It was a cold winter night when the pages at my fingertips glowed beneath the moon and book light. The bone-chilling ending of “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë shook me to my core. Inked letters haunted me as my eyes shut for sleep.
Ghosts of Cathy and Heathcliff lingered around me in the following days, sending goose bumps down my spine. A singular question spun webs throughout my mind, tainting all my conversations.
Nature or nurture?
Did Heathcliff become who he was because of the cruelty he faced? Or perhaps cruelty was predisposed in him from the moment of his conception.
I had no one to explore these ideas with at the time. So when I saw the announcement for the “Wuthering Heights” movie, I leapt for joy. Finally, I would have an entire social media population to divulge these thoughts with.
Then the casting was announced.
Even without the context of the book’s themes and underlying messages, the chosen cast sparked controversy. The lead actors and actresses, Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, are both at least a decade removed from 18. While the characters themselves are meant to be just past childhood, the adult actors involved simply cannot convincingly portray teenagers.
As for the poorest decision the casting directors made, Heathcliff is portrayed (yet again) as a white man. Out of more than 10 movie remakes of the book, only one accurately casts Heathcliff as a person of color. To better understand the gravity of this decision and how it impacts the nuanced development of the story, feel free to check out the video below.
On the off chance that you, dear reader, have spent any time on social media, you’re likely already aware. In the original story, Heathcliff struggles to integrate into a society that is structured against him. People in his life are cruel, discriminatory and blatantly abusive towards him because he is a person of color.
Everyone except Cathy.
Cathy exists as a bridge and a juxtaposition between Heathcliff and the world around them. Despite her white skin, her dark hair and brown eyes mirror those of Heathcliff. Their similarities do not stop at outward appearance.
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same,” Cathy confesses to Nelly, admitting her love for Heathcliff during the heat of the moment.
It is true. They exist as the other personified, and their blatant obsession with one another carries every decision they make. This is where the 2026 movie begins and ends in its comparisons to the book. Cathy and Heathcliff are obsessed with each other, and as a result, they will hurt anyone to crawl through the mud to one another.
Entire characters, experiences and plot points are removed to simplify the work of Brontë into a steamy love story. Brontë wrote of classism, racism and generational sin. The overarching question of “nature or nurture” is reduced by producers to a story of yearning, repression and adultery.
Now credit must be given where it is due. The subliminal messaging of the setting is phenomenal. In the film, Cathy chooses a life of comfort and wealth over her heart’s desires for Heathcliff.
The walls encasing her bedroom are the shades of her own skin, and even her freckles are sprinkled across them. A fireplace within her home is formed by molds of hands that appear to reach upwards, seeking a way out. The often red skirts, blood and violent colors that decorated Cathy clearly foreshadow her agonizing death—trapped in her own body and destitute in the life she had chosen.
I would be lying if I said that I did not shed enormous tears in the last moments of the film. However, any success the movie has does not negate the blatant whitewashing of the characters, nor the reduction of the author’s original intent into shallowness.
If you would like to read the book for yourself and form your own assessment, visit Nicholls’ Ellender Memorial Library to borrow a copy. The free e-book is also available online.
