Wuthering Heights

Director: Andrea Arnold Andrea Arnold

Overview

Emily Bronte's classic romance is given an austere, naturalistic interpretation in this adaptation from filmmaker Andrea Arnold, which strips the story of much of its dialogue and adds a racial component to the tale of forbidden love. Yorkshire landowner Mr. Earnshaw (Paul Hilton) brings a West Indian boy (Solomon Glave) to live on his property and earn his keep working on Earnshaw's farm, naming the youth Heathcliff. While Heathcliff is regarded with deep suspicion by Earnshaw's son Hindley (Lee Shaw), he strikes up a friendship with Earnshaw's daughter Catherine (Shannon Beer) that grows stronger with time. After the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley takes control of the farm, and Heathcliff chafes under Hindley's vicious treatment, running off to make his own way. In time, Catherine (now played by Kaya Scodelario) grows into a beautiful woman, and Edgar Linton (James Northcote), the son of a wealthy man, asks for her hand in marriage. Hindley approves of the match, but Catherine is torn when Heathcliff returns (now played by James Howson) as a self-made man. The affection Catherine and Heathcliff knew in their youth has grown into something deeper, but she isn't sure if she can defy her family in the name of love. Wuthering Heights received its world premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/23/2013
UPC:	0896602002500
Original Release:	2011
Rating:	NR
Source:	Oscilloscope
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	2:09:00
Sales rank:	49,178

Special Features

Video essay with film cretic David Fear of Time Out New York; Original Theatrical Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

James Howson	Heathcliff
Kaya Scodelario	Catherine Earnshaw
Steve Evets	Joseph
Nichola Burley	Isabella Linton
Oliver Milburn	Mr. Linton
Solomon Glave	Young Heathcliff
Shannon Beer	Young Catherine Earnshaw
Paul Hilton	Mr. Earnshaw
James Northcote	Edgar Linton
Amy Wren	Frances Earnshaw
Jonny Powell	Young Edgar,Young Edgar
Simone Jackson	Nelly
Lee Shaw	Hindley
Eve Alice Coverley Ainscough	Young Isabella
Adam Lock	Adam
Emma Ropner	Mrs. Linton
Richard Guy	Gamekeeper Robert
Michael Hughes	Actor
Paul Murphy	Actor

Technical Credits

Andrea Arnold

Olivia Hetreed

Andrea Arnold	Director,Screenwriter
Robert Bernstein	Producer
Kevin Loader	Producer
Douglas Rae	Producer
Hugo Heppell	Executive Producer
Tessa Ross	Executive Producer
Adam Kulick	Executive Producer
Tim Haslam	Executive Producer,Producer
Mark Woolley	Executive Producer
Nicolas Becker	Sound/Sound Designer
Olivia Hetreed	Screenwriter
Gail Stevens	Casting
John Pardee	Casting
Des Hamilton	Casting

Editorial Reviews

With Wuthering Heights, British writer/director Andrea Arnold attempts to give Emily Brontë's seminal 1847 novel a fresh spin. In lieu of bringing Heathcliff and Cathy into contemporary times as one might nominally expect from this intention, Arnold preserves the period setting but captures the action in an unusual style -- with a noticeable absence of artificial light, copious usage of handheld camerawork, and occasional first-person shots taken from Heathcliff's perspective. This was a wise decision, arguably a masterstroke. Within Arnold's stylistic framework, the characters, the rugged moors beneath imposing skies, and the age-hewn interiors from Brontë's prose assume a raw quality that feels as if a direct documentarian was present in the 19th century, merely observing the events sans interference. On some vital, organic level, this works; we never for a moment sense what Pauline Kael once called "the technicians hiding behind the butterfly's wing and trying to make it iridescent." What doesn't pay off is Arnold's narrative looseness -- the plot structure feels sloppy and careless. Some major developments are glossed over -- such as the death of Cathy's dad, which we don't learn about until the coffin is being lowered into the ground -- and others are eliminated altogether: We never discover, for example, what befalls Heathcliff in between the time when he leaves the Earnshaw home and when he returns as a wealthy man who intends to make Cathy his bride. These omissions cripple the movie's dramatic power, and it suffers equally from a conspicuous lack of romantic chemistry between the younger versions of Heathcliff (Solomon Glave) and Cathy (Shannon Beer). One thinks back to other films that have made prepubescent or early teenage yearning emotionally tangible -- such as the magisterial flashbacks, for instance, in Adrian Lyne's Lolita. The picture desperately needs an equivalent level of passion, but it never materializes. Overall, the film constitutes an interesting attempt to strip the Brontë novel of its iconic topsoil and cut back to the thematic roots of the story; one can admire the sublimity of Arnold's aesthetic compositions and framing, as well as the generally solid acting from a nonprofessional cast, but that's to no avail when the movie misses its emotional targets. Viewers interested in this story would be strongly advised to seek out the 1939 adaptation starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, which remains unsurpassed on the levels of performance and execution.