As a major admirer of all writer/director Andrea Arnold’s previous work — Wasp, Red Road, Fish Tank — I was looking forward to her version of Wuthering Heights more than I can say, and? Wow! Or, at least, mostly ‘wow!’ It is a ‘wow’ with a few reservations. It is two thirds of a ‘wow’, so perhaps a ‘wo!’? Wo! It is impressively bold. And brave. And brutish. It will rile the purists, which is always good, as riling purists is a particular hobby of mine, and I like to set aside at least half a day a week to do just that. (I favour putting them in a cage, and poking them with sticks every now and then.) Yet it is also so glacial it freezes you out and James Howson, the newcomer who plays Heathcliff in his adult years, may not be up to the job; he just sort of grunts oikishly, as if he were serving you in PC World or Comet. This is why it’s a ‘wo’, not a ‘wow’, although don’t be downhearted: a ‘wo’ is always the next best thing.
Ms Arnold has dispensed with a narrator and has opted to tell the story entirely from Heathcliff’s point of view, as is within her rights. There is no law against it, as far as I know. The film begins with the adult Heathcliff — portrayed as black, for the first time — alone in a room, smacking his own bloodied head against a stone wall, signifying all the grief and hatred and violence he’s already experienced. Time then spools back to Heathcliff as a boy (Solomon Glave) arriving at Wuthering Heights with Mr Earnshaw (Paul Hilton) across the moor, in the dark and the rain, having been plucked as a runaway from the streets of Liverpool.
There is no musical score. Instead, the elements provide the soundtrack. The wind howls. Branches snap. Gorse cracks. Windowpanes rattle. Rain thuds. Mud splatters. Ms Arnold also uses only hand-held cameras, which gives everything a fantastically raw, splintering feel. This is certainly a film of sensation and as a film of sensation it is a beautiful and triumphant and magnificent beast. But, I should add, it may be sensation at the expense of story. It is often dramatically inert; can seem more like a succession of bleak, brutal photographs than a narrative with momentum and, although this may have been Ms Arnold’s intention, it does get a little repetitious. (Oh, no, not more bruised skies! Oh, no, not those bloody branches tapping on the windows again!)
Cathy is immediately fascinated by Heathcliff; this savage, almost-mute, dark boy. They circle each other on the moors as they embark on their strange, intense relationship as not-quite-siblings and not-quite lovers. Meanwhile, her brother, Hindley (Lee Shaw), simmers with vicious jealousy. The script is stark. There is very little dialogue and, when there is, some of it might not be Emily Brontë’s. ‘He’s not my brother, he’s a nigger,’ Hindley tells his father. At one point, Heathcliff calls a group of assembled guests ‘f***ing c***s’, which is excellent. Such expletives feel strangely appropriate somehow, and if the purists object don’t worry. I shall give them an extra poke through the bars, and make it quite a sharp jab. The first two thirds of the film, which concentrates on fleshing out the childhood years, is the most successful portion by far — I have never seen brutal cruelty visualised so cleverly — and the best scene comes at its end, when Heathcliff overhears Cathy telling Nelly about Edgar Linton’s marriage proposal, and runs away although, in this instance, he crawls away, on all fours, like the wounded animal he is.
But — oh, lawks — the last third; the last third, when Heathcliff returns as a wealthy man intent on revenge, is something of a chore. Is it fair to blame Howson entirely? I don’t know, but he can’t convey anything about what he might be thinking, and neither can he convey grandeur and, without grandeur, Heathcliff is merely a pitiless obsessive lunatic, and an uninteresting one too. Kira Scodelario, who is ‘hot’ in the teen TV drama Skins, apparently, does rather better as the adult Cathy, but why would she now be drawn to Heathcliff, who gives away nothing, to her or to us? He is as shut off from the world as we are, in some ways, from this film. So it loses steam, part of the way through, but worth it for the first portion? Yes, because that is like no other costume drama you have ever seen, and remember: a ‘wo’ is only one off from a ‘wow’. It’s not so bad.
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