“Wuthering Heights” (Emerald Fennell, 2026)

[JSC]

I'm not sure the Ken Russell comparison would hold up when you consider that the majority of his direct adaptations of
literary works (Women in Love, The Rainbow, and Lady Chatterley's Lover) are more visually subdued, not to say more
faithful to the source material than his other films (an exception being Salome's Last Dance or even Fall of the Louse of
Usher perhaps).

[MichaelB]

There’s generally a pretty strong correlation between his regard for the source and the sensitivity of the adaptation. He was not a fan of Bram Stoker’s Lair of the White Worm, to put it mildly, but I’m not convinced that a less OTT adaptation would have done a truly terrible book any favours.

(Famously, Russell only did it in order to get The Rainbow greenlit. Tellingly, the latter is a far subtler film in every way.)

[Mr Sausage]

(Famously, Russell only did it in order to get The Rainbow greenlit. Tellingly, the latter is a far subtler film in every way.)

That makes sense. I just watched the movie yesterday for the Vampire list and thought it shared some of Lawrence's spirit, what with Amanda Donohoe's wild pagan embrace of sex and pleasure vs. all the buttoned up heroes with their conventional morality. She has a fun anti-Christian monologue while laying naked on a tanning bed.

[MichaelB]

I interviewed Sammi Davis a few years ago, and she confirmed long-held suspicions that she, Peter Capaldi, and Hugh Grant all knew exactly what kind of film they were making: they were all of a similar age, at a similar level of fame, and (most crucially) had a similar sense of humour, so they tended to hang around together. Amanda Donohoe would have joined them, only she was permanently ensconced in epic make-up sessions.

Although I gather Catherine Oxenberg never really grasped the kind of project that it was.

[Mr Sausage]

That’s good to know. I wasn’t sure if Capaldi and Davis were in on it, but Grant and Donohoe had to be. You don’t get that kind of comic timing by accident.

[Altair]

I had a ball with this film - full of striking, overwrought images and inventive production design. This is a film which is all about surfaces - I love how much attention is paid to wallpaper here. The blood red costumes and sets reminded me most of the lurid colour of Hammer films of the early '60s, and the melodramatic tone isn't that far away. Margot Robbie is very good - she plays Cathy as a superbitch, à la Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara, and the whole film is channalled through her desires for wealth, status, and sex. Appropriately enough, Jacob Elordi becomes a hulking figure of lust, while Martin Clunes delivers one those delicious performances that only an old pro can whip out. Emerald Fennell gets a lot of mileage out of the differences between the two houses and enjoys quoting from, at various points, Hitchcock and Powell and Pressburger (although one wishes there was a sequence here as powerful as Gone to Earth's fox hunting climax). Ridiculous trash, of course; yet destined to become a cult film.