Everything Is Content - Wuthering Heights, That Little Earring & Why Is Emerald Fennell So Controversial?

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

Good morrow EICinephiles!Apparently there's a new film out atm? Some kind of rom-com thing starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie? J.K. We've come home, let us in your windows i.e. your headphones. It's time to discuss the most divisive film of 2026 (and yes, we know it's only February). It's our bumper Wuthering Heights special. Join us on horseback as we ride through the film and share our takes before disembarking and take a promenade through the wild discourse of the film. We end with a balanced investigation into Emerald Fennell and how she became one of the most divisive filmmakers of our time.Thank you for listening and let us know your hot takes in the comments. Do you disagree with any of us? We'd love to know below!In partnership with Cue Podcasts.--------This week Oenone reccomended Wuthering Heights (the book). Beth loved Lord of the Rings and How To Get to Heaven From Belfast. Ruchira loved Sorry Baby and A Little Bit Fruity's episode with Ashley St Clair.Finally, a Smooth-Brained Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights review – Emerald Fennell’s astonishingly bad adaptation is like a limp Mills & Boon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Ruchera and I'm Anoni. And this is Everything is Content, the podcast that bravely tackles the most talked about stories from pop culture. We cover everything from dubious reboots to internet trends and celeb gossip. With the strings in Kathy's corset firmly pulling everything into place for you. This week on the podcast, we're doing a bumper special on the Wuthering Heights film, its infamous creator and the savage response to it all. Before we get into this week's topics, just a reminder that we are an independent podcast.

And aside from listening, the most helpful thing that you can do to help us keep making it is to leave us a lovely review and a rating on Apple Podcast or share us with a friend or on your social media. You can also follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is Content Pod and make sure you hit follow on your podcast player so you never miss an episode. What have both of you been loving this week? I'm going to pick on you and only first. Well, I hope you won't kill me. But what I've been loving this week, surprise, surprise, is the little novel called What, Wuthering Heights by I did read it over the weekend in anticipation of seeing the film.

I want to say it's just as good as I remember. I read it and I was like, I do not remember reading any of this. I had absolutely, I had like such a vague recollection of sort of like the Windy Moors and Heathcliff and Kathy

and it's so much better than I remembered. And it's so good. And it's interesting because the counter Montecristo, the other one that I've almost finished now, they're written at the same time, but maybe because that's a translation,

it's so easy to read. And I do find Wuthering Heights isn't hard, but the language in it is older. And a friend of mine actually voicing to me, like, how are you reading this? And you kind of forget when you're out of that canon, but sometimes reading English literature that's older, it can take a minute to get into step. But I like it. And then I find myself talking, saying stupid things, like, in real life. It's funny, isn't it? Because obviously it's through the point of view from Nelly and then also Lockwood. There's so much just like trying to capture Yorkshire accent and dialect in it.

So it's a lot of just sounds that actually don't make any fucking sense. It's not even Old English. It's such a specific thing that's only in Wuthering Heights that once you get into it, it feels like you're in a rhythm. But before that, you're like, what the hell is this? The dialectic stuff's really fun because you basically just have to sound it out and then it makes complete sense. But you can let your eyes glaze over it and just like, which I was doing it.

And then I was like, no, read it. Because it feels like a foreign language. So if you don't phonetically sound it out in your head, you could just like bypass it and not read it, which is like mostly Joseph and he talks. I do remember skipping over, I think, reading it. the first time, I was sort of like, I'm not going to get all this dialogue. I'm just going to keep going. I know, because you can just kind of intuit it. Well, Joseph's probably just said something awful. The other thing that's really helpful is in my edition is like a family tree because

everyone's bloody got the same names and I forgot. Kathy's daughter's called Kathy. Isabella Linton and he left son is called Linton. Oh, damn, yes. That's right. So all the name, and then I'd be reading, and I'd be like, let me just double check. Because if I put it down for a minute and it like obviously goes to it anyway, we're going to talk about Wuthering Heights loads, but I would recommend reading the book. That's such a good recommendation. I want to read more dark, gothic books. So if anyone has any, if you liked Wuthering Heights, you would love this. Please let me know.

What have you been loving, Bell? I mean, I've been loving Lord of the Rings. I've got another one, which isn't obviously 25 years old. But my partner has never seen them. What? I know. These films came out, 2001, 2002, 2003. I have a memory of watching them in cinemas,

but I think maybe I'm misremembering and maybe just saw the last one because I would have been, I mean, seven or eight. So I'm not too young to go, but I'm not sure. That might be a false memory. But I couldn't believe he's never seen them. And it's such a nice position. because obviously everyone's seen these films. Everyone knows all the trivia. Like I got, for the first time my life, the scene when Aragon kicks the Orks helmet, I got to be like, guess what? He really broke his foot when he did that? And oh, it's just like, when would I ever get to break their news? Everyone else knows. So I'm really, really enjoying that. We're watching the extended editions, which are so fucking long. You're watching them and you think, I can't remember a time before I was watching this film. I'm having a great time, but it is very long. We must be near the end. And you'll check the little progress bar and it's like a third of the way through. It's such a...

But it is a commitment. Are you both fans of the Lord of the Rings universe? I like them. There's something about them where I think the law around it is much more exciting than the actual films. And I always kind of just feel like there's all this kind of just like side quests, this going on, this side story. I think it's just quite a mess from my point of view. And I know that's going to attract a lot of hate. I love the world building. I love the characters. I just think the films are a bit of a mess, to be honest. See, I was such a fantasy head as a kid. So like when JK Rowling went through her, first real cancellation. I used to watch the Harry Potter films over Christmas, so I just started watching The Lord of the Rings instead. And also, Beth, I don't want to out you as a cougar

because your partner really isn't that much younger than you, but it's the reason he hadn't watched them because of his eight. Like, is it just, is it his generation? Generation. Again, he is pretty much the same generation. But is it, is that why he hasn't seen them? I was, I was wondering, but he said, no, no, it was very much a huge thing at school and everyone was talking about them, and there was like recurring jokes in his friend group, and he just didn't get around to watching them, just kind of knew at one point, maybe he was waiting for me. Yeah. My child bride.

He's just edgy. Yeah, so we've been loving that. He's about to go away for about three weeks. So he's back for like one evening. And instead of gazing into each other's eyes, we're like, we're going to watch Return of the King. So I'm very excited for that. But an actual new thing that I've got is new Netflix series called How to Get to Heaven

from Belfast, which is like a British Irish series created by Lisa McGee who created and wrote Dairy Girls. So people are very excited about this. And it's a series about three friends in the late 30s who get together after the suspicious, in many ways, death of one of their school friends. It's very dark, very funny. I mean, no, it's very funny. I don't think it's that dark, not yet. I've watched about three episodes out of the eight. And I am really enjoying it. I think this is going to be perhaps not as loved as Derry Girls, but I think this is going to have a really solid reception. Have you guys watched this? No, that's so exciting. I think I did see it on Netflix but just didn't have any context around it, so just ignored it. Well, can I say, I was watching this and I thought, like, I got to a scene. I thought, oh, I must have seen an adaptation. No, okay, this is a brandy thing. Maybe I've read a, and I realized an ex-boyfriend of mine had auditioned. I had read the script with him because he had auditioned for a part and I had this like, oh my God. This is obviously quite a while ago, but I was like, oh, God, that is so funny. In my head, I was like, I know this dialogue. And I was like, that's because I read this part.

