Wuthering Heights or Wuthering... Lows? You be the judge!

Season 2 is here and we're diving straight in... to the muck and mud of the English moors! In this episode we explore the wild adaptation of the classic book Wuthering Heights, starring Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, and ... a lot of hand-in-mouth play. 

Give us your take on this controversial new film in the comments!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Thank you so much for joining us today on Pops Not Hill Until 6. Pitch us your healthy ever after. Leave us a rating or review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find more from us by following me, Veronica, on Instagram at the.dressrehearsal, or you can support us on Patreon at the DressRearsal Studio. We'd like to extend to David. I am joined by community past and present community educator. And we all of the English humor for listening.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

How are you? Pretty done. And let me do your special little Wuthering Heights themed intro. I am joined by the one and only ghost of Wuthering Heights, Veronica Dress. She's a sexuality educator. Coach. Sexuality educator. Coach and intimacy director for stage and screen. How are you doing today, Veronica?

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Look at it. You know, I am filled with so many feelings after watching this movie. I watched Wuthering Heights, the new 2026 Margot Robbie, Jacob Alordi version this very morning. So I am fresh. I am fresh off of this wild ride.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

I watched it. Yeah, I, as someone who read the book, I have lots of thoughts and feelings.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Thank goodness you did. I was supposed to in junior year of high school and never did. I took the quiz though, and it did not go well. I was just writing down words. I think it's a good idea. About whether it be well, for those who haven't read nor seen, do you want to give us our little quickie, our little quickie summary before we dive into a lot of the messages?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

So yeah, I'll do our little, here's our you know, Wikipedia plagiarized segment of the show. We're trying to give credit, but I suppose I don't know if it still counts as plagiarization. Anyway, moving right along, Wuthering Heights is a 2026 romantic period drama film, which I would say is very different genre names from the book, but anyway, written, directed, produced by Emerald Fennel, loosely, loosely based on the 1847 novel by Emily Bronte. Okay, and I thought this quote is really important, so I'm including it here. Apparently, Emerald Fennel said that the point of the film is to quote, recreate the feeling of a teenage girl reading this book for the first time. Which is kind of wild to me, but I feel like that's important for our discussion today. It stars, like you said, Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw, Jacob Elordi as Heath Cliff. The film has received mixed reviews. I'm sure our reviews will be mixed today, too. But the year is 1771, Catherine Earnshaw and her paid companion Nellie Dean, who is a lord's illegitimate daughter, are attending a public hanging. The hanged man's suffering and visible erection sends spectators, including Catherine and Nellie, into an ecstatic frenzy. Later, we see the gothic windswept estate of Wuthering Heights on the Yorkshire moors, where Catherine lives. One day, her father, an abrasive alcoholic man named Mr. Earnshaw, returns with a young boy he rescued off the Liverpool streets, and he says the boys to be Kathy's pet. Cathy becomes very protective and possessive, names him Heathcliff after her deceased brother. As time goes on, they become inseparable after they're trapped in the rain and return home late on Mr. Earnshaw's birthday one year. Heathcliff takes all the blame and receives a whipping that leaves his back permanently scarred. Time skip, years later, Wuthering Heights has fallen into disrepair due to Earnshaw's worsening alcoholism and gambling. Kathy plans to court her new neighbor, wealthy textile merchant Edgar Linton, to escape Wuthering Heights' bleak environment and to help bring the lowly servant Heathcliff, now long-haired and bearded, into high society. But Heathcliff is, of course, very jealous and disapproves. Kathy sprains her ankle while she's spying on Edgar and his ward, Isabella, and is taken in for six weeks to heal. Apparently she's hamming it up and she's not actually all that injured. Edgar is smitten with her because she's Margot Robbie, who wouldn't be. He proposes marriage. She accepts. She returns home. She's very fancily dressed, and Heathcliff is seething and brooding. Kathy, this is where we get our BDSM scene. Kathy sees two of the servants having a BDSM encounter in the barn. Heathcliff finds her and lays on top of her and covers her mouth with his hand to keep her silent. Later, Kathy then goes off to the moors and masturbates. Heathcliff finds her sort of in the moment, sort of shortly after. She's embarrassed. They have a passionate moment, but she rejects his kiss. While expressing her guilt to Nellie about choosing Edgar over Heathcliff, Nellie goades Catherine into saying that it would degrade her to marry the impoverished Heathcliff. Kathy doesn't realize he's right outside the door and has heard her. He storms off before he can also hear Kathy say, their souls are entwined. And much to her sorrow, the now heartbroken Heathcliff rides off into the sunset before she can tell him that actually she changed her mind and wants to call off the wedding. A year later, Kathy is married to Edgar. She lives a lavish lifestyle at their home, Thrushcross Grange, where her room's walls are made to resemble her skin. She lives in a room of flesh. Isabella arranges for fine dresses for Kathy and does also make a Kathy doll with Kathy's own real-life hair. Kathy is dreaming of Heathcliff and can't wait for him to return. Years later, Kathy's pregnant with Edgar's child. Heathcliff returns. It's now five years after his departure. He's well groomed, he has short hair, and he has a mysterious fortune that he's acquired. And an earring. Important. And an earring. I think it does a lot for him. He is bitter and angry over Kathy's decision to marry Edgar. He's really snied and snarky with her. And he's considering marrying Isabella to make Kathy jealous. He also purchases Wuthering Heights from Mr. Earnshaw, who then dies shortly after that. Kathy visits and kicks her father's body, but later she's regretful and sad. Isabella is infatuated with Heathcliff because of the earring, I think, mainly. And Isabella general bad boy demeanor. She's very sheltered. She lashes out at Kathy after she tells her that Heathcliff isn't good for her, that she can't handle Heathcliff. She says something like, He would eat you live. Which it's kind of true. Anyway, Kathy later finds the Kathy doll stabbed and bloody in the dollhouse. And Heathcliff and Kathy begin an intense sexual affair. This is our montage of many different sex scenes between them, and where people talk about all of the constant licking that Jacob El Lordy has to do in this movie. It's a whole lot of licking.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

