Some films generate their own atmosphere.
'The Full Monty' was one such movie that created a frisson of excitement in cinemas before the rolling of the opening credits.
'Titanic' achieved it too, as did 'Calendar Girls,' 'Top Gun: Maverick' and 'Barbie'.
They were films that became more than films because their screenings were events.
Sitting in Dublin's Savoy Cinema the night before Valentine's Day, it's clear Emerald Fennell's 'Wuthering Heights' is that kind of movie.
It's been a while since we've heard excited chatter in a cinema resembling the sound of the women attending the stoning in 'Monty Python's The Life of Brian'.
Yet here we are and it's oddly appropriate for a film that begins with a crowd relishing the spectacle of a public hanging.
Fennell, who has written and directed what may possibly be the 17th movie version of Emily Brontë's novel, very much sets out her stall in this opening sequence.
There's sexually provocative imagery from the off, with a nun guilty enjoying the sight of a hanging man's erection after chiding two boys who have noticed it.
There's also a lusty couple making love in the open air amid the damp and the squalor.
And there's a crowd revelling in the cruel spectacle of a man writhing in pain.
Right from the off, it's very clear why Warner Bros has put quotation marks around the title of Fennell's movie.
This is not a literal adaptation of Brontë's classic romance.
It's a loose interpretation tailored very much for a 21st Century audience.
Whether you like it or not will depend on how much you're prepared to tolerate.
Fennell's version gets rid of Cathy's brutish older brother Hindley and amalgamates his character into Martin Clunes' reckless and feckless father, Mr Earnshaw.
Widowed and channeling his grief into boozing and gambling, Mr Earnshaw runs down the family farm Wuthering Heights - leaving his young daughter, Charlotte Wellington's Cathy in the care of a servant, Vy Nguyen's Nelly.
One day he brings Owen Cooper's wild young boy home after encountering him and his uncaring father who he publicly derides for treating his son so badly.
The irony is the boy is treated only slightly better by Earnshaw.
Naming him Heathcliff, Cathy immediately takes a shine to the boy with Mr Earnshsw telling her she can treat him like her pet.
A close bond is forged as Cathy tries to teach Heathclff how to read and with him taking a brutal beating from an inebriated Mr Earnshaw after they miss her dad's birthday supper.
Heathcliff later tells her he took the blame to avoid her taking the beating.
Their bond grows deeper into adulthood but it is suddenly tested with the arrival of the wealthy Lintons as their neighbours.
When Margot Robbie's Cathy is injured spying on Shazad Latif's Edgar Linton and his sister Alison Oliver's Isabella discussing 'Romeo and Juliet' over high tea, she is given the opportunity to recuperate in their opulent mansion.
Her six week recuperation unnerves Jacob Elordi's smitten Heathcliff and when Cathy subsequently receives a marriage proposal from Edgar, a tipping point is reached with him leaving Wuthering Heights.
Cathy is heartbroken by his departure, refusing to believe Heathcliff would abandon her.
Opting to marry Edgar and live in luxury with him and his sister, she settles for the trappings of wealth but are they enough to resist Heathcliff when he returns as a wealthier man?
Like her previous films 'Promising Young Woman' and 'Saltburn,' Fennell's version will sharply divide audiences.
Brontë purists will despite it.
Fennell fans will adore it.
I sit somewhere in between.
Visually, the movie looks superb with Linus Sangdren's cinematography, Suzie Davies' production design, Charlotte Dirickx's sets, Jacqueline Durran's costumes, Sian Miller's hairstyling and Adrian Dimas' special effects make up achieving a standard very few films will be able to match this year.
Fennell and the crew make many visual references to Victor Fleming's 'Gone With The Wind' which is a huge influence on the film.
However on occasion it echoes visually or tonally Mervyn Le Roy's 'Random Harvest,' Francis Coppola's 'Bram Stoker's Dracula,' Park Can-wook's 'The Handmaiden,' Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 'A Matter of Life and Death,' Peter Greenaway's 'The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover' and John Schlesinger's 'Far From The Madding Crowd' as well as Thomas Vinterberg's version.
Ultimately for the film to really succeed, Fennell cannot rely on striking visuals alone.
And while no literary text is sacred when it comes to movie adaptations, she must justify the narrative liberties that have been taken.
On that score, 'Wuthering Heights' is a mixed bag.
Amping up the lust factor is all well and good but does it add anything to the story?
Mostly, it doesn't.
While it draws out the erotic tension in Brontë's novel, sometimes it just goes way over the top.
Do we really need to see characters masturbating on a clifftop to drive home the intensity of their desire or is it really necessary to see them spying on others having sadomasochistic sex in a stable?
Or are these scenes, like the graveyard and bathtub scenes in 'Saltburn', simply designed to shock and position Fennell as the latest agent provocateur/enfant terrible of cinema in the mould of filmmakers like Ken Russell, Peter Greenaway, David Cronenberg or Lars Von Trier?
As anyone who followed the careers of those rebellious filmmakers will tell you, there's a point when their shock tactics lose their lustre and become increasingly blunt and risible.
Unfortunately, there are several points in Fennell's film that feel like that.
Robbie and Elordi's onscreen magnetism is never in doubt but in the end, even they struggle to overcome the shallowness of Fennell's over the top theatrics.
Latif and Hong Chau as the older Nelly turn in the most disciplined performances in the film as Edgar and Nelly, while Clunes is given license to really cut loose as an actor in ways he has never been allowed to before.
Arguably it is Oliver, though, who steals the show as the childlike and shabbily treated Isabella and possibly, Owen Cooper as well as the younger Heathcliff.
But none of the performances really count for much in a movie that is big on spectacle but shallow on substance.
With Charlie XCX providing songs on the soundtrack, it only adds to the impression that Fennell's version of 'Wuthering Heights' is like a feature length pop video.
And that really doesn't do Brontë's novel nor the film's cast much service.
('Wuthering Heights' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on February 13, 2026) (2026)
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