'Wuthering Heights' is a bad romance worth your obsession – Review

• Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi star as the doomed lovers Cathy and Heathcliff in the new movie "Wuthering Heights" (in theaters Friday, Feb. 13).
• Filmmaker Emerald Fennell takes some liberties with the 1847 novel by Emily Brontë.
• The soundtrack for the 2026 film is full of original songs by Charli XCX.

Emerald Fennell’s take on the literary classic “Wuthering Heights” isn’t exactly a Valentine’s Day pick-me-up. Yet it’s awfully stunning to look at with all sorts of toxic obsession, forbidden lust and Gothic sauciness.

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are friends, lovers and frenemies in a heated rivalry in the posh and tumultuous “Heights” (★★★½ out of four; rated R; in theaters Feb. 13). Fennell’s adaptation takes some liberties with Emily Brontë’s original 1847 Victorian-era novel but unless you’re a devout superfan, you likely won’t be too mad. The Oscar-winning British filmmaker crafts a sumptuous bad romance that’s quite haughty, darkly hilarious and ultimately heartfelt.

After an opening where a crowd gets inexplicably hot and bothered at a hanging – an auspicious choice to begin a tragic love tale – abusive alcoholic farmer Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) brings home a street urchin (Owen Cooper) as an act of “charity.” He tells his willful, high-maintenance young daughter Cathy (Charlotte Mellington) that the boy can be her “pet.”

She names him Heathcliff and while the servants, including Cathy’s confidante Nelly (Vy Nguyen), aren’t excited about having another child to take care of, the two kids grow very close. Cathy even tells Heathcliff one night, “I will never leave you."

Years later, their home Wuthering Heights has become a withering disaster after Mr. Earnshaw has gambled away their money. Cathy (Robbie) and Heathcliff (Elordi) enjoy a friendship full of tricks and banter, and love vexing each other, though Heathcliff fosters strong feelings for his pal.

Cathy is also a woman feeling the pressure of getting married, ideally to a dude with money. When wealthy velvet magnate Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif) moves in next door, at opulent Thrushcross Grange, Cathy awkwardly introduces herself, Edgar becomes smitten and his young ward Isabella (Alison Oliver) loves having a new girl friend.

Heathcliff isn't as joyous, bolting when Cathy and Edgar get engaged, and he returns five years later, now wealthy and aiming to cause chaos. Cathy has longed for Heathcliff the whole time, the two begin a secret affair, but it devolves into a cruel battle between them.

Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” is stellar sensory overload with ostentatious costumes and production design, which interestingly leans into rich people being totally weird. (Edgar outfits Cathy’s bedroom with walls made to look like her skin, complete with veins and moles.) The movie also offers a bunch of original Charli XCX tunes, spawning a soundtrack much better than the singer’s own lackluster mockumentary.

It's the director’s filmmaking, though, that's striking, showing new depth from the woman who made the delicious “Promising Young Woman” and out-there “Saltburn.” She uses misty English moors and oncoming lightning storms to symbolize the broody, electric couple and their complicated emotions. And Fennell fashions visual callbacks to hauntingly reflect Cathy and Heathcliff’s childhood in their adult lives, a nod to their arrested development but also the kind of naive, tight-knit bond only children can have. 

Fennell has gone so far with Brontë’s beloved book that there’s bound to be discourse, whether it’s Heathcliff's mysterious ethnicity (he’s described as a “dark-skinned gipsy” in the novel) or him and Cathy being aged up from teens. But you can’t argue with Robbie and Elordi's chemistry when it comes to exuding love, hate and everything in between.

Cathy can be selfish and maddening, Heathcliff is both aloof and dastardly, yet they’re never unlikable. And while their steamy, sweaty dalliances are hot and heavy (albeit mostly clothed), most swoonworthy are the smaller moments, like Heathcliff gently cupping his hands to keep the rain out of Cathy’s eyes.

Hong Chau is a great choice for the adult Nelly, a quietly resentful sort who causes more friction in Cathy and Heathcliff's tempestuous situation. Latif lends an inherent goodness to Edgar that makes him a foil for Heathcliff but also a better man for Cathy. Cooper, an Emmy winner for “Adolescence,” is just as important as Elordi for their character’s arc. However, the one supporting player you might obsess over is Oliver, enchantingly eccentric as a sexually repressed innocent embroiled in Heathcliff’s revenge quest.

With flair and bombast to spare, Fennell reaches such great “Heights” that this feels like the first must-see movie of 2026, an enthralling retelling of an all-time love story through an accessibly modern lens.