Review: Film

Wuthering Heights dir Andrea Arnold, Robbie Ryan, Kaya Scodelario, James Howson, Shannon Beer, Solomon Glave

Muddied. Feral children become poised adults with a stretched believability across the two states. Arnold has a great concept: to make the natural elements of the Yorkshire Moors, the weather, time of day as complete a visceral experience as possible. Yet glaring gaps in the narrative and continuity make Wuthering Heights an intensely annoying experience to sit through. The plot is reduced and simplified: Heathcliff is taken in by the wealthy Earnshaw family where he develops an intense relationship with his young foster sister, Cathy. Yet most of the film centres on the younger actors whose inexperience shows little connection between the two, never mind passion. The pair inhabit little more than a pigsty, at odds with the Earnshaws’ wealthy status, roll around in the mud, climb the highest tor and ride bare-backed horses. Yet Cathy’s conversion to the Lintons’ Georgian splendour is covered in one line. The infamous tapping-branches-on-the-windowpane is there but no supernatural, destructive force which dominates and grips the novel. That said it looks wonderful, cinematographer Robbie Ryan, and the bleak aspect fits the dour emotional landscape of the film……