After what has felt like endless build-up and anticipation (fitting for the movie, really), Wuthering Heights has landed in cinemas in time for Valentine's Day. Whether it should be a romantic treat or not is actually just one of various complaints levelled against Emerald Fennell's adaptation of Emily Brontë's classic.
From a backlash to the casting of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi – which has persisted since it was first announced in September 2024 – to the fact that this Wuthering Heights sure looked a bit raunchier than Brontë intended, the new movie has proven divisive among book fans, to say it kindly.
A less polarising note of conversation around the movie has been those mysterious quote marks around the title, which were revealed with the first teaser. It wasn't long before a fan theory from Film Sis went viral, speculating that the quote marks were because Margot Robbie wasn't actually playing Catherine Earnshaw; she was actually playing somebody in the modern day who is imagining themselves in Wuthering Heights.
"It's possible she's just a fellow yearner, like us, dissociating and daydreaming of her Heathcliff as a way to escape her normal life," she explained, adding how this could explain why the costumes aren't exactly era-specific and why the tone is hornier than expected.
Now that Wuthering Heights is out, we know that this theory wasn't correct. It really is just a bold, sexed-up take on Brontë's book without a meta twist, and it focuses on the raunchy yearning between Catherine and Heathcliff.
But if you knew about the fan theory, you might have wished it was actually true.
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It's a dangerous thing to start viewing a movie though the lens of how you wanted to see it, rather than the filmmaker's intention. More often that not, that will just leave you disappointed. Emerald Fennell's take on Wuthering Heights might not be for you, and that's totally fine, but love it or hate it, there's no denying it's definitely her vision.
As she explained shortly after the release of the first trailer, her version of the movie is inspired by how she felt when she first read the book aged 14. This included the moments that she thought were in the book, but ended up just being a product of her imagination, and the movie allowed her to "see what it would feel like to fulfil my 14-year-old wish, which is both good and bad".
It also extended to the casting of Margot Robbie as Catherine – who, in the book, is in her late teens – and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff who, in the book, is described as "dark-skinned". They're both just who Fennell saw as the characters that captured the vibe she remembered from being 14 and reading the book.
You might not agree with the casting – and it does come across as an odd fit compared to the casting of the younger versions of Catherine and Heathcliff – but Fennell hasn't really done anything differently to other filmmakers when casting roles.
This led to the quote marks around the title as Fennell explained in January 2026: "I can't say I'm making Wuthering Heights. It's not possible. What I can say is I'm making a version of it. There's a version that I remembered reading that isn't quite real. And there's a version where I wanted stuff to happen that never happened. And so it is Wuthering Heights, and it isn't."
However, and this is where we come back to the ultimately-incorrect theory, it's so easy to see how that take on the movie could have worked so well. If Margot Robbie was revealed to be playing somebody who was just imagining themselves in their version of Wuthering Heights, it would instantly resolve any criticisms that this movie is too separate from Brontë's vision.
It would also have opened up the possibility of a deeper meaning to the movie, one that interrogated the impossibility of adapting a beloved existing work when everybody likely has their own interpretation or own intimate feelings connected to it. Because, despite all the bonking, you might end up leaving Wuthering Heights feeling that it's all just a bit too... safe.
That might sound unlikely, given the distinct spin that Fennell brings to it, but compared to Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, there's nothing really in the new movie that is as provocative as Promising Young Woman's twist or Saltburn's depravity. Nothing in Catherine and Heathcliff's romps comes even close to Oliver Quick shagging Felix's grave or slurping up Felix's dirty bathwater.
A reveal like the one theorised could well have given something else to talk about, rather than just questioning whether the tone is right for Wuthering Heights or whether they'd really be dressed in outfits like that.
Again, that was never the adaptation of Wuthering Heights that Emerald Fennell was going to make, and that's fine. But sometimes it's OK to let your imagination run free and wonder whether it was actually a bit of a missed opportunity to truly do something different with an adaptation.
Wuthering Heights is out now in cinemas.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