That is so crazy. Oh my gosh, what a small world. What have you been loving, Marcia? So I have two things. The first thing, I really was influenced by you guys and I watched Sorry Baby this week. I obviously don't need to say anymore. Now we've got the trifecta of all three of us having recommended it. It is really good. And I think Eva Victor is just brilliant. And the fact that she wrote and acted in it, I just think so, so, so talented. And then the second thing is, I've brought up this podcast before, but a little bit fruity. Matt Bernstein's podcast had Ashley St. Clair on the podcast a few weeks ago.

For anyone who doesn't know, Ashley St. Clair is one of Elon Musk's baby mama, prolific right-wing grifter, this very young, very attractive woman who's basically just been platformed to hell in right-wing circles because she is a young woman kind of helping to further marginalise other women, single women, trans women. just like not very nice person, right? Recently, she has seemed to have this 180 pivot and apologize to many of the communities that she's hurt. And I think part of this is because now being a single mother, clearly having not been afforded many of the benefits

she likely was promised by Elon Musk in having one of his children, has realized that she's only furthered this cause for no fucking reason. And she has their tail between her legs. Matt Bernstein and another podcaster called June, who is a trans woman, interview Ashley St. Clair, and it's a really excellent example of if you were going to hold somebody accountable for what they've said, but also with the aim of opening up the floor for

potential forgiveness and reform, what does that look like? And I've rarely seen it done in action, and it's really difficult to imagine how you have a conversation like that. And I thought it was just excellent. So I really recommend that it just, I thought it was quite powerful by the end, honestly. You did mention this to us in our chat and I've been meaning to listen because it sounds so good and it's such actually like a great ton of events in this moment to have someone to be able to reflect on something they've thought or previously said and actually change their mind. I think that's actually a really strong thing to happen. I saw a bit of it clipped and it's this conversation and I think it was just sparked a wider debate where they're talking about this move to the right

often is a grift that is a great deal of money in shilling for the right wing whereas there's not in the reverse and she's sort of saying like this is kind of how you know that I am legit here. I'm leaving a lot of money on the table to do this is not the same amount of revenue to the left. I mean, I will say having a baby with Elon Musk will radicalise absolutely anyone. I can sort of see maybe he should have a baby with more people and turn them from his side. No, no, maybe there must be more ways. No, because that's his whole thing, isn't it? He's like a proto-natalist or whatever they're called. So no, because that is literally his plan. He wants to sort of like populate the earth with his strange, strange seed. There has to be another way. Just one first date with Elon Musk will

radicalise any woman. I honestly am just radicalised by just seeing him do as weird like jumping in the air and stuff. I haven't been loving this because I haven't watched it. But if I had watched it, I know I would have been loving it because I'm desperate to watch it. But it's love story, the new Disney Plus show about JFK and Carolyn Busset. Yes. And apparently it's amazing. I just keep saying everyone talking about it. All of the girlies gays and days are saying that the outfits are amazing. That's enough to get me hookline and sinker. So maybe we'll watch it. And listeners, if you want to watch it, maybe we'll talk about it. I'm dying too. There's another TV that I think maybe Ruchero, if you watch this, the America's Next Top Model, Netflix, three-parter,

because I just watched this and I would love to talk about this. Maybe we should do a little double TV next week. Yeah. Because those are two things. One dying to watch love story. I've kind of, of that Tumblr generation that was just obsessed with the two of them, always fighting and making up. She was just absolutely gorgeous. So was he, but she was just like dressed. Love to watch and talk about that. But this America's Next Top Model, oh my God. I am watched last night and I am reeling, like the things they put those girls through. And it gives Tyra Banks, an opportunity to kind of launder her own image a bit and all of them get a say, which is very infuriating, but a good part of the documentary. And, oh, I just think, I think this

is one for us girls. I haven't watched it yet, but it's on my list. Where is it? Where is Netflix? Perfect. Yeah, I keep, again, the girl who's goes and those, it's all over their Instagram stories. Wuthering Heights, inverted commas is Emerald Fennell's take on Emily Bronte's 1847 Gothic romance novel. She wrote, directed and co-produced the film alongside Margot Robbie's production company, Lucky Chap Entertainment and Josie McNamara. The classic has inspired more than 35 film and television productions with adaptations dating from a 1920 silent film to this 2026 release, which came out on the 13th of Feb. Emerald Fennell's adaptation made $89 million worldwide on its opening weekend. It debuted at number one worldwide and is currently the year's biggest

opening and director Emerald Fennell's highest grossing opening by significant margin. And her adaptation, along with many others focuses solely on the first half of the book and is centered on Kathy and Heathcliff's relationship. In an interview, Fennell said, I can't say I'm making Wuthering Heights. It's not possible. What I can say is I'm making a version of it. There's a version that I remembered reading that isn't quite real. And there's a version where I wanted stuff to happen that never happened. And so it is Wuthering Heights and it isn't. She also said, I've been obsessed. I've been driven mad by this book. I know that if somebody else made it, I'd be furious. It's very personal material for everyone. It's very illicit. The way we relate to the characters is very private. And she calls

this an emotional response to something. It's primal. It's sexual. The adaptation feels like a fever dream. It's got beautiful costumes and set designs and of course a soundtrack by Charlie XX with some fetishistic elements and also the most star-studded cast including Margot Robby as Cathy, Jacob Bloddy as Heathcliffe, Hong Chow as Nellie, Shazard Lateef as Edgar Linton, Alison Oliver as Isabella Lympton and Martin Klum's as Mr Earnshaw. We at the podcast have worked very hard to not discuss our thoughts on the film until now, so I don't want to go into any more than that because I am just desperate to hear what both of you made of this film. I thought it was fine.

I thought it was just fine. And I'm not angry. I'm not furious. I'm not out there with my pitchforks like the rest of you hoes. But I'm also not obsessed or gagged by it. It's just fine. go more into it later. What do you think there? Oh my God. It was awful. I really hated this film. I have never, not since Suicide Squad of, I think 2016, have I been so close to leaving the cinema. I

went to see it with my boyfriend. He was like, can we go? And I was like, we cannot go. We're in this to the bare end. I mean, it sounds dramatic, but top lines felt very incoherent, very uneven. It felt like I just spent 30 plus pounds on cinema tickets, not even accounting for snacks and drinks, to watch a bad film. And that was very annoying. So I didn't leave, but I wanted to. to. It was just a frustrating watch. I don't demand purism. I don't even demand a film be good. I just demand that I am entertained. And for so much of it, I was just like, what? I was not as entertained for 37 quits as I should have been. Oh, God, I actually feel quite pumped about this. And only before I start screaming, what did you think? I wanted to love it. And I went in and I was

like, I'm going to love this. And I was bored. I was so bored. It just went on and on. And I just thought it was so bloated. And what I couldn't quite get was all of the elements were fantastic. I thought Margo Robbie was sensational. I thought acting was beautiful. I thought the set design was incredible. I loved Charlie X's soundtrack. I couldn't understand how if you took it all apart and dissected it, everything on its own was really strong. But you put it together and I just thought that could have been an hour shorter and maybe that would have saved it. But I didn't even cry and everyone I spoke to was like, oh, I did cry to be fair. Even my friends who were like, I really didn't like it. One friend said she went to dinner and everyone was just like laughing not all the funny bits just

like the ridiculousness of it so I was fully prepared to sob I mean I am in my luteal phase so that makes me a bit less like forgiving but I was just I was looking at my phone and I never do that I was like what time is it how long is left oh my god another half an hour and I feel bad about it because I really wanted to defend but yeah that's my take oh okay should get into it then yeah okay so let's start with I guess the Jacob alloree and margot roby of it all one of my hot takes is that I don't think they had any fucking chemistry with each other. I did not believe them as a couple. And I don't think that either of them were right for that role.

