Faithful or Hateful: Wuthering Heights and a Marketing Conundrum
People are disappointed the movie isn't like the book but who's fault is that really?
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Since Wuthering Heights debuted last week, and audiences have finally gotten a chance to see it, I've been asked repeatedly how I feel about Emerald Fennell's adaptations not being faithful to Emily Bronte's text. Adaptations are a tricky thing, and having written an entire book on them I've watched and read a lot of them.
A screenwriter has to thread the needle and bring in audiences who loved and read the book, and audiences who might not even know there was a book to begin with. And, from what I'm seeing online, a lot of people don't know Wuthering Heights is a book (or, at least my 28-year-old brother didn't when he saw it this week).
As I said in my review of Fennell's movie: "I ascribe to George Bluestone's theory from Novels Into Film: A great adaptation is one where 'the film stands up as an autonomous work of art. Not whether the filmmaker has respected his model, but whether he has respected his own vision.'" Fennell's version certainly stands up on its own and respected her own vision. It's just that her vision seems a bit confused on how to please audiences. The flaws of the movie are Fennell's desire to make this a Saltburn 2.0 when it doesn't need to be.
But people are angry about it and that's what I want to talk about. How faithful does a book have to be? And is part of people's frustration with an adaptation whose source material they've never read stem more from WB's haphazard marketing?
