Tissues at the ready – no not for that though there is a fair amount of masturbation in this film. Then again you had to make your own fun in those days, no telly and no TikTok. (My four star review is here)
The film ending
Like other adaptations before hers, Emerald Fennel finishes with the death of Cathy. In this film she dies of septicaemia resulting from a missed miscarriage (it was Edgar Linton’s baby). Heathcliff, summoned from Wuthering Heights by a contrite Nelly, races across the moors to reach the dying Cathy. She hallucinates that he visits her but in reality he is still riding towards Thrushcross Grange. Cathy dies and Edgar sits with her body, a pool of blackened blood around her. Heathcliff arrives and rushes to her room despite Edgar pleading with him not to. He takes the sheet from her face and holds her, swooning across her dead body, remembering the two of them as children curled up together. (For a more expanded ending see my full plot recap, below.)
But how did we get here? Thanks to Fennell’s no holds barred, brick-subtle story, in a much straighter line than poor Heathcliff on his horse trying to gallop the few miles from Wuthering Heights and Thrushcroft Grange to get to his dying lover.
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The plot of Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”
The film opens with much huffing and puffing, which turns out not to be adult Cathy and Heathcliff going at it hammer and tongs but the agonising death throws of a man being hanged in the city square, as young Cathy and her paid companion Nelly watch his demise. Initially everyone looks grim – from Mr Punch and his wife to a pastry pie – until it turns into a jolly day out for the townsfolk, with much merriment at the dying man’s erection as he dangles.
Back at Wuthering Heights, Cathy and Nelly (the illegitimate daughter of a Lord) live with Cathy’s father Mr Earnshaw.
Mr Earnshaw is a piteous creature but also obnoxious, considering himself “the kindest man alive” while brutalising those around him. He brings back a grubby young boy, whom Cathy names Heathcliff. They become fast friends, frequently out on the moors together. Cathy also tries to teach him to read though she is an rude and impatient tutor and he soon refuses to be taught by her even after she apologises. (He often hides under the bed – literally the monster under the bed.)
One day they are caught in the rain on the moors and shelter beneath an arch; Heathcliff wants them to return home so they don’t get into trouble but Cathy insists there is some blue in the sky and soon the rain will clear. She is wrong, and when they eventually get whom a furious Mr Earnshaw rebukes her for being so late back on his birthday. Heathcliff then takes the blame, saying he is the reason they were late, and Mr Earnshaw brutally beats him. Later she goes up to him as he lies in bed, his wounds bleeding. He tells her he will always take the blame for her.
Next we move to Cathy and Heathcliff’s adulthood. The neighbouring big house, Thrushcroft Grange, has been sold to Mr Edgar Linton, who has made his money in velvet. He lives there with his ward Isabella. As Cathy and Heathcliff watch the caravan of laden coaches and carts head to the house, Cathy wonders out loud that Mr Linton will probably fall in love with her.
Cathy waits in vain for the Lintons to call on her and eventually suggests she will go over and introduce herself, though Nelly cautions that it is not seemly.
Mr Earnshaw goes off to the solicitor in the town to find out what has happened to his money but it’s a sad visit; Earnshaw himself has gambled all the family money away.
Heathcliff and Joseph the servant are bleeding a dead pig in the courtyard. Cathy stomps off onto the moors, her hems covered in blood, then on an irate whim trudges down to Thrushcroft Grange in the valley below. Peering over the garden wall, she sees Isabella in a fantastically flouncy dress, boring Edgar with a rundown of Romeo and Juliet. Cathy loses her footing and falls, startling Isabella. Edgar investigates and finds Cathy, who has sprained her ankle in the fall. Cathy has to stay with the Lintons until it heals, which takes an impressive six weeks.
Mr Earnshaw goes to visit Cathy and comes home regaling Nelly and Heathcliff of his visit. Discussing Edgar and Isabella, Mr Earnshaw wonders if the reason the two have not married is because they are like brother and sister. Mr Earnshaw wants Edgar to marry Cathy, an excellent match for her as she is “already well past spinsterhood” (which deals with the leads’s ages; in the book Cathy and Heathcliff are still only around 19 when he returns with a fortune after only three years away).
When Cathy returns to Wuthering Heights it is in the Lintons’ coach and she is wearing an elaborate gown. Heathcliff is unimpressed – “I’m not angry, I’m busy” he tells her.
The Earnshaws’ servants Zillah and Joseph enjoy a sexual encounter in the barn. Cathy sees them – Heathcliff comes up behind her as she lies on the floor. She escapes to the moors and Heathcliff finds her there, masturbating to what she has witnessed. She refuses to kiss him.