They both had good parts and I do think they both had bad parts. But the main thing is, I don't think that I was like, these people are, you know, twin souls on this earth who have found each other. So I thought that actually Margot Robbie did capture something of Kathy, her kind of strange personality and her whims. I thought she was quite good at that. But I agree. They weren't Kathy and Heathcliff. they were something else. And the other thing I thought was quite weird was they're totally softened. Like Heathcliff is a really kind, kind of sweet, sad character in this film.

Probably didn't help that. I literally finished the book before, like, walking into cinema. So I did try to think to myself, this isn't the book. But that's what my problem was, like, forget that it's an adaptation. I don't think the story was strong enough. They went from being like quite placid. She's taken away Hindley, the brother that famously really badly abuses Heathcliff and is like a massive part of his arc. Obviously he's white. We'll go into that. Then suddenly they both become more twisted and like psychosexual thrillery, but there's no build-up to that. They just suddenly have this weird, like, personality switch, both of them. But I did think that Margot Robby's acting for this character in this

film, which is a story that has literally just taken an essence of the idea of Wothering Heights, even though there was some, like, exact lines in there. And obviously, there were things that were the same. I still think she was an amazing actor, but yeah, I don't think either of of them should have been Cathy in Heathrow. Yeah, I think Margot is a very talented actress who does get better. I've been a fan of Margot since 2008 when she was Donna. neighbors. I think she can act. I think I, Tonya, really good. American of Scots, really good. Wolf of Wall Street. She made that iconic. She has chops. I just can't fathom her in this role because she looks very of the 2010s and 2020s. Her hair is the hair of someone that goes to Chelsea

and gets the hair done 25 times a year. Her teeth are so fantastically straight and white. Her skin is definitely like microneedled. And it's not that Kathy is not beautiful, but it's the idea of this much wilder, rougher beauty. She doesn't even have to be brunette. That didn't bother me. But I think wild, rough girl of the moors who kind of waver between like cruelty and shame and defiance. I just went, I am watching Marga Robbie act. If you are going to have someone who is very visibly in their mid to late 30s, play a canonically 17 year old character. You have to then bridge the gap as an autote. Because in the text it is she's so young and so her cruelty makes sense she is forged as a child with him and then not too much time passes between

the fair wild twisted love and her death. The idea of her being in her late 30s and having that life in between them doesn't make sense of how petulant and juvenile and cruel their passion is. Kathy is a brat and I think there was a lot of Margarabi's performance which I thought, that's really good, that's good. But 30-something actress as Kathy, not enough was done to make that at all coherent. I completely agree with that. The only nod they make is when Mr. Unshort, who I did have to say that Cleums was amazing as him, but he says that, you know, she's a spinster. That's kind of the only point where they point out. Because at the beginning I like, wait, are they pretending to be 17? Because that isn't a much. Yeah, I found that really

confusing as well. Very baffling. The bit that I loved, and I think this really underscores your point, is when she kicks the shit out of her dad. Her dad has died. It's really tragic. He descends into alcoholism. Basically, he is a conflation of Hindley and the dad. He basically has become Hindley. And so all of this kind of childhood trauma that she's experienced coalesces in. she sees her dead father on the floor and she kicks the shit out of his face to the point that his face fwax to the side, blood shoots out and she just looks so rageful. And I was like, fuck, that is like the first time I felt like she's captured Kathy to me, which is just like this madness within, this like absolute uncontrollable viciousness that comes out at times.

She was salty, she was bitchy. She was quite constrained for most of the film in my opinion. And then sometimes she was snarky. But that to me, something about that felt the most Kathy of everything she did. Should we talk quickly about? Because I did try and make a note because I just read the film about all the ways it's different. But basically, so in the book, it's narrated by this guy called Mr. Lockwood, who rents thrash cross Grange. That's so hard to say, which is where Kathy ends up going to live. He meets Mr. Heathcliff is very confused by him and wants to know more about him. So Nelly, who was Catherine's sort of like maid, is living at that house and she starts retelling the story of their childhood. And in the story, like one of the main things, which having re-read

the book and then seen the film, it does feel egregious to cast Heathcliff as Jacob Laudey. It's one of the main things is he's quite clearly not white. And a huge part of his character arc is that he's referred to as it. He's othered. And then Hindley, I really don't get why she left him out, but this is Kathy's brother who basically feels like he's been usurped by the estranged child that's been brought into the house that's named after their dead sibling. And he doesn't understand whether dad is occurring so much failure. And he treats him awfully. And there's like horrible amounts of abuse and this abusive relationship that is mirrored in the. Mr. Earnshaw in the film is kind of what shapes part of Heathclips' darkness and his character,

but maybe some of that is innate, whatever. There's loads of other things that go on throughout the story, but that is kind of the crux of who these central characters are. I just don't really get at the Hindley thing, if anything, is the weirdest omission. I don't really understand her reasoning for that. I think the story is so unwieldy and just so wild with all these characters. Obviously, as you mentioned right at the beginning, there's so many names, so many people. It just becomes so big and the family tree gets so big. I think she's tried to narrow it down to as few characters as she can to make this story feel as almost like suffocating as it can be.

And I think she's just like sanded off that character. But I think there's a real loss in her having done that because it doesn't really make sense. And I was the same as you. I went into the film actively just trying to not be weird about loving the book and just relax. And I did, but it still just didn't really stand up. But the revenge plot, Heathcliff comes back in the film, a gentleman in the book. that's not explained, but the thing that is the real kind of heaviness about it is, all of that trauma from his past with Hindley means that he enacts the same revenge

back onto Hindley and that family. And his real drive is to withdraw their finances, take advantage and exploit their alcoholism and their gambling addiction as an adult, and just kind of rid them of their money and exploit them. And that's what happens. So he becomes this horrible character, but one that you really understand, how they've turned into the most evil person possible. Whereas in this, he comes back a gentleman. He has these sideburns, that little earring. And it looks good, but it's just like nothing. It's almost like the whole thing felt more like adjacent to the notebook than it did to this menacing, gothic novel. It makes, it's so many romance tropes. It's Romeo and Julia out of the malls versus

Wuthering Heights and adaptation. And Emerald Fennell has got licensed to do this. As she said, she intended exactly to do this. But I think when you remove such important parts of the plot, you must replace him with something that functions the same. Hindley has a function in this. They obviously conflate Mr. Earnshaw and Hindley into this one abusive tyrant or sort of pathetic tyrant. But it's not enough to explain Heathcliff and shape him and shape his resentments and shape the man who wants to usurp him. And I mean, it shapes everything. It shapes his relationship with Catherine. And I think there's a few elements that she removes.

