Wuthering Depths

We watched the new Wuthering Heights movie. Or at least we watched some of it, to the point where we looked at each other and said 'can you stand any more of this?' whereupon we switched over to something a bit less - how can I put this? - moronic. 

This was a little while ago, when it had been on Sky Cinema every night for a week, which prompted us to give it a try. I thought I knew what to expect. I'd seen the trailer. I'd read the reviews. But nothing could have prepared me for the travesty unfolding before our eyes. 

The novel, perhaps my favourite book of all time, is as far from a romance as it's possible to get. For its time, especially given the sex of the writer, it's extraordinary. It certainly made her sister uncomfortable. It's a book about obsession, physical and mental. It drips with sadism, violence, thwarted desire and intense cruelty. Kittens are drowned. A dog is hung. Heathcliff is no Rochester. He's a 'fierce, pitiless, wolvish man.' It's a story in which a pair of elemental beings, not quite of this world, two halves of one whole, are torn apart, or tear themselves apart. The only resolution comes via the possibility of a reunion beyond death (but certainly not in heaven) and the essential restoration of balance for the young. After all, the final, superficially comforting words of the novel belong to the most unreliable and conventional of the narrators.

I sometimes think that generations of critics, film makers, radio writers and playwrights have read it, thought 'She can't possibly have meant that, can she?' and then rewritten it to suit themselves, or to suit the cliches of their time and place. 

We all know that dramatic adaptations involve changes. But in this case, I don't know why they didn't just create a new story. Make it up from scratch.

Well, I do know. 

They wanted to cash in on the enduring power and popularity of the book. And they pretty much did make it up, didn't they? All of it. Mr Earnshaw, a kindly father, who dies within the first few chapters of the novel, is transformed into a psychotic bully. Wild wicked slip of a girl, Cathy, becomes a statuesque blonde, much too old, in a dress that makes her look like the Red Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass. There's a weirdly weaselly Heathcliff. Joseph is transformed into a youthful pervert. There's a lot of pig's blood that our heroine wades through in her pneumatic dress. And truly dreadful dialogue. 

I could go on, but I don't need to, because others have done it so well, (one of the best rants is here) and the film makers are probably laughing all the way to the bank. 

You know what was the worst thing about it? 

It was boring. Unforgivably facile and boring. Somehow very British in its inability to depict passion and substitute 'ooh look at me' bonking. Carry on Wuthering.  

That sound you can hear if you happen to watch this travesty of a movie isn't the sound of the wind, wuthering on the heights. It's Emily, whirling in her grave. Hope she haunts the buggers.