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Emerald Fennell’s upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation has been called ‘aggressively provocative’ and will feature a BDSM-inspired sex scene.
The upcoming adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic novel sees Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi portray doomed lovers Catherine and Heathcliff.
But those expecting a faithful adaptation of the beloved work may be in for a rude awakening as Fennell’s upcoming film is said to lean into the ‘stylised depravity’ she has become known for after directing Saltburn.
According to World of Reel, Fennell’s Wuthering Heights received a mixed reaction at its first test screening in Dallas, Texas this month.
The feature opens with a public hanging that sees the condemned man ‘ejaculate mid-execution’.
His agony sends the crowd into an ‘orgiastic frenzy’ and a nun reportedly fondles ‘the corpse’s visible erection’.
The film is also said to feature ‘intimate, clinical and purposefully discomforting’ masturbation scenes and a BDSM-inspired sex scene involving horse reins.
The camera is also said to linger on ‘suggestive’ imagery including ‘egg yolks running through fingers’ and ‘dough being kneaded with quiet aggression’.
The publication does note that Margot and Jacob both deliver ‘committed performances’ and have ‘great chemistry’.
Fennell has made a name for herself as the director of Promising Young Woman and the black comedy Saltburn which saw a character drinking another’s dirty bathwater.
Along with her directing and writing career, she has also acted, noteably playing Queen Camilla in The Crown.
Wuthering Heights was published by Emily Brontë in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, one year before her death.
It follows the story of an orphan, Heathcliff, who is taken in by the Earnshaw family, he later grows close to their daughter and his foster sister, Cathy.
The first known adaptation was from A. V. Bramble in 1920, with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon’s 1939 version being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Born in 1818 in West Yorkshire, Emily was the fifth of six children, and spent most of her short life in the moorland village of Haworth, where her Irish father Patrick was curate.
But life dealt Emily a series of terrible blows as she lost her mother when she was three, then two older sisters when she was seven.
Following her trauma, the novelist retreated into a fantasy world, writing stories and poetry with her siblings.
The writer poured her suffering and passion into Wuthering Heights, a wrenching love story as raw as the Yorkshire Moors on which it’s set.