And then she doesn't replace them with anything that drives the plot. fleshed out the characters or explains the motivation. It leaves Emily Bronte and her legacy to do a lot of the heavy lifting. It leaves the earring to do a lot of the heavy lifting and the mutton chops. And it's, you know, Jacob Laudy, who is monstrously talented, I think was really underserved by that because then he has to do a lot of the work in making us believe a transformation has taken place or that there's some sort of colonel in his history that is making him quite so tyrannical. I just, I think it's quite arrogant storytelling to excise this and sand this down and then not replace it with something just as.

compelling. It's exactly that because I was thinking, would it be better if you had no knowledge of the book? Then I actually think giving the knowledge of the book did help me to fill in the gaps and ensure it because the only real sign of abuse, and I know it is horrific, is when he gets whipped by Mr. Earnshaw. And that is kind of the whole thrust of the abuse, the whole thing that is meant to inform his character. But also then after that, we never see him being cruel. He never does anything mean or nasty or evil. And he does some heinous things in the book. And then we hear Kathy telling Isabella, and this is like word for when the book, when she goes like, he's awful, he's evil. You know, I know as character because I'm his friend, but as an viewer, you've not seen any of that. So it seems

really weird that Kathy's suddenly going, he's just disgusting evil person because we haven't earned that knowledge of him. So it doesn't really add up. So you kind of do need to have some kind of relationship with the source text to fill in those gaps. And from a directorial point of view, the other thing I thought was quite odd is where there is loads missing, like you said, like, I think there's just not enough hathden weight and added texture to make this new different story makes sense. But then also, they kept doing this thing where they would keep showing the audience. So right at the beginning, there's a scene where Mr. Earnshaw whips Heathcliff, and then it shows the shirt with the blood on the back, and then it goes to the scar back,

and then it goes back to the shirt, and then it goes back to the back. And I was like, okay, we get it now. And there's another bit where Margot Robbie's character is having a wank against a rock. And then at the end, she sort of like wipes a hand on a dress, and she wipes her dress. Then she wipes her two fingers on her dress. And it's like, we do know, you know, there's like some things that are really spoon fed to the audience through the direction where it just keeps pointing out in case you haven't clicked, like, this is Heathcliff's back. She did just have a wank. There's like loads of those things happening visually, but very little actual storytelling, which I thought was interesting. And I don't want to be disparaging about Emerald Fennell because

I think that, you know, she is an incredibly interesting director and an artist. I do think she has a vision, but I saw a tweet that was like, she can direct but she just can't write a screenplay and that's the real problem. And I do think that maybe is where it fell flat. I think we need to get into like the sex of it all and the kind of eroticism or lack of wherever you sit on the spectrum. The film starts off with a man being hung, quite literally is hung with an erection. It's like a becannalia of like people just going crazy and screaming and like getting horny by this visual. And then a choice is made in her interpretation, which is quite kind of controversial, I guess, in that Heathcliff and Kathy have regular sex and they just hook up and have this affair. But in the book, because it's told as gossip,

you kind of never get that said. So a lot of people are quite purist about it and think that they never actually consummate or they never have sex. But it's an interesting retelling. to say, oh, this was actually in the book, Tolders Gossip. What actually happened is no one had an idea of what they were getting up to. They had an idea, but couldn't speak about it because they were too prude. In the film, they hook up for ages, and then it goes in its tragic direction. But I personally think in having that happen, having that scene of them in the carriage just fucking in different gorgeous gowns, it lost so much yearning and it lost the power of these the two people who never got to be together, which I think is one thread of this book that is so

devastating that grips you to your core, these twin flames never got to be together, whereas that removed so many of the stakes for me. And then also, I thought Jacob Allardy has so much fucking chemistry with Alison Oliver, who plays Isabella, who is this BDSM-obsessed woman in a dog collar who wants to be, like, choke daddy and like have her bodice ripped in front of Joseph on this table in their horrible cottage. Yeah, it's interesting. Adding all of this sex into it, I think removed a lot of the sexuality from it. What did you think? Yeah, I agree. I say, I never took from it that they did do anything, that they just had this like kind of youthful, lustful passion for each other that they maybe didn't have a language around and they spent so much

time growing up together and had experienced such like darkness in their household that they did feel connected to each other. But in the book, I never thought that anything happened, even though there's all these things about they go off and what are they doing their away all day on the moors. Because they're living a very sheltered life as well. Like, I don't think they would have necessarily done that. I thought it made it. completely sexless. And also, interestingly, it would swap between, it wasn't like a chronological each different sex scene. It would kind of go back and forth. And again, it just felt very heavy-handed. And I do think it desexed it for me. I thought that the one good sex scene that actually

was really interesting from like a psychosexual dynamic was when she was saying about, this is how Linton has sex with me and then they're having sex to each other. That sex scene on its own conveyed a lot and was quite interesting and she's like more heavily pregnant at that point. That was quite erotic. But the rest of it, I just found very heavy-handed and pandering. And I do want to go into Alison Oliver's Isabella bit because I didn't necessarily take from it that she was overly consenting. Her character felt presented as like extremely juvenile, maybe not even totally aware of what was happening and maybe she's just consenting because she's extremely naive. I didn't think it was like enthusiastic consent of a woman who's desperate to enter into a BDSM

relationship more a young girl who's become infatuated with a man that she thinks is handsome and doesn't really understand what she's agreeing to and then has somewhat been coerced into it. Begin first with the hung hanging. To have the opening scene be one of like sex and death hand in hand, the expectation, my expectation was, okay, this will be a thread through the film. And I think if you open a film with a corpse having an erection and a cum stain, which, I mean, I don't know what. Every time we talk about, I'm all for now.

I seem to talk about calm. Horrifying. But if you choose to start the film there, it is natural to expect that this might be a thread, but it's kind of there and gone. And it's corpse erection, some fluff. Then at the bitter end, we're back to death, but not really hand in hand with sex in the way that The novel, I mean, he digs in her grave twice. He plans to be buried next to her with the coffin, the sides of the coffin out so they can sort of mingle in oozy death. There is something in that,

which is really provocative. Emel is a very buttoned up person's idea of a provocateur and the kind of like BDSM, the barking, the whips and chains excite me. It's of an era that is long gone. That no longer is something at the forefront of provocativeness. And, you know, it's more like sex by numbers. It's more, again, vibes based. And this is what was. It's frustrating. It's people saying like, oh, but there's sex in the film. So sex in the book. The book is not more erotic, but it's certainly more charged and it is certainly more shocking in almost every single way. So to include the sex, it just felt, I mean, I was happy to see it. Obviously at that point, I was like, just give me anything. I don't think it was a misstep per se, but it completely

alters everything. I just wasn't sure the purpose beyond really hammering that this is a romance. There's something very romantic about this. I just wasn't thrilled. On this, Isabella, over all, I'm not theorist about this, but I'm seeing a lot of people quite offended by this reimagining of Isabella as a sort of willful participant in her own abuse and that they, you know, she's crawling around on the floor.

It's like a dom sub dynamic that she really enthusiastically wants to be a part of. I'm not crazy about it as a choice. I don't know. I think I can appreciate now reading the book and maybe you can corroborate this. I don't know what your take on her was, but like I can really appreciate Isabella as a character who, well, she flees. She has agency by the end.

