Kerry Parnell: Why keyboard warriors are blowing their bloomers off over latest Wuthering Heights

Keyboard warriors are wuthering about nothing over the casting of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as Cathy and Heathcliff, writes Kerry Parnell.

“Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights controversy” is the kind of headline I’m here for. That’s what’s in the news – my favourite actor and my favourite book, adapted by my favourite director. What’s not to love?

Lots, apparently, if you’re a keyboard warrior. For those who haven’t set their Victorian-novel-Google-alerts, people are blowing their bloomers off over a book which came out 177 years ago.

Oscar-winning Emerald Fennell – she of Killing Eve, Promising Young Woman and Saltburn – is writing and directing a new adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. The casting has caused consternation, because Cathy will be played by Margot and Heathcliff by Jacob Elordi, in an Aussie double-header, and – it’s claimed – Margot is too old to play Cathy, at 34, and Jacob too young for Heathcliff, at 27.

There was also criticism the casting should have been more diverse, as Heathcliff, who was brought as a child to Yorkshire by Cathy’s father, from the streets of Liverpool, is described in the book as being, “a dark-skinned gypsy,” with “eyes full of black fire”.

Now, I’m the first to show concern when it comes to filmmakers butchering classics, but as to the numpties who questioned whether Emerald had “ever read the book” – she studied English at Oxford University – I think we can assume she’s leafed through it.

Margot Robbie. Picture: Etienne Laurent/AFP

Jacob Elordi. Picture: Alberto Rodriguez/Variety via Getty Images

And despite all kind of novel hysteria on X, with people actually calling for Wuthering Heights to be cancelled, I couldn’t be more up for it. Margot is a magnificent actor and anyone who saw Jacob in Saltburn would understand why he’s in this movie.

Plus, Margot’s production company LuckyChap, which produced Barbie, Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, is behind this version. They know what they’re doing.

Gen Z’s main complaint, however, seems to be that Wuthering Heights, “was made in 2011, we don’t need another one”. Never mind the fact that everyone from Tom Hardy to Ralph Fiennes, Laurence Olivier to Ian McShane, has had a go at Heathcliff over the years. Note to self: I might dig out that 1967 McShane TV version; he looks like David Essex in a neckerchief. Rock on.

There have been screen adaptations of this classic since cinema began – the first was a silent movie in 1920 and the Oscar-winning 1939 version with Olivier, Merle Oberon and David Niven, is still the finest – so I think we can accommodate one more.

Artwork for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. Picture: Supplied

Whatever Emerald does with it, it’s bound to be disturbing, which shouldn’t be difficult, considering Heathcliff hangs a dog and digs up his lover’s grave in the novel but, even so, if anyone was going to make this the dark, depraved story it always was – even Charlotte Bronte took it upon herself to tone down a second edition following her sister Emily’s death – it’s this director.

“Wild, confused, disjointed and improbable”, leaving you, “shocked, disgusted, almost sickened”, and “desperate, confused … pleased with its petty shocks,” were the withering reviews for both Wuthering Heights in 1847 and Saltburn in 2023. I’ll leave it to you to work out which was which.

We’re in good hands. Frankly, I reckon it’s a lot of wuthering about nothing, and Emerald and Margot should Bronte it on.

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