Murder on the Moor: The main cast of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights was announced this week, and the internet is awash in Bottega Veneta stuffed animals. Euphoria’s resident narcissistic psychopath Jacob Elordi stars as Barbie’s Margot Robbie in the latest adaptation of Emily Brontë’s romance I Am Cathy (or a gothic masterpiece of brutal vengeance, horror, and the supernatural, depending on your perspective).
After the Oscar-winning “Promising Young Woman” and the Internet sensation “Saltburn,” Fennell is sparking a new wave of discussion. Rose Dommu would “walk into traffic,” while another Twitter user “put a stone in her pocket and walk into the ocean.” I think people were upset because Elodie and Robbie didn’t fit their fantasy of psychologically tortured lovers in late 18th-century England. Under Fennell’s leadership, will Barbie suck the bathwater out of Elvis while Kate Bush plays softly in the background? We’ll be spared the painful expulsion moments because they haven’t been invented yet, but will Heathcliff crawl into Cathy’s grave? He makes a horrifying request to the gravedigger about the coffin he was buried in, which is of course Fennell’s domain – along with the vengeance, jealousy, paranoia and dark obsessions that make Wuthering Heights a memorable and enduring horror movie. We already know she likes a big, old house.
Personally, I don’t think any actor would have any difficulty portraying the landed gentry: Robbie seems ergonomically designed to wear a corset on a mountain top, and the edge of female rage in the novel plays into her role. On the other hand, while Brisbane-born Elordi is not the first white actor to play the racially ambiguous “dark-skinned gypsy” Heathcliff, ignoring the brutal racism at the center of this non-white character’s profound impact on Finn was a mistake for Nell. As rich as she is! We now know very well how deeply race is rooted in our worldview and how insidious its roots are, and we also know very well that it’s not something that can be hidden – and shouldn’t be. So, I was curious to see how Fennell’s capable hand would handle the dominant racial narrative led by white people.
The movie isn’t scheduled to be released in theaters until 2026, so we’ll guess what it’s going to be like (imagine it’s set in Australia!? Will they be performing in Yorkshire accents!?) and see what happens on the set in the next few months of puppy shots. Also, all I can say is it’s Heathcliff, it’s me, it’s Barbie, I’m back.