She becomes something. She actually, she escapes this land and goes to live down in London. To remove that, she's one of the only characters that kind of carves the life out beyond this place of torment. And I think to remove this and have her barking on the floor, I wasn't crazy about it. I wasn't super offended, but I wasn't mad about it. Yeah, because this is the thing that was so interesting. Having literally just read the book, I knew when lines were pulled from the book and I knew and think, so there's the bit where Isabella writes to Lettinelli, which happens in the book. But in the film, it's turned out that that that's like her and Heathcliff doing it together. And Heathcliff was trying to encourage her to be

party to his game of making Pathy jealous. And again, it just makes the payoffs not work. It makes like Nelly's transgression not make as much sense. It's turning all the things that in the book we're left to imagine or believe or understand into it. And it's cutting them up and flaying them and like putting them right in front of our face in a way that makes it less interesting. I think that's maybe why the film felt so slow because everything was just handed to you very heavily on a plate, punctuated with quite long, bloated scenes of the visuals, which were gorgeous but maybe don't have a place in this kind of film. It's almost like too close to the book to be as far away from the book as it is, if that makes sense. It almost should have been a whole

different story literally just with Cathy and Heathcliff in the Moors and actually everything else was completely removed. But it was the fact that there was like some stuff that was genuinely so true to the text, like lifted lines and things that were really real. And then that then squashed into something that absolutely didn't happen and completely changed the character. I mean, even the fact that I guess they made Isabella Linton Edgar's ward purely because they decided to cast a person of colour as Edgar. So it'd be really odd to make him her sister. But again, what does that do for the plot and the narrative? Nothing really, because the massive arc of the book is the fact that later on Edgar goes and retrieves Isabella and Heathcliff's son, Linton, and then Heathcliff takes him

off her. I don't know. It's just like, I know that that doesn't happen because they don't get that far into the book. But why bother changing who Isabella was and making her not Edgar's sister. And I saw someone saying this actually. I think it was Sophie Butler on Instagram. She was like blind color casting. Is that what it's called? Racially blind casting doesn't work for this film because the whole book, the genre, that everything is centered around class and race. And then instead, she's tried to apply quite a modern thinking. Actually, sorry, this is where I think through my mouth and I don't know where I'm going. I went and saw the film with my part last night. And the first thing he said when we got out and I was really annoyed because I

was still at that moment trying to find a way to be like, I loved it. He said, it's Bridgeton. And I was like, oh, it is Bridgetton. It's period drama outfits with anachronistic songs. It's like kind of a love story. But actually, it was less engaging than Bridgeton just higher budget. That didn't really answer your question, Beth. It answered something. It answered a day question.

And also on that note, Nelly is well having the side story of she was an illegitimate child to a wealthy man, which is why she has been taken in as the kind of carer, the guardian of Kathy. in the book, there's no backstory to Nelly. Nellie is just, she's always been there, she's around the same age as Kathy, is kind of inferred that she gets really jealous. She has massive influence on their relationship and the story, whilst also seeing herself as like an outsider.

And that unreliable narrator is really fascinating. And I thought with Nellie, they really kind of fucked it because they give her this really interesting backstory, but they do nothing with it. She then becomes the vehicle for them not to be together. So then by the end, you are like, what a fucking bitch. She just ruined these two people's lives. But bizarrely in the book, with her having less backstory, she feels more built out because you hear

her side of the story, she is telling the story. So she feels so fleshed out because at various times you hear her expressed doubt over what she's done, you know, real kind of sorrow over her influence and then kind of trying to even influence the future children into a better direction. So she feels more human, whereas in this, it almost feels like in trying to change it and give her like a third of a backstory. It's made it way worse than her more of a villain by the end of it. What it feels like is, and I understand this is the point. And also to go back to the sex for all, actually, that bit that I read out at the top that Emerald said, where she wanted things to happen,

I do think your adolescent brain does go haywire when you're reading sexual stuff because you don't really understand it. So you do just imagine them sort of like, I remember imagining sex just being because of the Titanic. People rolling around on a chaise long, but like I didn't know what they were doing. That would be my vision every time I read a book where there was, I felt something funny and my fanny. I would be like, they're rolling around on the thing. So you do, you do, I can't imagine your brain going wild with it and that's fine. But then it's like alongside her having that kind of teenage lustfulness, which maybe she learned into too much or she didn't lean into enough of the whole film. There's then these bit parts where she's plucked exactness from the book and then just

shoved some other thing on it. It just like you said Beth right at the top when you said your synopsis review of it, just nothing really added up to make. anything, even though like the ideas that, like, I do get the Alison Oliver kind of BDSM angle. I do think that can be quite an interesting way to turn that character upside down. And I do understand how you could have Heathcliff and Kathy having these sexual relations, but there just isn't, there's just nothing tying it all together neatly enough to make it a cohesive story in my mind. I would actually love to know someone who's never, ever, ever read the book if they got more or less from the film? I had mixed things. My partner had never read the

book and quite enjoyed the film. But then I spoke to another friend who went in with two people who'd never read the book and they absolutely hated the film. And obviously we're going to get onto the reactions about it, but the amount of just disagreement over this film is so interesting. Also, I guess one thing I was going to say is, as saltburn apologists on this podcast, I remember we spoke about how erotic the Cummy Bathwater scene was. there's lots of the yearning between Oliver and I can remember what Jacob Lordy's character's called now, but just this sense of Barry Keowen wanting to like rip the clothes off this man's body every time the way he would just always look at him. And that was so missing from this

film. Isn't that crazy? A film about two people who are actually having a relationship felt so much less erotic than a film that had nothing to do with these two men having an actual relationship. I said before like sex by numbers. It's eroticism by numbers as well. I've seen it compared to You know those sort of like made-to-go viral videos, less popular now, but they used to be everywhere, of topless hunks in the kitchen, cooking this really like, perform, like sexually gruesome way, like fingering the bread in and licking their fingers. And it's like, I've seen it compared to that almost. And there are some things like, I really like when she's, she pushes her fingers into this jellied fish. And there are moments where visually I enjoy that, but there is

something of the M&S Christmas ad about it. I, I've seen it better. I mean, I left this in where I immediately compared it to music videos and Superdrug Christmas ad, which I stand by. Those winter scenes may as well have had like piles of GHDs and body glitter in the corner. It's there's something about it that is, I'm going to make these individual scenes look and feel fleshy and sweaty. Then they're having sort of quite chaste completely clothed sex all over the moors and it was, it's boring sex. It's something not landing for me, whereas there was something very bodily in saltburn. I think the point is Emerald Fennell is very good at making films which already exist, but in this case it feels like the mistake was calling it Wuthering Heights,

even in the quotations. It's, you know, the talented Mr. Ripley is Saltburn. As long as you don't say that, you can make a really satisfying modern remake of that and people will absolutely enjoy it. The problem is, this is tethered forever to Wuthering Heights. And so I just can't get away from it. Yeah, I think she, yeah, she shouldn't have called it Wuthering Heights. She could have called it anything. And I almost think she shouldn't have called them Kathy and Heathcliff and then been like afterwards, you know, that's Kathy and Heathcliff. Again, one of the compelling sex scenes for me was when Edgar Linton and Kathy are having sex and she puts his hand over her eyes. It's doing something there.

That's quite interesting to think. Like, what is she thinking about? It's almost like this film is like, show, don't tell, but literally just showing you so much and also telling you nothing at the same time. And I really agree what he said about those specific scenes. Like I loved that when he's like, I made the walls, the most beautiful colour. Yeah. Weird flesh. Walls with the freckles on.

And the scene with the leeches was absolutely beautiful. It reminded me of who's that really famous photographer shit who's just shot Zendaya and Robert Patterson. Oh, Nadia Cohen. Nadia Cohen. It reminded me of like a Nadia Cohen kind of video. But those videos are just like visual pieces of art. It did feel like a visual piece of art.

I loved the gemstones on her cheeks and thought it was beautiful, but it was style over substance. And it's funny because I still am a defender of saltburn until I die, but I loved saltburn. I found it really riveting. I agree about the sexiness. And in that, Barry Keogh and fucks a grave. Yeah.