It's a lot of licking. And a lot of finger play. We'll talk more about that.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

After Kathy realizes Nellie knew Heathcliff was listening when Kathy said marrying him would degrade her, she tries to fire Nellie. Nellie reveals the affair to Edgar, who forbids Kathy from seeing Heathcliff and from firing Nellie. Kathy reveals her pregnancy to Heathcliff, who claims not to mind. They have a very interesting sex scene where he also is talking about killing Edgar the whole time. Kathy ultimately says, but seriously don't kill Edgar, and ends the affair with him. Heathcliff is furious. He enters a loveless BDSM relationship with Isabella. Loveless was added by the Wikipedia article, although it does seem quite exploitative. There's a lot to address.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

We can unpack. We can unpack.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

So he enters this relationship with Isabella. She seems to understand the terms of the relationship and Heathcliff's real motivations for starting it, and does consent to participation. Heathcliff degrades Isabella and treats her like a dog, which Nellie finds horrifying when she visits. Depressed over Heathcliff marrying Isabella, Kathy locks herself in her room and starves herself. Heathcliff has Isabella send Kathy love letters, but Nellie keeps intercepting them and burning them. Kathy eventually miscarries and becomes septicemic from lack of treatment because Nellie thought she was just being dramatic and lying about the loss of the child. She tells Nellie, she forgives her treason of not telling her that Heathcliff overheard Kathy's hurtful words. Nellie's racked with guilt when she realizes Kathy is actually dying and heads off to Wuthering Heights to rescue Isabella and tell Heathcliff that Kathy's dying. He rides out on horseback, only to find when he arrives, it's raining, it's raining, it's dramatic. But she's already dead. He holds Kathy's dead body and begs her to drive him mad and not give him peace as long as he should live. Flashback to a childhood memory of the two of them laying in bed after his beating. They're going to sleep. Kathy had comforted him. And she seems to be asleep, but smiles when he promises to never leave her and to love her for the rest of his life. End of film. It ends right there.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

