By Joshua Robison / The Jambar
Valentine’s Day is a holiday that many set aside to show heightened appreciation for their significant other. Dinner reservations, boxes of chocolates and handmade cards are all things that make the holiday unique. Out of all of the Valentine’s Day traditions, romance films are certainly impactful.
Released Feb. 13, “Wuthering Heights” was the most recent addition to the romance genre, adapted from the titular 1847 novel by Emily Brontë. Even with its historic relevance to gothic English literature and sexual innuendos, the film lacks a lot of substance.
Before any criticism is made, it is important to identify the positive elements of the film. “Wuthering Heights,” without a doubt, is an arthouse film. Its strategic use of color in the scenery and costumes is executed elegantly and with purpose.
It is also important to address that, while this film is a romance where sex is a central theme, the movie takes the effort to not display nudity with no artistic value. In some instances, there are teasers of nudity but no full-frontal nudity is shown throughout the film.
“Wuthering Heights” was written and directed by Emerald Fennel with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as lead actors playing characters Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, respectively. As star-studded as the cast was, the film was considerably disappointing.
This is an important aspect to the film as many movies will use nudity with no purpose to the artistic meaning of the plot. The movie’s incorporation of sexuality should set an example as to what using sex as an artistic element can look like.
The film’s inspiration from gothic European art is exceedingly present, as the film touches on many dark themes such as adultery, lust, envy, abuse and poverty. It uses many devices such as fog, shadows and music to emphasize these themes.
The film is a very visually appealing piece of cinema. However, that is all that could be said that is not disappointing about the film.
The movie overall lacked the opportunity for the audience to relate to the characters. All of the main characters make absolutely absurd decisions that create more problems than they solve. This redundancy creates a bore out of the film that had a lot of potential.
The film surely touches on themes that are relevant in the real world, however, the execution of displaying those themes with Robbie’s and Elordi’s characters were rather poor.
Additionally, there are some sequences of the film that feel utterly useless by the end. There were scenes that served no greater purpose to the film other than world building.
Generally, “Wuthering Heights” lacks many elements that make a film great. The film’s substance only goes as far as the actors are attractive. As many activities as there are that make Valentine’s Day memorable, “Wuthering Heights” is one to forget.