Starring: Emma Mackey, Fionn Whitehead, Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Alexandra Dowling
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Runtime: 130 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2022
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
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The real and imagined life of Wuthering Heights author Emily Brontë intertwine, as we see the world through her eyes for the first time. A directorial debut for Frances O’Connor.
Emma Mackey, Fionn Whitehead, Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Alexandra Dowling. Directed by Frances O’Connor. Rated M (Sex scenes). 130min.
Nominated in 2022 for Best Lead Actress, Best Supporting Lead Performance, and Best Debut Director at the British Independent Film Awards, this film brings the creative work of Emily Bronte powerfully to the cinema screen. Acting, direction, and cinematography are excellent, and the film pays respectful homage to the writings of Emily Bronte.
The goes back to the time the three Bronte sisters – Charlotte, Anne and Emily – playfully told stories to each other. Emily was known in her village as ‘the strange one’ which separated her from her other two sisters. Under the guidance of O’Connor, Mackey breathes controlled passion into the life of Emily which portrays dramatic urgency for a writer, totally committed to ‘Freedom in Thought’.
This film brings Wuthering Heights to sensuous, vibrant life with an imaginative storyline that is an impressive showcase for the actors that have been selected to play Bronte’s main characters. The film is an impressive Emily Bronte re-telling, with Jackson-Cohen and Emma Mackey depicting the forbidden love and desire of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw for each other, made famous in Wuthering Heights.
It is an intriguing question as to what a film like this one adds to a timeless classic like ‘Wuthering Heights’. Catherine and Heathcliff are instantly recognisable in the film which vibrantly captures their love, passion and desire for each other. The story in this film is imagined differently from the actual novel. In this movie, Heathcliff is a handsome clergyman with a puritanical streak, and the film adds other features as well. It extends the drama of the life led by Emily Bronte as a writer; and the novel’s depiction of passion and desire gain added meaning in the way the film reveals the nature of Emily’s independence.
Awareness of the movie’s depiction of Emily’s independence, helps the viewer appreciate the complex nature of Heathcliff’s attachment to Catherine. O’Connor, as director, captures the lovers’ addictive attraction to each other in ways that respect the creative spirit behind Bronte’s writing, but O’Connor adopts strategies that visually portray the lovers’ attraction to each other in interesting ways. Forbidden love is fanned by Heathcliff’s religious identity; and the film’s sex scenes are supplemented by images of visual glances and sudden eye contact between the lovers, tentatively delivered. The complexity of sisterhood with Charlotte (Dowling) and Emily’s loving care for her brother, Branwell (Whitehead) are portrayed by words that are delivered by Emma Mackey directly, and bluntly, with strong emotion.
The camera roams across and through scenes, frequently returning to show that, although humans have gone, the memories of their presence stay visually active in dynamic ways. O’Connor explores cinematically the impact of “to love and be loved”, and Emma Mackey portrays desire and passion in a way that she makes her own.
This is a thought-provoking visual drama that O’Connor brings to the screen distinctively. It recreates and re-interprets the imagination of Emily Bronte. It re-contextualises Bronte’s writing through excellent acting, direction and cinematography, and creates a moving cinema experience.
It is a particularly impressive directorial debut for Frances O’Connor, who also wrote the film.
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