Oh my gosh, I cannot wait for you to meet Jason Brown at the M&G (assuming you haven’t died from meeting Amber). He’s literally pure joy in human form.
I am bringing him a copy of The Favorites and writing him a very earnest note about how seeing him skate at SOI years ago changed the book for the better, can't wait to embarrass myself by crying in front of a room full of Olympians!!
Definitely agree on all the parts that you agree with, and oddly, I agree with your final take on Elordi's casting (as does Fennell!). There are so many tricky nuances to his character as written, such as how closely it aligns to Victorian racial attitudes, that it takes a special director to cast a poc without furthering those proto-white supremacy ideas. That's not Fennell (she said as much), and that's not Andrea Arnold as we saw from her 2011 adaptation.
How the power dynamics were shown I absolutely loved: characters with more power in a higher position than their conversation partner. Adds another dimension to the relationships, and visually it's strengthened by Elordi being as enormous as he is, and the subtle way he raises and lowers himself within a scene to indicate a power shift. The perfect example is the sex scene you mentioned, where there are 4 shifts as their emotions and relationship goes through several rapid changes. It's masterful.
I love that you raised whether Isabella can give meaningful consent! That's exactly the conversation we should be having, and I'm sure it's intentional on Fennell’s part. Note that the book forces us to ask the same question via the discrepancies in the Heathcliff and Isabella accounts: he says she knew what he was, he 'warned' her by hanging her dog. We the readers also know she was warned by Cathy, Nelly, and Edgar. The book asks us how much she's complicit in what happens next. At the very least, it complicates her 'victimhood'. Fennell clearly didn't want to show physical abuse, and she foregrounds consent in the seduction scene. But Heathcliff's coldness and mistreatment starts immediately in the wedding scene, showing us that whatever Isabella verbally agreed too, she didn't have these expectations. So yes, you're dead on with that complexity.
Regarding chemistry and eroticism, thoughts there are mixed but a lot of people agreed with you it wasn't sexy. Also a lot of people cannot stop thinking about the chair, the corset, the eggs, the barn scene. It rattled around the brains of a lot of people for months.
Thank you for your analysis! I've really enjoyed reading breakdowns of the film even if I disagree with some of them. I've never seen a film this layered and detailed, so researched it for months, finding about 300 references to art, lit, Victorian culture and history, and of course the novel.
lol! I clicked on this notification so fast. I keep saying that she should’ve made her own period drama and not tied it to Wuthering Heights at all. She added so many random things and deleted/changed so many others. My theory is that she truly wanted to lift some dialogue straight from the book.
Also, my sister and I saw the movie together. She’s read The Favorites (thanks to me) but knew nothing about WH. I reminded her that TF is a WH retelling, and she still gasped when Isabella pushed her dress off her shoulder and I said “notice that her name is Isabella” 😂😂 So many other issues in that dynamic but she was not clicking the name associations right away
Full disclosure, I haven't read nor watched Wuthering Heights (it's on my shelf!) but...I can absolutely understand why you hated this. Also I'm crying at "Despite the full monster drag, Jacob Elordi had way more chemistry with Mia Goth in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein than he did with anyone at any point in this movie."
Thank you for this! I’ve struggled to put my (disappointment) thoughts/feelings into words and have instead just pretended the movie never happened. 😅 I appreciate the hell out of this analysis. 🖤
Oh my gosh, I cannot wait for you to meet Jason Brown at the M&G (assuming you haven’t died from meeting Amber). He’s literally pure joy in human form.
I am bringing him a copy of The Favorites and writing him a very earnest note about how seeing him skate at SOI years ago changed the book for the better, can't wait to embarrass myself by crying in front of a room full of Olympians!!
Definitely agree on all the parts that you agree with, and oddly, I agree with your final take on Elordi's casting (as does Fennell!). There are so many tricky nuances to his character as written, such as how closely it aligns to Victorian racial attitudes, that it takes a special director to cast a poc without furthering those proto-white supremacy ideas. That's not Fennell (she said as much), and that's not Andrea Arnold as we saw from her 2011 adaptation.
How the power dynamics were shown I absolutely loved: characters with more power in a higher position than their conversation partner. Adds another dimension to the relationships, and visually it's strengthened by Elordi being as enormous as he is, and the subtle way he raises and lowers himself within a scene to indicate a power shift. The perfect example is the sex scene you mentioned, where there are 4 shifts as their emotions and relationship goes through several rapid changes. It's masterful.
I love that you raised whether Isabella can give meaningful consent! That's exactly the conversation we should be having, and I'm sure it's intentional on Fennell’s part. Note that the book forces us to ask the same question via the discrepancies in the Heathcliff and Isabella accounts: he says she knew what he was, he 'warned' her by hanging her dog. We the readers also know she was warned by Cathy, Nelly, and Edgar. The book asks us how much she's complicit in what happens next. At the very least, it complicates her 'victimhood'. Fennell clearly didn't want to show physical abuse, and she foregrounds consent in the seduction scene. But Heathcliff's coldness and mistreatment starts immediately in the wedding scene, showing us that whatever Isabella verbally agreed too, she didn't have these expectations. So yes, you're dead on with that complexity.
Regarding chemistry and eroticism, thoughts there are mixed but a lot of people agreed with you it wasn't sexy. Also a lot of people cannot stop thinking about the chair, the corset, the eggs, the barn scene. It rattled around the brains of a lot of people for months.
Thank you for your analysis! I've really enjoyed reading breakdowns of the film even if I disagree with some of them. I've never seen a film this layered and detailed, so researched it for months, finding about 300 references to art, lit, Victorian culture and history, and of course the novel.
Everything I hear makes me that much more confident in my decision to not watch this movie.
Great review. I felt like this movie was made by well funded high schoolers but not like smart ones
lol! I clicked on this notification so fast. I keep saying that she should’ve made her own period drama and not tied it to Wuthering Heights at all. She added so many random things and deleted/changed so many others. My theory is that she truly wanted to lift some dialogue straight from the book.
Also, my sister and I saw the movie together. She’s read The Favorites (thanks to me) but knew nothing about WH. I reminded her that TF is a WH retelling, and she still gasped when Isabella pushed her dress off her shoulder and I said “notice that her name is Isabella” 😂😂 So many other issues in that dynamic but she was not clicking the name associations right away
Full disclosure, I haven't read nor watched Wuthering Heights (it's on my shelf!) but...I can absolutely understand why you hated this. Also I'm crying at "Despite the full monster drag, Jacob Elordi had way more chemistry with Mia Goth in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein than he did with anyone at any point in this movie."
Thank you for this! I’ve struggled to put my (disappointment) thoughts/feelings into words and have instead just pretended the movie never happened. 😅 I appreciate the hell out of this analysis. 🖤