Edgar Linton proposes to Cathy and she accepts. As she is explaining this to Nelly, she says that it would degrade her to marry Heathcliff – he is listening in (which Nelly knows) but rushes off before he can hear Cathy tell Nelly that she also loves him. He Leaves Wuthering Heights on a horse.
The next morning, Cathy is determined to go to Thrushcroft Grange to call off he engagement, however the servants explain to her that Heathcliff left the night before.
Cathy and Heathcliff
A year goes by with no sight or sound of Heathcliff, and she is preparing for her wedding to Edgar Linton. She marries in an impressive meringue dress; later her wedding breakfast table is weighed down with rich and elaborate food. Isabella gives Cathy a Cathy doll she has made herself using Cathy’s own hair, taken from the hairbrush she used while recovering from her sprained ankle at Thrushcroft Grange. The two women place the Cathy doll in the large dollshouse, which looks like the main house itself. Isabella has also arranged for a number of of beautiful dresses to be made for Cathy.
The three settle down in the house. One day Isabella says she wants to go to a hanging though Edgar thinks her too young at 21. This time it is a woman being hanged and Isabella wonders at what the condemned will wear, bearing in mind she will be hanging high above the audience.
At Christmas Cathy returns to Wuthering Heights to see her father. He is a mess, drunk, and wants more money from Edgar (who has been sending funds), and Cathy refuses as he will just gamble it away. She throws coins on the floor for him and he has to crawl on the floor to collect them. He mocks her “tawdry geegaws” (jewels) and that she has not had any children.
A year later, Cathy, Isabella and Nelly are exchanging Christmas gifts at Thrushcroft Grange. Isabella has given Cathy a homemade pop-up book of decoupage including an unintentionally sexual rose and mushroom.
Cathy tells Edgar that she is pregnant.
Later in her bedroom she sits on the bed and hears a cracking sound. Looking under the covers she finds broken eggs – she knows Heathcliff is back as this was a trick she played on him years before. Yes Heathcliff is BACK! And now he is rich and dressed like a gentleman.
She rushes back to Wuthering Heights through thick mist. Heathcliff is at the house. He seems to have the upper hand now. She invites Heathcliff for dinner at Thrushcroft Grange. It is five years since he left. He’s not talkative and it’s an awkward meal. Isabella looks to be fantasising about him. He tells them he has bought Wuthering Heights.
Isabella is falling for Heathcliff and when Cathy warns her off for her own safety she retorts that Cathy is a dog in the manger.
There’s a stabbed doll in the dollshouse and it’s the Cathy doll.
A storm is raging. At Wuthering Heights Mr Earnshaw mocks Heathcliff telling the man he had brought Heathcliff to Wuthering Heights to make a gentleman of him but Heathcliff will only ever be Cathy’s pet.
Mr Earnshaw has died. Cathy is at Wuthering Heights. The corners are piled high with empty alcohol bottles. He is lying on the floor and she kicks him in anger. She walks off into the pouring rain and Heathcliff follows her, picking her up and carrying her to their arch. He wraps her in his coat to keep her dry, and she asks him why he left her. He admits he heard her saying that to marry him would degrade her. She tells him he didn’t hear the whole conversation and she had also said that she loved him. She tells him she loves him and they kiss. He is angry and says she has broken her own heart and by so doing his also broken his. He asks her to kiss him again “and let us both be damned”. They kiss.
Mr Earnshaw is buried in the moorland graveyard, a gothic triumph of misery, rain and black-clad mourners. Cathy and Heathcliff slip away and kiss behind a rock as the sextons bury her father.
Back at the house Nelly asks her to be careful and Cathy tells her Heathcliff doesn’t know she is pregnant.
Cathy and Heathcliff start meeting up for sex. He climbs into her bedroom, they meet in the Linton carriage, and on the moors. The risk is all hers though: “you are not worried, you cannot feel the flames at your feet”, she tells him. They have sex in Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff tells her that night before he left he knew Nelly knew he was listening at the door as she saw him, which means that all along Nelly knew he had only heard half the story.
Cathy confronts Nelly that she knew Heathcliff was listening that night, and tells her to inform Edgar she will be finding a new position. Nelly instead goers to Edgar and tells him what has been going on between Cathy and Heathcliff.
Edgar doesn’t openly confront Cathy but tells her she cannot see Heathcliff any more. She knows he knows and acquiesces to his demands. Heathcliff is waiting on the moors but she never comes.
