Revisiting Wuthering Heights in 2026

(contains spoilers)

I first read Wuthering Heights over a decade ago as a set text for my university degree. Perhaps partly for that reason, I hated it! I couldn’t understand a word Joseph was saying, I didn’t like or sympathise with any of the characters and, frankly, just couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I swore never to read it again and managed for a very long time to keep to my word.

Enter the 2026 film. I knew the reviews were mixed at best and a lot of people outright hated that too. Whether this was because it deviated from the book too much or it was their first introduction to the story and were put off by it, I think varied too. Either way, I was intrigued in spite of myself. On a whim, Simon and I decided to go.

Having seen it, my conclusions were as follows:

The sex, my God the sex! It’s constant as soon as everyone comes of age (luckily), especially between Cathy and Heathcliff. They literally have whole conversations during the act. It does well to characterise the shaky desperation, passion and semi-hatred that run through their relationship, but even with that understanding it gets to be a little much.

It’s too long.

They have taken all of Cathy’s brother’s irredeemable qualities and pinned them on the father, though in fairness this may have been to reduce the confusion over having so many characters.

The cinematography of the wild moors, the unforgiving elements and the characters’ houses crumbling forlornly into the dust through their neglect, is undeniably stunning and achieve visually something that Bronte herself managed to do with words – make the landscape itself another character in the novel. Some of the choices of imagery in the film also deserve note – if not to become iconic in their own right – the image of a dying Catherine bleeding out onto her white bedclothes so that the blooming stain mimics the train of a wedding dress, is as beautiful as it is horrifying.

The entire second half of the book is missing, and rather than have Catherine die after childbirth, they have the baby die in utero and this is what kills her.

Edgar emerges from The Grange covered in Catherine’s blood and upon finding Heathcliff waiting in the garden, whispers that he is sorry. It is one of my favourite moments, though it is an invention for the film.

Overall, it left me… feeling.

I bought myself a new copy of the book (having donated mine after I’d finished my degree).

On my second reading…

As a piece of work, I have the utmost respect for it. Not just because of who the author was and the circumstances she found herself writing in, but for the deep complexity of human emotion she manages to portray. The love, the distain, the pain, the confusion, the fear; all come alive through the characters’ words and actions with no need for further explanation or justification. The intimacy of the setting and its perpetual war with the weather and the

changes of the season are also complex and detailed enough to transport you out of your body and into another, shivering on the moors in bare feet, both dreading and longing for the appearance of Heathcliff. Some of Joseph’s diatribes were still indecipherable in parts, but I enjoyed it this time, it somehow seemed like a redeeming quality that he was so forthright and such a salt-of-the-earth resident of the unforgiving countryside he resided in.

There is still one thing I can’t get past though, and it has as much to do with the book as the film. Cruelty, hatred, psychological warfare, violence and loss – when did we decide that these things were romantic? Wuthering Heights is considered one of the greatest love stories of all time. Arguably, the true love story of the book is that of the younger Cathy and Hareton who manage to overcome the generational trauma that birthed them and even tried to destroy them personally, to break that cycle and forge a happy life together in spite of everything. This love story didn’t feature in the film at all.

I’m guilty myself of being a sucker for a bad boy who is only kind to the woman he loves, an opinion my bestie shares. We talked about it recently and realised what toxic preferences our culture has encouraged, not least through stories like Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff IS romantic because his life is governed by his love for Cathy, but neither of them love well. Ought we to read/watch it as a cautionary tale rather than something to aspire to?

It's something to think about anyway. I know I am.

Until next time, keep reading.

Cate x