“Wuthering Heights”. The Emerald Fennell version.

by Brandon Norwood

I am not the audience for "Wuthering Heights". I am familiar with Emily Bronte's novel, but not well read. In fact, every literature class I have taken has managed to skip this novel. Walking out of "Wuthering Heights" I understood that this is Emerald Fennell's interpretation of the text.

Image courtesy of Warner Brothers.

Heathcliff (Owen Cooper) is adopted by Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) and brought to the Wuthering Heights estate. Catherine Earnshaw (Charlotte Mellington) takes an immediate liking to the young Heathcliff. Years later, Heathcliff (Jacob Elodri) and Cathy (Margot Robbie) have developed romantic feelings for each other that will decide the fates of not only themselves, but everyone surrounding them.

The quotation marks are there for a reason. This being the upteenth adaptation of Emily Bronte's text, I for one am glad that it's not another dry adaptation unlike Andrea Arnold's 2011 film that bored me to tears. This is stylized to a fault. No subtly here and it works. This is Wuthering Heights for a 2026 audience. So other than Heathcliff being white, I have no bones to pick here. Again, I am not married to the text, and Jacob Elodri gives such a powerful performance that, for me, it was easy to overlook the casting flaw (which in 2026 is distasteful). But in the back of my mind, this is Emerald's version.

Image courtesy of Warner Brothers.

Speaking of Emerald, I was able to read the new foreword of Wuthering Heights. Huge shout out to Rebecca and the team at Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read the forward as well as finally start to read the novel itself. Emerald's foreword is very illuminating. I didn't know Heathcliff killed a dog. So imagine to my surprise to see that Emerald has shown restraint. I love Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, two films that show no restraint whatsoever.

Emerald goes on to say that there are so many different ways to interpret and read the novel. Like many great texts, that holds true. A movie has a very certain interpretation. Sure, people get different things from it whether it's a surface level read or purely  a subtext focused read, but a novel is a different beast. That's why I greatly enjoyed what Emerald had done here as it is a complete 180 from Andrea Arnold's adaptation (which she herself has confessed she does not like).

Image courtesy of Warner Brothers.

Emerald starts the foreword of the book with lovers of the novel who aren't fit to go to heaven. I understand completely what she means here as the story itself has some of the most vicious psychological violence I have encountered in a minute. This is a mean story without it being completely nihilistic. It is, after all, a love story first and foremost.

As stated in the latest episode of the podcast, this film is crafted from top to bottom as a big-budget studio epic on a small scale. And in this version the true villain is Nelly (for reason that you'll have to see yourself). 

As Emerald notes in her foreword there's a push and pull between pleasure and pain. That's love itself. When it is high, there's nothing better than being connected to another person who is entirely connected to you. And when it's low, heartbreak is almost unbearable. Sometimes even more so than physical pain.

Image courtesy of Warner Brothers.

Emerald says it is impossible for one adaptation to do true justice to the novel as she lists what she left out as she asks the question "What to do with these characters and events?". That is something every responsible filmmaker should be asking themselves. As stated in the latest episode of the podcast, Peter Jackson cut out a lot of The Lord of the Rings while still staying faithful to the text and creating a cinematic achievement. I feel like that's no different here as Emerald has perfectly cast this film, with the  chemistry between our two leads, to make one of the hottest and horinest tales of yearning I've seen in a minute. It's so stylized and un-subtle that I appreciate getting hit in the head with a sledgehammer with its style, themes, and imagery. 

As I start the journey of finally reading Emily Bronte's 179 year old novel, some things remain true. Love is complicated. Good and bad people don't know how to properly communicate their feelings. If you find love that is not this toxic and that you can have an easy back and forth with, please hold on to it.

Image courtesy of Warner Brothers.

Remember the quotation marks in the title are there for a reason. This is a version of Wuthering Heights. Emerald Fennel's version. It's not THE version of one of the most famous love stories ever told. A toxic, violent love.

7 and half slaps from the Hands of Zeus with lighting bolts.

After the Hunt review. “It happened at Yale”.

by Brandon Norwood

Why?" Julia Roberts' Alama asks Ayo Edibiri's Maggie. Why did Maggie tell Alma of her sexual assault? That question of why permeates throughout the film. Luca Guadagnino's After the Hunt explores head on the use of power and privilege that all the characters are in throughout the film.

Debuting out of the Toronto International Film Festival, After the Hunt was met with a chilly reception. Yes, it's too long for its own good. Yes, it insists that its more important than it is. But I do feel as if there's a lot the film brings up to talk about.

Alma (Ayo Edibiri) is a teacher assistant who looks up to Maggie (Julia Roberts), a Yale professor. Maggie has the perfect life. A eccentric psychiatrist husband named Fredrick (Michael Stuhlbarg), a close friend named Hank (Andrew Garfield), who can meet her intellectually who also happens to be a professor at Yale like herself. Everything changes when Maggie comes forward to Maggie with allegations of sexual assault against Hank that threatens to reveal a secret of her own.

I've been having a lot of conversations about this movie. All the takes are very different from mine. That is the one thing that I feel has put off a lit of people. There are no clear answers. Even if to me there is. The film is taking a very clear approach about this. A young, queer woman of color, from a privileged background, is accusing a man in power. The power and privilege dynamics really are the backbone of this film. Every gaze or look the characters give are up to interpretation by the viewer on what it means in the moment and the overall story.

I sat raptured watching the character tug and pull at each other in ways that are extremely cruel. I seriously had no idea where this was going moment to moment and wondered just how Luca would land this story. 

Luca is a deliberate filmmaker. That continues in After the Hunt with the camera movements as well as the angles and use of negative space to frame the actors. Even in a crowded room, these are lonely people. Much has been said about Luca using the font made famous in films by Woody Allen, and that too is deliberate. This for many different reasons feels like a Woody Allen movie left out to curdle. Including the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross which sounds as if a score from a Woody movie was left out to rot.

I’ll be honest here. Not everything worked for me. It is too long for its own good. At two hours and nineteen minutes, this should have been much shorter. Considering that there was three parts were I thought the film was ending, I wasn’t really sure. And the very last scene, to me, did nothing for the overall narrative in the film other than reinforcing privilege and power. With the current climate, I do not think that last scene really convey what it is trying to other than “Hey! Some people still get away and have it all”. No kidding.

I would like to highlight Ayo Edebiri. I cannot and will not harp on the cast. Everyone knows they’re great. Especially under the direction of Luca. But the fact that Ayo held her own against heavyweight actors is a true testament to her talents. I’m really excited to see where her career goes as she has so much range. This is a challenging role to play. There’s hard lines on how everyone is written with the subtext doing a lot of heavy lifting.

I’m very eager to have more conversations about this film. I find that this film does open up many conversations worth having. Mainly due to the fact that the conversations that I have had, have been wildly different. Everyone is gonna have a different read on this. And that’s exciting.

After the Hunt opens in limited release on October 10th. Nationwide on October 17th.