Like, where was that energy in this film? That would have been, I mean, Heathcloth fucking aggraves very much kind of where this was meant to go. Literally, which is so bizarre because that one scene when he's in that torrential rain, grave, grass scene is so Wuthering Heights coded. I would have thought that if she'd just made a film about that one scene and, like, just built around it, she probably would have got closer to the essence of the book. I think she did not want to make a Gothic film based on a Gothic novel. She really wanted to do Shakespeare in Yorkshire. But it is Gothic, like the red floors and the like, I do think there is a Gothic name. Visually.

As there is a gothic nature to it. And I agree with you, when she kicks Mr. Earnshaw and like, does teeth come out? Maybe, yeah. It's like something splashed on the floor. Like there's something there. I really do begrudge. I really didn't want to hate this film. I really, really wanted to love it.

We said we wanted to love it. We said a year ago today, we are going to be sad. I said, this is going to be five big booms. We're going to love this. I am shocked that we didn't. Yeah, I'm actually really shocked. It's such a shame. I don't really know what else to say.

And to go back to the age thing again, I just keep thinking about. It just doesn't make sense that they're that much. older and they spent that much of their life together. Like the whole point is that like 15 and then she's getting married at 17 and like she's having her first baby. If you're 35 and also it doesn't really look like much has happened to them apart from like the dad's become an alcoholic and he was abusive and I know that is obviously awful but it's not in in terms of like a movie it's not giving us enough to work from like this I think the real weakness is the script. Yeah, it was not much. She packs on top of the script, very good looking in many parts. Film and I think even the things that I

didn't love about the film. I didn't love this sort of it looked like it was shot so much. So claustrophobic it was like a movie set. But of course, that's the style. She is intentionally doing that to make it this sort of dollhouse, this contrast between when she is in the wild versus when she peeks over the hedge into this dollhouse stage lit, beautiful world that she thinks that she wants to be a part of. Even the things that I weren't particularly for me, I have to applaud them and I can see white people love them. But all in all, yeah, I just sort of felt it was sort of plastic production of it. And I maybe that's why I wasn't as as crazy. about the sets and about the costumes

as a lot of people, that's where a lot of people are heaping their praise. Whereas I, I mean, I've seen people say the costuming, comparing it to that infamous strawberry dress of 2020, you know, that viral tool, deep-bee strawberry dress that everyone was talking about in 2020 as a kind of like trend garment. I'm not sure that the costume in

was that, but I think in a film which was kind of no nutrient and a little bit substanceless, it drags down the costuming in the sets as well, which I just don't think she committed to any of it quite enough. Like, she's wearing a cling film dress. She's like, do more of that, really commit to that, but she doesn't seem to want to really fully pull the trigger on anything. I did really like the costuming. I will be a defender of the costuming and the set

design. I think you are right. The set design wasn't crazy. I wish it had gone further. And I think exactly the points you made and only about the kind of like lacquered floor, that's like really high satin black dress that almost looks leathery. The walls. That skin wall, I thought the skin wall was a really fun detail and really did kind of capture this suffocating love of Linton that is so desexualized. And even the bit, you know, when she's like, oh, please stay in my room tonight. And he's like, I love you so much. I care so much for you. I shan't. Blah, blah, blah. And you're just like, you are the worst. You're absolutely the worst. And that skin wall captures that so well. Although I will say the one thing I was confused about was the paper machet hands fireplace.

What was that about? There was lots of, it was the room that was like always Christmas in there. It was like covered in like glitter and ball balls on the walls. It did have me in parts. Like once Alison Oliver's character was introduced, every line of hers, everyone was laughing, when Margot Robbie popped over the wall and she was like, it's a ghost, it was gas, and I was seeing something, it's an ugly in my life and then it goes back to Margot Robbie and she's, like, making a face. Like that tonally was so interesting and funny and maybe she needed to lead into the absurdity of it all. It was definitely a movie of two halves. There was like, before she meets that Eggleton, that's kind of like straight, sort of, I guess,

being quite serious period drama. Then you go into this Alison Oliver's character, which is, I can't think canonically who she is. Maybe she is even like Harley Quinn, like an essence of that to her. that kind of character. I felt like moaning Myrtle a bit as well, you know. Yeah. Just this very juvenile, but also quite sad. That's why I did think the sadistic thing kind of worked with her

because there was a bit of like pedophilicness to her. She's so juvenile and young and she almost seemed like she might have been mentally quite young in her mind and so childlike. And so that was kind of gross and interesting to lean into. Because obviously like a lot of the story is about incest and this is massively contested about, actually I want to know that this picture. When you read the book, did you think that Heathcliff was actually Mr. Anshaw's bastard child? Because I did remember thinking that, all that being said when I read it when I was at school and me believing that, because why would you walk 60 miles to go and buy your son a fiddle and your daughter? I can't remember what Kathy asked for. And then he comes back with a kid who just randomly found on the street. Yeah, I actually forgot that until you said at school we spoke about it. When I read it, I didn't think that. Even though it's possibly gossip that gets brought up by one of their staff. No, I didn't think that. I also think that's a protective mechanism to believe in the love story. Yeah, I don't think that there is. I mean, I think it depends on who you think,

to Earnshaw is. And in the film, it makes me way more sense that they would be related because otherwise he brings this boy home and beats him and he's pretty useless. Whereas in the book, he really loves this boy in place of his actual son, which wouldn't really track. So it makes more sense their brother and sister in the film than it does in the book. Wait, no, I think in the book it makes more sense because he loves him so much. That's by Hindley's so jealous. Like, why would you love a really random child? Because one of the readings is that he's just generally, really generous. Apparently, Emily Bronte did really love her dad. I was reading about it. And he was just a really kind man to some interpretations say that it's just a really lovely thing to do. Whereas other people are like

is quite clearly his like bastard child that he's like made up some lie about why he's got to walk 60 miles. I never thought that. Because why would you go all that way and then he comes back really late with this kid that he's just found on the street? Maybe you would. But either way, even if it's not incest, they're much younger in the books. They have grown up together. So it is incestuous. And everyone's marrying their cousins. I mean, I don't know if in the 1800s they saw that as incest. That was just kind of okay, wasn't it? No, especially with the second half of the book, very straightforwardly, very legally incest. Yeah, it's just a lot of cousin fucking.

And they're not thrilled about it, but not because they're related, because they just don't want to be married to the cousin they're married to. Yeah, but cousin fucking was sort of the norm, wasn't it about that? Yeah, I think I was. Which again, that's subversive. Put cousin fucking in it, Emerald. I know. But even the fact the siblingness of them is like part of this tawdry, weird, like,

lovelness, like even if they're not related. It's so interesting, and I keep seeing this criticism of the book. But the book is dark, and it's dark in ways that we would find shocking today and do find shocking today. So it's so interesting that famous. see sort of like subversive director that you said bath it is very reanna whips and chains it is very like early tens early noughts conceptually and there's a way that it could have been way darker without any sex in it with all just kind of like psychosexual thrillerness to it but i guess this is her interpretation and that is my partner did say to him he was like remind me and i was like basically

it's her interpretation of what she read as Wuthering Heights he was like why did she think that would be interesting to anyone and i was like that is a good question actually and i was like well she's a actually can do what she wants. He was like, but why did she think that her interpretation was like why they'd make a film about? And I actually was arguing with him, but he did have a point. It's interesting because I've seen in reviews people making a big deal out of the quotation marks suggesting that it's Emerald Fennell showing some kind of humility about doing this interpretation. But you're right. The quotation marks aren't really the humility if you are committing to executing your 14 year old vision of this huge book. So it's kind of funny that that's

