Reviews

Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite classic novels, so I was looking forward to seeing a movie that was loosely based on the woman who wrote it. However, throughout the film, my emotions ranged from bored, confused, and frustrated at the sledgehammer way that O'Connor seemed to suggest that the core elements of Brontë's classic novel (passion, forbidden love, gothic horror, life, death and illness) were based on Brontë's clichéd affair with one character, incestual desires with another, and just plan weird peeping Tom antics on neighbors while drinking and drug taking. In taking the sledgehammer approach, O'Connor missed the opportunity to explore more subtle questions that were raised around the character and family of the woman who wrote one of the world's greatest love stories - why was Emily so reclusive (we don't know, this was put down to being"odd"), how did the loss of their mother and two older siblings at such a young age effect the family (not explored - just brushed off by Charlotte as "we're not allowed discuss it"), why was their brother Branwell a drug addicted alcoholic (again - not addressed, he "just was"), why did the children feel the need to keep seeking approval from their disapproving father ... Not deemed worthy of exploring, but just accepted as the cliché it was.

I came out of the film feeling like I had just watched something really distasteful - and felt almost guilty at paying to see such outrageous conjecture about the woman who wrote one of the most famous novels in English literature. The whole mess felt like a high school student's literature project, in which O'Connor couldn't even bring herself to acknowledge the fact that Brontë actually published initially under the pseudonym Ellis Bell - another missed opportunity. Nor could she seem to acknowledge that perhaps Brontë was just a really good writer, who had everyday, ordinary demons to live with as opposed to outlandish fantasies that mirrored her novel.