Wuthering Heights

Andrea Arnold’s mud-caked interpretation of Emily Brontë’s novel steers the narrative down a boldly naturalistic path.

Mr Earnshaw, the master of Wuthering Heights, a remote farmhouse on the Yorkshire moorland, returns from a trip to Liverpool with an orphaned boy named Heathcliff. Raising Heathcliff as his favourite soon sends a schism through the Earnshaw family. His daughter Cathy forges a strong bond with Heathcliff, while his son takes to cruelly tormenting him.

When Mr Earnshaw dies, the power dynamics of the family soon change.

Curator’s Note

Forget what you know about British period dramas.

Andrea Arnold’s bold adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic work strips the novel’s text back to its gothic bones, dialling down the melodrama and dialogue while remaining remarkably faithful to the novel.

Stoic cinematography is swapped for freewheeling handheld camerawork that captures the young characters’ wildness and disregard for British etiquette.

Young Cathy is played by Shannon Beer, who takes to the role with wild barefoot abandon, while older Cathy is performed with intensity by Kaya Scodelario, who was introduced to many as Effy in teen TV series Skins. Heathcliff is played by Solomon Glaze and James Howson, perhaps the first mixed-race actors to play Heathcliff, which is the way Brontë originally wrote the character.

– Reece Goodwin, Curator (Film & TV)