By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: Album ****/film ***

The best thing about Emerald Fennell’s (Cinderella, Gillian Lynne Theatre) reimagining of the Emily Bronte classic is the soundtrack by Charli XCX which adds an appropriate modern gothic haunting gloom.

• Read on for reasons including how the Wuthering Whites casting detracts from what could have been a more effective film

It’s a smart move by XCX to follow up the all-conquering, summer-soundtracking brat album where the focus is on how it enhances Fennell’s controversial follow up to Saltburn which we actually found too dark and mean-spirited to review.

The Wuthering Heights soundtrack represents quite the departure in sound for XCX with opening single House featuring an ominous spoken word section by John Cale that effectively sets the scene in the film as our young heroine Cathy Earnshaw and her companion Nelly Dean spot the visible erection of the man being hanged publicly in 1771 sending the onlookers into a frenzy.

Fennell’s film is preoccupied by awakening female sexuality and restraint – both imagined and physical – and XCX’s 2nd single, the solo Chains Of Love, explores the BDSM theme the 2026 film delights in exploring.

What the soundtrack can’t do however is distract from the curious decision to cast the 28-year-old and white Jacob Elordi as the ‘dark skinned’ Heathcliff and white 16-year-old Owen Cooper (Adolescence) as his younger self.

In early scenes Cathy is played by 15-year-old Charlotte Mellington as her father, a magnificently menacing Martin Clunes, takes in Cooper’s destitute Heathcliff.

The children become close with Heathcliff taking a beating from Cathy’s father intended for her leaving him with scars on his back that he will bear for the rest of his life.

35-year-old Margot Robbie arrives to play Cathy in the bulk of the rest of the film and the age difference between her and Elordi makes for a curious dynamic especially when she visits a rich neighbour in an attempt to woo him to protect the family from her father’s gambling debts, the bearded and unkempt Heathcliff storms off to return much later clean-shaven and looking impossibly puppy dog-ish.

Elsewhere the idea of colourblind casting is used to better effect with Shazad Latif excellent as the rich neighbour Cathy pursues and Hong Chau strong as the older narrator Nelly who does her best to keep Cathy and Heathcliff apart.

There’s a lot of sex in this Wuthering Heights, the title wrapped in quotation marks on the film’s poster (see main image), to differentiate this from the source material, and we couldn’t help but feel the BDSM theme has been better explored in the modern-day film Pillion released last year.

Fennell’s Wuthering Heights looks appropriately lavish and windswept with a faithful spiky soundtrack but we couldn’t help but feel the Wuthering Whites problem with Elordi’s casting detracts from what could have been a more effective film.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Wuthering Heights
• Have you seen a Charli XCX show or heard an album before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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