Wuthering Heights TrailerTrailer Review:Review: Saltburn doesdoes Brontë?

After months of more controversy than one could imagine a single adaptation was capable of causing, we finally have a teaser trailer for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights (2026). It struck three Thursdays ago and left us reeling, shattering our preconceived notions of the novel and its characters. Margot Robbie as Cathy Earnshaw, Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, and an original soundtrack by Charli XCX, oh my!

I couldn’t let the moment pass without putting pen to paper and weighing in on the debate around this teaser and upcoming cinematic event, one inextricably bound to that thought-provoking question: Should adaptations be accurate?

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for the plot of Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)!

Chapter 1: 1801-?

As my fellow novel readers will know, one of the most defining characteristics of Emily Brontë’s genre-defining masterpiece is its setting. Kate Bush even immortalised this aspect of the story in her song ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1978). It stands to reason that at the very least, we fans of the book could orient ourselves in the time and location of the story, right? Nope. Ruby floors, fantastical stone structures and Regency interiors abound; the eighteenth-century Yorkshire moors are nowhere to be found.

The novel is set in 1801, with flashbacks to the 1770s and onwards. From the costumes the cast flaunt in this pop-covered take, we could be anywhere between the 1500s and the 1980s. Only time will tell whether this ungrounded setting will prove inspired or bland.

Chapter 2: The casting

Let’s address the elephant in the room. Whilst I personally don’t see the issue with Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw, I join viewers in their collective disapproval of Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. I have no doubt about his abilities as an actor. He has proven his range in projects such as The Kissing Booth films (2018-2021) and Fennell’s Saltburn (2023). He is set to wow us as the monster in the upcoming adaptation of Frankenstein (2025). It is his ethnicity which has proven controversial.

Although the novel never provides a clear answer on this score, it is made painfully clear by how the other characters perceive and refer to Heathcliff that he is not White-Australian. At the very least, he is Romani or of mixed ethnic background. Some commentators and adaptations go further (see the 2011 Wuthering Heights). This is vital. Heathcliff’s ambiguous origins and ostracisation poison him against the society, Catherine’s society, which adopts and then rejects him, feeding his worst impulses and driving him down a path of revenge from which his twisted soul can never recover.

Unless, of course, this film doesn’t plan on adapting the more important half of the novel.

Chapter 3: Wuthering Heights trailer Conclusions

As a series of disjointed images flashed before my bewildered eyes, I strained to find any remnants of the novel I had read only three years ago and which had immediately become my favourite. The excitement and passion of the central couple and their romance were certainly present (if, perhaps, a little overt). But gone were the darker, more mature themes of the story.

Perhaps a full trailer or the movie itself will adhere more closely to the source material. But given what we’ve seen so far (and we’ve seen a lot), my hopes aren’t high. The wedding dress alone has caused quite a stir, more closely resembling an episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills than a gothic classic. Still, Charli XCX is providing the soundtrack, and there looks to be plenty of sex scenes to get couples in the mood on the 14^th February, so who cares?

Just as Heathcliff digs up poor Cathy’s body to embrace what he can never have, so too does it seem that classic novels and genius authors will forever have their graves desecrated. Unfortunately, unlike Lockwood, the novel’s narrator, I can very much ‘imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth’.

Watch the Wuthering Heights trailer here, and it will be released in cinemas on the 13^th February 2026.