Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights adaptation needs 'godlike' star Margot Robbie, writer-directo...

&34;I've actually found it quite harrowing,&34; the &34;Saltburn&34; filmmaker said of crafting her upcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë's tale. Emerald Fennell'

"I've actually found it quite harrowing," the "Saltburn" filmmaker said of crafting her upcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë's tale.

Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights adaptation needs 'godlike' star Margot Robbie, writer-director says

"I've actually found it quite harrowing," the "Saltburn" filmmaker said of crafting her upcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë's tale.

By Maureen Lee Lenker

Maureen Lee Lenker

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at ** with over nine years of experience. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, *Ms. Magazine*, *The Hollywood Reporter*, and more.

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September 29, 2025 9:58 p.m. ET

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Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in 'Wuthering Heights'. Credit:

We already knew Emerald Fennell's *Wuthering Heights *wasn't going to be like any that have come before, but it sounds like early critics should clutch their pearls even tighter.

At the Brontë Women's Writing Festival on Friday, the* *writer-director spoke about the forthcoming film, which stars *Barbie*'s Margot Robbie and *Saltburn*'s Jacob Elordi, and likened her time adapting and directing it to "a masochistic exercise," according to the BBC.

"It's an act of extreme masochism to try and make a film of something that means this much to you," she said. "I've actually found it quite harrowing, in a really interesting way."

Emerald Fennell.

Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty

Fennell explained that the book completely bowled her over when she was only 14 years old, and it has remained a favorite of hers since.

"It cracked me open," she said, adding that she holds a "profound connection" to the novel.

It was that which drove Fennell to dream of making her own film adaptation of Emily Brontë's tale.

"I've been obsessed," she said. "I've been driven mad by this book. I wanted to make something that made me feel like I felt when I first read it, which means that it's an emotional response to something. It's, like, primal, sexual."

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"If somebody else made it, I'd be furious," she added. "It's very personal material for everyone. It's very illicit. The way we relate to the characters is very private, I think."

That intense emotional connection, however, made Fennell's job a lot harder.

"It's a terror," she said of adapting the book, "because it's a huge responsibility. But it's been a kind of masochistic exercise working on it because I love it so much, and it can't love me back, and I have to live with that. So it's been troubling, but I think in a really useful way."

The masochism, however, isn't limited to Fennell's experience. When the trailer dropped earlier this month, it drew attention for its highly eroticized imagery, including fingers being pushed into someone's mouth and suggestive bread kneading. The film had also already drawn criticism for its unusual casting, including Robbie's age in contrast to the novel and the decision to cast Elordi as Heathcliff, rather than a person of color.

"It needed somebody like Margot, who's a star, not just an incredible actress — which she is — but somebody who has a power, an otherworldly power, a Godlike power, that means people lose their minds," Fennell said.

Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw in 'Wuthering Heights' (2026).

Still, that trailer is barely a hint of what audiences can expect from the finished film, if Fennell's words are anything to go by.

"There's an enormous amount of sado-masochism in this book," she said. "There's a reason people were deeply shocked by it [when it was published]."

Audiences can expect Fennell, who's already proved unafraid of confrontational sexuality with *Saltburn, *to deliver on those themes in the book and them some.

Jacob Elordi in 'Wuthering Heights'.

In part because she says that she included things in the film that came out of her teenage imagination.

"It's where I filled in the gaps aged 14," she explained. "[I got to] see what it would feel like to fulfill my 14-year-old wish, which is both good and bad."

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Still, Fennell did make some effort to stay true to the novel.

"I was really determined to preserve as much of her dialogue because her dialogue is the best dialogue ever," she said. "I couldn't better it, and who could?"

*Wuthering Heights *comes to theaters on Valentine's Day 2026.

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