been a take of it. So for a piece for Tribune Mag by Katie Toby entitled Wuthering Heights, Withering Lowe's, she posed quite a difficult question and she said, responding to concerns about a Lordy's casting, finale explained that her movie wasn't intended to be a definitive adaptation by any means, just the one she imagined when reading the book as a teenager. The follow-up question, this begs, was she unable to picture or feel a profound connection to a canonically dark-skinned Heathcliff has gone scrupulously unanswered? That is something that popped up in my mind and I was quite interested that that hadn't come up. I mean, it's obviously not something we can answer, but I guess to get into the biggest controversy of Heathcliff being white, do you think that there is

any way in which it could have worked? Or do you think that that is the biggest letdown of the adaptation? I don't think it is the biggest letdown. I think it is a huge letdown, but it kind of is indicative of the big problem with the film, which is sanding off the biggest stakes, which in the book are both class and race, but bigger than that, it is the generation. trauma of inflicting those things onto people and those prejudices and biases and the cruelty of that time as a weapon because of those two things. Race isn't a big issue in the film. Nellie's race doesn't really become an issue apart from explaining why she's there, but then she's there for the rest of the film. Linton's race is not explained. He is just the same as everyone.

And class doesn't seem to be a big divider between Kathy and Heathcliff. They don't seem that different, apart from the fact his clothes of shit. And then that's also removed when he comes back with an earring. So I think it's like all the stakes, the worldly stakes, the stakes of our real life, don't feel like a big deal in this film and that's the problem. Perhaps it's a bit of self-awareness from Emerald Fonnell that she knows she cannot make a film a deftly handles race as this. What's a core tenet of how he is and who he becomes is this uncertainty about his ancestry,

is othering because of his dark skin, not just his poverty. She will do her damnedest to comment on class. And I think she does a very bad job of that in all her films. But he vanishes. It's really, it's a film about a man who is poor and therefore cannot get the girl, becomes rich. But because he's gone off to get rich, he cannot get the girls. So Doomed Love Story.

Going to remove the element of race from this, it would have made a lot more sense to then flesh out his story from Rags to Rich. It's all we know he goes. he comes back via Claire's accessories, gets a little earring, and is suddenly rich and is suddenly ready. And I think if you're going to sand one away, you absolutely have to bolster the other, because otherwise what you do have is a very tall, sexy man who now has a slightly nicer wardrobe. It's, it really sanitises it. I crave a proper adaptation of this novel that takes into account the race of it. That is such a driver. And maybe one day we'll get it, but I think we knew this was never

going to be it. Yeah, and that he gets a gold tooth, mustn't forget. I think, having read the book again now, I don't, why has no one, sorry, this is a question another day, but just the second half with flashbacks to the first half would almost be like the best film. Oh, that's interesting. Actually, like all from post Kathy's death. And then you have bits building the story of like flashbacks to him. I think that there's a way you can do that. And I think that maybe the time is now. I did see someone saying can't wait for the sequel, Wuthering Heights for good. Electric Buggily. I will say as well, if you are craving some actual kind of consistency with the elements of the book

and being true to the book in terms of race, then Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights, starring our favourite Effie Stoneham, K.S. Collidero is the best one that I have seen so far that does that. Obviously, we have to talk about the reception to this film, which has been a story in and of itself. I'm just going to whiz through a few and please take on some of your own in the dock that I've added to. Alison Wilmore wrote for Vulture, finally, a smooth-brained Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights is Fennel's dumbest movie, and I say that with all admiration, because it also happens to be her best to date. So at Laguna Bay Fables tweeted, to be honest, my Wuthering Heights experience was really fun because every time I thought, oh, this scene might actually get good. Charlie XEX starts fucking belting out some water tune noise and my friend and I would start off.

thing. My personal favourite. Someone in Letterbox said simply, she's done it again and then gave it two stars. Tim Tamtitus, similarly on Letterbox, to put, I'm going to jump from a Wuthering Heights, which I thought was quite funny. Elaine on Letterbox said, Emily Bronte died of tuberculosis 177 years ago, yet this adaptation is still the worst thing that ever happened to her. I really like Brian Cougla who tweeted, I think Emerald Fennell should adapt the Bible next, which I saw this. I saw that. So many discussions about what is the most offensive thing. that she could adapt for film. Someone else said a little life. God, I'd end it all. Yeah, but someone said about the Bible that you'd have Jacob Lordy as the father of the ghost and the Holy Spirit. Oh, that's so good. I guess to round off, Clarice Loughry for The Independent

wrote, Margotty and Jacob Alourdi's performances are almost pushed to the border of pantomime, while Fennell's provocations seem to define the poor as sexual deviance and the rich as clueless prudes. Oof, ouch. I think the other thing we have to say, though, is that the Bronte, The Barsenish Museum, you know the book that Isabella Gifts, Kathy? They have taken that tab apart of the museum. And there have been paperbacks printed with Elodie and Robbie on them. So the film is very much seemingly being accepted by the Bronte estate. It's getting people reading the book because people are like, I need to see what this was meant to be. So a net win. I genuinely think that's the best thing from it. It's like as much as we can criticise it. And I genuinely feel bad that we're laughing so much

that we're critiqui it so much because I don't, I really actually kind of don't want to, but it's undeniably art because it is adding so much to the conversation and getting people to read the classics. Yeah, and also, I do think there is a gateway here for people to be talking about cinema and the amount of people buying tickets sitting down. My cinema screening was absolutely packed. There wasn't a single seat left on Valentine's weekend, no less, which is obviously like a more dinner and chocolates, go fuck at home vibe, less than cinema. It is so impressive. Like regardless of what you think, it is a feat. Cinema's are really struggling.

There is something quite powerful here, whether you like it or not going on. Well, should we then discuss a little bit of the author of this film, Emerald Fennell, because I do think that is the root of a lot of the critique. Even before this film came out, it was getting review-bombed on Lettbox. I think that speaks to something that is beyond Emily Bronte purism. I think it is probably misogyny, this idea of her in the common imagination as a hack,

I don't think is fair, but I think we should get into the Emerald Fennell of it all. So if anyone that doesn't know, Emerald Fanel is actress, filmmaker. She was born in 1985 in Hammersmith to a famous jewellery designer Theo Fanel, and a lot has been made of that and her privilege. And the author Louise Fanel, her sister Coco Fennell, is a fashion designer. She went to Marlborough College, which is one of the most prestigious and elite boarding schools in the UK. Also the same school, Gilaen Maxwell and the Princess of Wales went to, just for some context of former alums. She also went on to Oxford uni and was spotted by United Agents

after acting in several uni plays. And one journalist said she was part of a rarefied social set back then, full of names they only knew from history books and gossip columns. So that's sort of her social positioning. She's made this film, Saltburn and Promising Young Woman, which

perhaps we'll get into, very controversial, but it did win the best original screenplay Oscar the year it came out. But it was also the beginning, I think, of her online controversy. because people said the film was un-feminist. It offered this cynical, superficial take on trauma rather than being an empowering narrative. What do we think? If we can separate for a moment art from artists, do we think Emerald Fennell is getting lambasted for this because she really has made

a very bad film or is it shock horror misogyny? I think it's a bit of everything. There is really something here about how she gets under people's skin and it's so specific to her. Joe Russo tweeted, and I saw this tweet got 2 million views. The way Academy Award winner Emerald Fennell gets under the skin of intellectuals, quote, unquote, and quote unquote, synophiles should be studied. She's a provocateur operating at the highest of Wuthering Heights, and it drives them insane, and I absolutely love it.

