Emerald Fennell's 'Wuthering Heights' Cast Already Causing Controversy

It’s not like the film world wasn’t already buzzing about director Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights. After all, her established interests in boundary-breaking female characters and class tensions make her a natural fit to tackle Brontë’s often unhinged story of doomed romance and generational trauma. But the discourse seems to have reached new heights now that she’s found her leading actors, casting Saltburn (and Euphoria) heartthrob Jacob Elordi in the role of Heathcliff opposite Margot Robbie (Barbie) as Catherine Earnshaw. 

Heathcliff and Catherine’s desperate, frequently toxic romance is the emotional linchpin around which much of Brontë’s story of obsession and tragedy turns. It also encompasses many themes Fennell seems to enjoy exploring as a storyteller. But one of the most interesting readings of the novels which have emerged in the 21st century is that Heathcliff, described in the first chapter as “a dark-skinned gypsy, in aspect,” is Black (or at least mixed-race) rather than just a dark-haired, unkempt white dude in need of a wash.

Wuthering Heights has been adapted many times, in formats ranging from television series and feature films to operas and even a stage musical. Starry names like Laurence Olivier, Charlton Heston, Timothy Dalton, Ralph Fiennes, and Tom Hardy have played Heathcliff, and Brontë’s story has been told (and retold) in languages including French, Spanish, Filipino, Hindi, and Japanese. The most recent film adaptation was 2011’s Wuthering Heights, which starred Kaya Scodelario as Catherine and is notable for being one of the very few adaptations that have attempted to explore Heathcliff’s mixed-race status by casting a Black actor, James Howson, as Heathcliff.

Critics are already up in arms about the fact that neither Robbie nor Elordi particularly physically resemble the characters as described in Brontë's book. (Catherine was not exactly Barbie-esque.) However, her choice of Elordi (very much from the "dark-haired boy in need of a wash" school of Heathcliffs) has been singled out because it feels like a step backward, as if Fennell is taking period drama back to a less diverse time by deciding not to explore Heathcliff as a mixed-race character.

But that's seemingly par for the course with Fennell's work, whose films tend to be...well, let's call them controversial, at least if the critical responses to Saltburn and her female revenge thriller Promising Young Woman are anything to go by. Moreover, there's a good chance by the time all is said and done, Brontë fans may be upset by other choices Fennell makes along the way.

It's probably not an accident that Wuthering Heights also includes a rather infamous scene involving a graveyard and a recently buried corpse. Fennell cited Wuthering Heights as an inspiration for Saltburn's infamous graveside scene in the Fall of 2023: "It's about grief. It's about love. It's an attempt to get some form of impossible closure," she told Time Magazine. "There's a scene in Wuthering Heights after Cathy dies when Heathcliff digs down to her coffin and tries to get to her. It’s very clear what he's intending to do, which is to, at the very least touch her, kiss her. So it's part of the Gothic tradition that sex and death are intertwined."

Wuthering Heights will be written, directed, and produced by Fennell. MRC, the studio behind Saltburn, has tapped Robbie's LuckyChap Entertainment to produce the film. This marks the third time Fennell and Robbie's production company have worked together, but it is the first time Robbie has starred in one of Fennel's projects. Preproduction is underway, and filming will begin in the U.K. in 2025.