At first glance, Andrea Arnold seems a thoroughly odd choice of director to tackle Emily Bronte’s tale of nineteenth-century passion and jealousy. Despite only having a few films to her name, Arnold has quickly made a reputation for herself as a talented chronicler of contemporary urban drama and poverty stricken council estates, all of which seems a world away from the windswept moors of Wuthering Heights. Yet somehow Arnold makes the change work, thanks largely to her desire to seek out a unique take on the classic story. I’ve always felt that there’s little point in doing a film adaptation if you’re too beholden to the source material to find new themes and meanings within it, and to the immense benefit of the film it seems that this is an attitude Arnold shares.
As in the original story, Heathcliffe is a lost child taken in by the Earnshaw family, who initially attempt to raise him as their own. Instead of the gypsy child of the novel though, Arnold casts Heathcliffe as a young black teen with initials burnt onto his back, hinting at a possible background in slavery. Wuthering Heights is already a story riddled with tensions, and this decision to add in an additional layer of racial complexity only helps to accentuate these tensions further. Unsurprisingly, 19th century farmers prove to be bigoted and unwelcoming to a young black man living among them, and the result is an even bleaker version of the tale than most.
The second, and perhaps most striking, change Arnold brings to the adaptation is in her bold filmmaking style. While shaky hand held camerawork and natural lighting are almost expected in low budget contemporary British films, they feel startlingly fresh and original when cast onto a period drama. Far from the flamboyant clothing and refined accents of some period adaptations, this is a windswept, intensely earthy piece of filmmaking. Arnold returns again and again to woozily out of focus close-ups, accentuating textures and creating a strangely tactile viewing experience. The film doesn’t just look cold and damp, you can almost feel the roar of the elements yourself. This is matched by the film’s sound design, which uses no music and sparse dialogue. The result is a world made up of nothing but creaking floorboards, mud-soaked footsteps and the constant howling of the wind. While there’s been no shortage of cinematic visions of Wuthering Heights over the years, there’s probably never been one that appeals to the senses quite as much as Arnold’s.
Given the infrequency of the dialogue it’s surprising then that this ends up becoming one of the more problematic elements of the film. In the past, Arnold has shown considerable skill in coaxing believable and intense performances from non-actors. Unfortunately, with a few notable exceptions (the excellent newcomers playing the young Heathcliffe and Catherine among them), this doesn’t always end up becoming the case here, and as a result much of the dialogue feels jarringly unconvincing and flat in the way it’s delivered. Given the realist directing style of the rest of the film, this ends up being a clash that distracts more than it would normally. Wuthering Heights is also very much a film of two halves, and unfortunately the later adult performances never quite match up to the strength of their earlier child equivalents. To truly believe in Wuthering Height’s story of obsession and jealousy we need to be invested in the sheer intensity of their romance, but sadly this is something that struggles to shine through in the chemistry between the performers.
While these issues consistently stop the film from soaring quite as high as it seems it potentially could, this is still a bold, remarkably fresh, take on a classic story. Furthermore, while Arnold has always shown a lot of filmmaking talent, Wuthering Heights also marks her out as a filmmaker with more potential breadth than it previously seemed. It’s going to be very interesting to see where she turns to next.