And I think it's so true. I can't really think of anyone else, apart from maybe Sam Levinson of Euphoria fame, who really drives people so mad. And I think there is something about, because her aesthetics look like it's art house, because it could be an A-24 film, but people feel let down by the politics behind the film. It's almost like I think it rages people.

It makes people so enraged because it feels like she's nearly there or they feel tricked into watching a film they wanted to like, but they didn't. And for some reason, that seems to really piss people off. Yeah, I definitely think it's a bit of both. I mean, I'm sucked into her law. Tatlin magazine did a real the other day about like who is Emerald Fennell and goes back through her being like a naughty Zit girl on the scene and how her and Margot, Robbie, are actually really close friends. and the history of her family. I think it's a classic thing of when someone is really privileged. Like she probably wouldn't have gotten this position of making this film with these actors

and the budget that she has without that privilege behind her. So perhaps people feel like she's fast-tracked to this point of making that film, whereas say she had been less privilege and she'd been making more indie films to begin with. Maybe by the time she got to these heights, her work would feel more fleshed out. Whatever it is, maybe people feel she would have earned it more. I mean, she's an EPO baby. So it's always something that's going to be leveraged against her. not to defend another privately educated posh white women because I don't know why I do I do kind of feel like

weirdly bad for her because I don't think she's like ill-intentioned and I do think she's really talented I genuinely really believe in her but I believe in her way that's like we are going to get there like you are going to do something amazing it's just I guess what's kind of mad is that she does get in front of so many eyeballs but things I do think she is really talented I do think she does really interesting things and I do think her films aren't bad I guess people are holding her to such a high level for some reason everyone feels really let down by her. Because there's definitely been like worse films made by men that people are like, well, this is amazing. She's doing something different. She's challenging people. Yes, her politics aren't always

perfect. I do think she gets a lot of stuff right, but we do hold her to some sort of funny standard, which is maybe fair enough. She is totally elite. There are incredible director, screenwriters and people out there making stuff on a shoestring budget that no one's going to see that potentially they could end up being, you know, the best directors and writers for our time, but the way that the arts are funded, they'll never get a foot in the door. So maybe it is fair that she's kind of held out to the slaughter in a way? Yeah, because it's like there's the slaughter being what we're doing, which is analysing by our own opinions and relative expertise and taste,

a film that she's made, the product that she has put out. And then there's also her as this target for real slaughter, like character assassination. And she really is an easy target for that because she's a posh woman and both of those elements matter in that. And I think, I don't think she's great director, if that is not clear. I think she has talent. I said in the episode a year ago she has got an eye, she's got flair. She is hamstrung and will always be hamstrung as long as she continues to make this kind of film by a gap in her perspective. But she cannot be the most divisive filmmaker of our time. If you look at the paedophiles and the abusers and the actual frauds of Hollywood, naming no name so no one can sue. But it's outrageous. And I do, I think, perhaps for me, the experiment is over. I probably shouldn't pay to go and see Emerald Fennell films in the cinema for some time. But she's a marquee director.

She's a woman. Her name put bums in seats. All of us, I'm assuming, we've said that cinema screen was packed that weekend. She's a woman, put taste aside. And it may be a net cinema, because I love cinema and I love women. And let's see, compared to the actual scumbags of Hollywood, it's an outsized discourse about her specifically, put her work aside. I completely agree. I think that's exactly it. I don't think any of the points about her necessarily wrong when it comes to privilege and maybe taking up space in conversations about issues which feel like they fall flat or, you know, land on a provocative ending and maybe infer something much worse than you expected and hoped for being a very tight, very interesting resolution on

films about trauma, class, whatever. But I keep landing on Emerald Fennell won't hurt you unless you allow her to hurt you. And the way people are so aggrieved by her, I'm like, just switch it off, leave the cinema, honey. Like, people are like, she's done it again. She's like, come for me or they're trying to kill me out here with this film. And it's like, no one's trying to kill you out here, babe. They're not. I promise you. She's not trying to hurt you. She's just trying to do her thing. But you're right. She is allowed to tell this story. Every artist has a right to tell the story they want to see it. And it's not their fault if millions of people show up in droves to go and watch it. That is a great feat and a great achievement. And I just think that perhaps she could do

with a little bit of guidance, like a more diverse writer's room or I did love seeing Jessica Nappet's little cameo and like she does. Because they're friends, aren't they? She does, you know, she is in that world. I think she's in and of like the British writers comedy scene and it is interesting perhaps that maybe she's just really strong world with her vision. But honestly, I think if she just had like 10 people around her being like, actually, what about this? You know, you could have had a title film. And maybe that's where it feels annoying. Because it feels like she's just like, we're doing this. And then everyone just does it. Maybe that is the thing. But her biggest crime is being posh. And whilst that is a crime, I know, and I'm sorry for committing it daily, she hasn't actually done anything wrong. Like, think of the

paedophiles and sexual offenders and domestic abusers and every other thing that exists in Hollywood making movies. If you can separate the art from the artist for those things, then you absolutely should be able to do it with her. And do you know what, Beth, I will go and see her next film. I do think she's got it. And she's definitely got something. And what I do find exciting about her is she has got a visual as a director and even if she's not quite there yet in our minds Emerald Fonnell is obviously one of the female directors we have in our lifetime like Catherine Bigelow

and Sophia Coppola and Greta Gowardwig she is one of the female directors that I can think of our time where you're like oh this is a Fennell film and that's fun, that's exciting yeah I do agree with you I think I would I think I will continue to see her and I do have hope and I do think her visuals are really arresting and it's so interesting and there is such magic there

Like with the salt burn, the things that were great were really great, I thought, and the things that were bad were annoying because you're like, oh, I feel like it's like nearly great, even though I still love that film. And the thing I was going to say was interview magazine got Baz Luhrmann to interview her. And I think that's such an interesting parallel to think about because Bazelerman highly stylized has done Romeo and Juliet and put his own spin on it. Did Milan Rouge? What else did he do? He did another... Gatsby? Exactly. He has taken these very precious old texts. And he got a bit of shit for Gatsby, I remember, but I don't think he got nearly as much shit as Emerald Fennell has. And I think of that Gatsby interpretation as really hollow and for me didn't capture the amazingness of that book. But I don't think of him as an embarrassing voice in art in the way that people talk about Emerald Fanel. And I get promising young woman really offended people as being like one of the key post-me-to films. I really get that and I hear that. But I think there is something there about if we consider the Bazleurman of it, it's not perfect analogy, but I think it's the strongest analogy that I've seen so far

about the difference in how they're treated. On your Romeo and Juliet point, Ritra, I saw a tweet about this as well. And I agreed. And when I was in the cinema, I was thinking, I bet this film has a cult following in 20 years. It's just not its time. And I think people are going to go back. And I think it will become some sort of definitive adaptation. It'll be like an indie, whatever.

Like, there'll be people who will fucking love this film. I just think at this moment in time, people's appetite for criticism is, is very high. We would actually love to hear from you though. If you love the film, please come and fight with us in our DMs. We are very open-minded to hear your opinions. And we would love them actually because I could talk about this film all day. Thank you so much for listening this week.

This has been one of my favourite episodes that we've done. I'm so fired up. Before we go, just checking that you've caught up on our latest in-conversation episode from Wednesday where we discussed Netflix's new Lucy Letby-Doc and the endless churn of true crime. If you enjoy listening, then please, please do leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or a comment on Spotify.

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