer films and has always sort of intentionally done them poorly so that they are incendiary and that they become campy cult classics.
Speaker: And like I said, I think
Speaker: They're similar because there's this subversive joke that they are in on that, you know, only some audience picks up on.
Speaker: And maybe, you know, he made films for decades and it took a long time for people to catch on.
Speaker: Maybe that'll be the case with her.
Speaker: I just, I did want to mention those two because I think it's also interesting that they both have had decades long careers doing things similar to Emerald Fennel and they don't get hate for what they do.
Speaker: And the one big difference is what's between all these people's legs.
Speaker: So on that note, thank you for joining our conversation about Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Emerald Fennel's adaptation.
Speaker: Up next, we have one of Chris's favorites.
Speaker: I'm very excited.
Speaker: Yes, correct.
Speaker: Okay, we are doing J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and specifically the Fellowship of the Ring.
Speaker: There he is.
Speaker: There he is.
Speaker: I'm learning.
Speaker: I'm learning.
Speaker: And yeah, we're very much looking forward to it.
Speaker: So thank you for listening.
Speaker: Please go see Weathering Heights because it's good for art.
Speaker: Agreed.
Speaker: See you next time.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: That's the show for today.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker: Let us know in the comments what you're reading, what you're watching, and what adaptations you'd like us to cover.
Speaker: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at adaptation underscore pod and on Twitter at adapt pod.
Speaker: See you next time.