One night there is a sudden crack in a window at Thrush Grove. She claims it is a lost swallow and goes outside to look. Heathcliff is outside and they kiss out of sight of Edgar though he soon comes out and tells her to come back inside, concerned about their son. This is how Heathcliff finds out Cathy is pregnant.
Cathy and Heathcliff meet again in the empty galleries of Thrushcroft Grove. Heathcliff asks if the baby is his and she tells him she knew she was pregnant before he returned. They have sex and he offers to kill Edgar, asking Cathy to tell him to do it.
Cathy tells him she has degraded herself and finishes it with him. He tells her he loves her but “it is too late – you are too late”.
It is stormy and rainy. Heathcliff climbs into Isabella’s window at Thrushcroft Grange. He asks her if she knows “how this works” and offers to show her. He explains he is rough, cruel, cold and unfeeling but she does not want him to stop. He tells her he will marry her to torment Cathy.
Isabella and Heathcliff run away to get married and then return to Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff puts Isabella on the kitchen table and even invites Joseph to stay in the room with them. Isabella sends Nelly a letter saying how awful her marriage is. Nelly seems to be getting turned on reading about the degradations. Heathcliff cannot write and tells her to write again, and Isabella mocks his illiteracy.
Nelly tells Edgar Isabella wants to see him but he won’t go. He also tells Nelly to tell Cathy, moping in her room, and refusing food, to pull herself together.
Cathy tells Nelly the baby has gone, but as she hasn’t bled Nelly doesn’t believe her.
Nelly goes to Wuthering Heights and finds Isabella chained up, yelping like a dog. Heathcliff has “found his match in degradation”. Nelly wants Isabella to leave and come home to Grange but she says she’s home.
Heathcliff gets Isabella to write repeated letters to Cathy – offering a truce, and that he loves her and will wait for her – but Nelly intercepts them and burns them. Heathcliff resorts to hiding under Cathy’s bed at Wuthering Heights as he did as a child.
On a stormy night Cathy, sickly in her bedroom, looks out of her window trough the billowing curtains and sees the young Heathcliff below in the garden asking “why did you do it?”
Nelly, fed up with Cathy lying in bed, tries to get her up and pulls off the cover. She sees Cathy’s legs are horribly marked. She calls Edgar – it is septicaemia and the baby has died inside her. Nelly admits Cathy told her ages ago she knew the baby had died. Edgar is furious at Nelly and her behaviour.
Edgar has summoned the doctor. Nelly admits to Cathy she did mean her cruelty and Cathy says she won’t tell. She whispers to Nelly, who travels to Wuthering Heights to get Heathcliff.
He rides madly across the moors to Cathy. Nelly gets Isabella into the carriage to bring her home. Reaching Cathy, he tells her she will be well tomorrow. He strokes her hair as she dies. A tear on her face rolls down past her freckle, the freckle Edgar had pointed out on the skin-like wallpaper of Cathy’s bedroom when she moved in.
Edgar is sitting with Cathy. She has died, her body surrounded by what looks like black blood from haemorrhage. Cathy only imagined Heathcliff reaching her in time and still he battles the moors on his horse.
Edgar finds the newly arrived Heathcliff outside and says he is sorry. Heathcliff threatens to kill him. Edgar warns Heathcliff not to go into Cathy’s room but he does. She is under a satin sheet. He raises it and sees her dead grey face. He calls her name than calls for a doctor. He asks her to “be with me always take any form drive me mad”. He remembers memories from their childhood together, eventually lying on the bed together when he had been beaten by Mr Earnshaw as a boy. The child Heathcliff tells her he will love her til he dies, and forever after. He sleeps and Cathy holds his hand and smiles.
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The book’s ending
Without going into too much detail on book/film differences, the novel actually finishes (relatively) happily. Briefly: Cathy does die soon after giving her birth to her baby girl whom Edgar names Cathy, but there is a second story that covers the years following. The now-adult Cathy Linton falls in love with Hareton Earnshaw. He is the son of older Cathy’s brother Hindley Earnshaw and his wife Frances, both now dead. At this stage young Cathy is already a widow having been forced to marry Linton Heathcliff, Isabella and Heathcliff’s sickly son. Linton and Heathcliff both die. Heathcliff and Cathy’s ghosts are reportedly seen on the moors.
Emerald Fennell’s film doesn’t follow the second generational at all, and also has no Hindley. (Hindley is an awful bully, and his character is, in the film, transposed into his father Mr Earnshaw – who is nice in the book!)