Posted in: Movies, Warner Bros | Tagged: Emerald Fennell, Warner Bros, Wuthering Heights

"Wuthering Heights" Director Breaks Down the Film's Opening Scene

The writer and director of "Wuthering Heights" discusses the film's bold opening scene and how it sets the tone for this adaptation.

Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" certainly doesn't try to ease you in. Instead, it opens on a public hanging, and the crowd's attention lands in an unsettling place as they fixate on a bodily reaction instead of the violence in front of them. Sure, the sequence is clearly meant to jar, but it is also doing real work for the story, planting a blunt idea about desire, spectacle, and what this new version of the story entails. And Fennell addressed that specific choice in an interview with USA Today, specifically citing it as a tonal preview of what's to come.

"Wuthering Heights" Director on the Film's Brutal and Bizarre Opening

Fennell explains, "With the first moments of a film, you need to set the tone and say what it is. This is a deeply felt romance. But I also wanted people to understand that it would be surprising and darkly funny and perhaps stranger than they would expect. It was important to acknowledge early on that arousal and danger are kind of the same thing. That is what the Gothic is, and it was important that the first thing we see is Cathy, this young girl, seemingly frightened but then actually delighted. It tells us so much about who she is, but so much about Brontë, too. We have this idea that the world of period dramas was fragrant and beautiful and pastel and lovely. It wasn't at all. It was a dangerous place to live in, so it was crucial for me to show that right at the beginning."

That mission statement carries through the rest of the film, which adapts Emily Brontë's classic into a hot, volatile romance where love is never gentle, and stability is always temporary. The story itself follows Heathcliff, an outsider who forms an intense bond with Catherine Earnshaw, only for class and cruelty to warp what could have been devotion into something far more chaotic. The cast is led by Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, with Hong Chau as Nelly, Shazad Latif as Edgar, Alison Oliver as Isabella, plus Martin Clunes and Ewan Mitchell in supporting roles.

Reception has been split, which makes sense for a film that pushes the material this hard. The reviews that lean positive keep coming back to the same strengths, like the sweaty physicality, the heightened mood, and the way the style treats the romance like something feral instead of decorative, even if it means taking a loose grip on Brontë. Though what feels less debatable is the early commercial traction. The film opened to around $38 million domestically over the holiday weekend and roughly $83 million worldwide, a launch that gives it genuine momentum going into the rest of its theatrical run. But only time will tell!

The Warner Bros. film "Wuthering Heights" is now playing in theaters.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!