Since director Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn) announced back in July 2024 that she’d be undertaking an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, the film has been shrouded in controversy, excitement, and undeniable buzz. The 1847 novel—which was originally published under a male pen name, Ellis Bell—follows two English families in the late 18th century, facing themes of racial inequality, greed, jealousy, and love.
We mention “love” last when we talk about Wuthering Heights, as though it does revolve around the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff, the story is much more convoluted and toxic than your average love story. So when promotion for the 2026 film started using the line “inspired by the greatest love story of all time,” book fans raised their eyebrows.
Now that Wuthering Heights is playing in theaters, let’s break down the key differences between the book and the latest adaptation. Are the changes really as egregious as people are saying online? We get into it below—and needless to say, expect spoilers.
- Heathcliff’s Race
- Catherine’s Appearance
- Catherine and Heathcliff’s Ages
- The Intimate Moments
- Romanticizing the Toxicity
- Characters—And Large Chunks of the Book—Erased
- The Reasons for Change
Heathcliff’s Race
Of course, the biggest point of contention for fans of Brontë’s novel is the whitewashing in Fennell’s movie. In the book, the character of Heathcliff is brought in by the Earnshaws at a young age, and immediately receives poor treatment because of the color of his skin. Though his ethnicity is ambiguous—described as “a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway,” and a “gipsy brat”—his race is a bit clearer.
The color of Heathcliff’s skin is touched on multiple times throughout the book, described as a “dark-skinned gipsy,” “a dirty, ragged, black-haired child,” and even “dark, almost as if it came from the devil.” The racism he faces shapes the whole story, as he returns to the moors years later to seek revenge against the families for their mistreatment.
In the 2026 film, Heathcliff is played by Jacob Elordi, an Australian actor, and race is not mentioned at all. Instead, the character is motivated by his love for Catherine—which is true in the book, too—making for a much less complex story, and one that, unfortunately, lacks meaning.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Fennell addressed casting a white actor in the role, suggesting that this is the Heathcliff she imagined while reading it.
“I think the thing is everyone who loves this book has such a personal connection to it, and so you can only ever make the movie that you sort of imagined yourself when you read it,” Fennell stated. “I don’t know, I think I was focusing on the pseudo-masochistic elements of it.”
Elordi himself weighed in on the controversy with a similar answer, responding, “This is Emerald’s vision and these are the images that came to her head at 14 years old; somebody else’s interpretation of a great piece of art is what I’m interested in — new images, fresh images, original thoughts.”
Catherine’s Appearance
But it’s not just Heathcliff’s appearance that has been changed for the latest adaptation. As mentioned, race plays a major part in the novel, and though Catherine is white, she has brown hair and feels envious of other women. “I wish I had light hair and fair skin,” she tells the family servant Nelly, and compares herself to Isabella Linton—whose appearance is changed in the movie as well.
In the movie, Catherine is played by Margot Robbie, who has blonde hair, a fair complexion, and light blue-green eyes, further erasing the role of race in the story.
Catherine and Heathcliff’s Ages
Another reason Catherine and Heathcliff look different in the movie compared to their book counterparts is their age. While both versions depict multiple years of their lives, the main story of their relationship takes place when they’re both in their late teens in the book. And though we don’t know how many years they are aged up in the new adaptation, Robbie is 35 years old, and Elordi is 28.
In the Wuthering Heights movie, Catherine’s father comments on her becoming a “spinster,” so we can assume she’s likely in her mid-20s.
The Intimate Moments
When the first teaser for Fennell’s Wuthering Heights was released last year, book fans were shocked to see how sexual the tone was. From fingers in the mouth and cutting off a dress to whips and a very sensual clip of Heathcliff asking a woman, “Do you want me to stop?” as he touches her waist, the preview suggested this would be a very different version of the classic story.
After seeing the movie, it’s safe to say the marketing made the adaptation seem incredibly oversexualized when it’s actually not that bad—with some now complaining that it’s not sexy enough—but the truth remains: there is no sex in the book, and the tone is very different.
Though Cathy and Heathcliff love each other, they do not share sex scenes in the book, and they do not have an affair while Cathy is married. They admit to their love, and they do kiss, but it’s more of a sad situation than anything sexual. They are never actually in a relationship.
The movie includes additional sex scenes with other characters, including Joseph, a religious servant at Wuthering Heights who definitely does not partake in any intimate moments in the book. On top of that, the movie gives Isabella a submissive kink, something that does not exist in the text either.
Romanticizing the Toxicity
Just like the sexualization of Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship, the 2026 Wuthering Heights very much romanticizes what is actually an incredibly toxic situation in the book. Though some consider the novel to be a gothic romance, it’s not like modern love stories we read and watch today.
Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship is based on control, power, and shared trauma, and their motives are not pure. Many readers don’t see the characters as good people, which is not surprising considering their actions are constant acts of revenge. Always trying to one-up each other, they share a years-long back-and-forth of tit-for-tat, which is one of the many reasons they never end up together.
Though it’s easy to understand why a reader might want Catherine and Heathcliff to have their happy ever after, it just doesn’t happen. The movie does not end on a positive note, at least, but it does treat their relationship as a steamy romance that is more straightforward than in the book.
Characters—And Large Chunks of the Book—Erased
In addition to changes to the central characters, the new Wuthering Heights removes a few altogether—including Catherine’s brother Hindley. In the book, Hindley is one of the main antagonists against Heathcliff, treating him badly because of his race and making him a servant, meaning he’s essential to Heathcliff’s evolution and motive for revenge. In the movie, Catherine names Heathcliff after her dead brother, which is entirely new.
The movie also combines a few characters, like Hindley and their father, and changes a few dynamics, such as Isabella now being a ward of the Lintons instead of Edgar’s sister.
“I think the thing that is really complicated about making something based on such a vast novel.. I think early on I realized that in order to make it approximately two hours, there was going to have to be some consolidation,” Fennell shared with BuzzFeed UK when asked why she chose to remove Hindley from her movie.
She continued on to explain that a character so “extremely violent, jealous, spiteful” without redeeming qualities is “difficult” to adapt.
“You can do that in a novel, you can have an outright villain in a novel,” Fennell added, “but for me, I’m always looking for the tension in characters where you do have sympathy, always, no matter how reprehensible they are,” explaining the choice to write Hindley and his father as one character.
Last but not least, like adaptations that came before Fennell’s, the film also erases the second half of the novel, which follows the next generations of Earnshaws and Liptons under Heathcliff’s watch. We gave a spoiler warning earlier, but we’ll give one again here: Catherine dies (at around 18 or 19 in the book) about halfway through the story, but this is where the movie ends.
In the book, Catherine dies while giving birth to her daughter Cathy (who we get to know in later chapters) after suffering from both mental and physical distress, while in the movie, she loses her child during pregnancy, resulting in fatal sepsis.
Neither version has a happy ending, but the movie decides to end the story around the halfway point, which makes sense for the narrative shift of focus on Catherine and Heathcliff’s romance.
The Reasons for Change
The book changes have been a hot topic of conversation in recent months, especially since the cast and crew of Wuthering Heights have been on the press tour. Of course, Fennell has been asked several times about her motivations in making these changes, as well as the decision to promote the movie as “Wuthering Heights” with purposeful quotation marks around the title.
“The thing for me is that you can’t adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book,” Fennell told Fandango. “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.”
Wuthering Heights is now playing in theaters.