Wuthering Heights

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Wuthering Heights always sat uneasy with me as a romantic story. Here we have two pretty callous and nasty individuals who treat each other with almost as much contempt as those around them. Yet, Emily Bronte's sole novel, burns so great with ye olde impassioned love, it tosses everything your typical romance story usually includes aside for something different and unforgettable; Andrea Arnold (Red Road, Fish Tank) wants to bring her own version of different to that again and she achieves it. How it will sit with lovers of the book is another matter entirely.

With regards to plot, the song remains the same but it's sung in a different key. Mr. Earnshaw (Paul Hilton) takes home to his titular house on a Yorkshire moor an orphan whom he names Heathcliff (Glave). Heathcliff and Earnshaw's daughter Cathy (Beer) immediately strike up a deep bond that is severed once the two happen across their new, better-off neighbours, the Lintons. This separation has disastrous consequences for not only Heathcliff and Cathy, but anyone whom the relationship touches…

Okay, so what's different? Well, for a start, in a daring move, Heathcliff is black and is subjected to racist abuse by Cathy's cantankerous brother, Hindley (Lee Shaw). This casting choice takes a little time to get used to, as does Heathcliff's use of the words 'f**k' and 'c**ts'. The titular house, described in detail by Bronte, is of little consequence to Arnold who sees things as they are: the Heights is just another nondescript farmhouse and the surrounding moors, which always had a gothic/romantic vibe to them, are what moors are - wet, gloomy and muddy.

What Arnold places emphasis on is the undeniable sexual attraction between her protagonists, which sits rather uneasy considering their ages. Glave and Beer, who are perfect in the roles, watch each other undress; Beer lifts Glave's undershirt to kiss his wounds; and at one point Glave pins Beer down in the mud but Arnold, after showing us close ups of his hands tightening around her wrists, cuts away before anything untoward happens (onscreen).

With its longs scenes of silence and glances, this version of Wuthering Heights can drag. The first half of the film works far better than the second as one can get wrapped up in watching Arnold's bold choices and odd approach to this masterpiece of literature; once the novelty of that is over, however, there's little here to get in a dizzy about.

Interesting stuff. Don't go thinking Olivier. Or Kate Bush.