End of film.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

So yeah, tell me.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Before we go into before we go into the discrepancies between the film and the book, because I feel like for those who have read or loved the book, it would be, we would be remiss to not acknowledge those differences before diving more deeply into conversation. But before we do that, overarching vibes, feelings.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Tell me, I want to hear how you felt at the end of the movie. Because you sent me a text and you said, wait, they both die sad. Tell me more about what was happening for you.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

It's just a bummer, you know? It's just a bummer of a film. Well, I think that because this book is kind of pitched as a young teenage girl romance, right? I I put it, and this might be because of the same English class, also read Pride and Prejudice, which I also did not read. But that one, I I that one I watched the mini-series, which had a lot of the same dialogue. It was yeah. Because of that association I have with Pride and Prejudice and it being like this like Bronte sister romance. I think I figured somebody's together in the end.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Not the case here, pretty explicitly.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

No, and that's why I was I'm I'm pretty shocked. I guess not shocked in the way that so many toxic relationships get really romanticized. Wuthering Heights, the book, is not a romance. It is sort of suspenseful ghost story. It's sort of like gothic things, like slow creeping obsession. When the book starts, it does that thing that a lot of these old gothic stories do, where some rando guy is like visiting at the end of it all.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

And so he's and telling the story.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yes, and then someone tells him the story of what happened. So Kathy's dead. Heathcliff is living at Wuthering Heights with her daughter, and her ghost is perhaps haunting him and Wuthering Heights.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

So Kathy's the ghost in the book.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Okay. Well, I didn't do well on this quiz.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

No, which is is fair, and I agree. So also I feel like this bookslash movie gets a little bit of the Lolita treatment where it is not a book that portrays this relationship positively, I don't think. Like, but then somehow through cultural osmosis, it becomes a weird idealization of a very problematic relationship. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, what other themes or thoughts do you have just up top overall about the film?

SPEAKER_02 13:22

As someone who did not know anything about the book except for what I've just shared, I was able in a different way to watch the movie for just what the movie was. And I recognize that if I had read the book and knew more about the controversy that I then read about after I watched the movie, my experience would be vastly different. I think, in terms of the movie itself, it was beautiful to look at. It was very similar in experience to the Marie Antoinette movie with Kirsten Dunst that came out in the early 2000s, in that it is just like a visual feast for the eyes. It is so beautifully shot. The colors are stunning, right? The colors are stunning, the just like, yeah. It was just a beautiful set of pictures to look at. I was unsettled by their relationship from the jump. And I get frustrated by books that are really like near misses of relationships. I think I struggle with those. So your Romeo and Juliet style, where it's like, oh, if he had gone to the city. If they had only just talked for two minutes, he would have known she was not really dead, right? I struggle with those because the whole time I'm sitting there being like, if you love Heathcliff so much, go fucking find him. Go find him. And I know it was more complicated because she had no money, no prospects. Another part of prejudice reference. But her only prospect was this wealthy neighbor who happened to show up. And when we say neighbor, we mean like three miles or something within five miles. Right? So I think it was fun. Seen or like really beautifully, fun's not the word. The sex scenes were really beautifully shot. There were interesting choices made that were cool to look at, and it was really pretty.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

And Margot Robbie, I could watch like a close-up of her face for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

I just love Margot Robbie, is my takeaway. I know.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Yeah, she's perfect. So those are like my like overarching things. Was like, wow. If I just played the Charlie XCX soundtrack and muted the movie and had it playing to the soundtrack, I think that would be a great experience. I feel good about that.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah, I will say it did the anachronisms bothered me. The music not like going sort of back and forth between being period drama and modern music with lyrics. I didn't like that. I didn't like the back and forth, like very old English-y dresses, and then also like modern fashion materials and things. It was a little all over for me. But I agree. Overall, it was very beautiful. It was well shot. It was a very artful film, I suppose. But the content was wild. Are you ready to hear some of the book bullet points?

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Take me, take me to the controversy.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Okay, so here we go. Let's go through bullet point super fast about the book. Keeping in mind, okay, if this film that we just described is supposed to be the feeling of a teenage girl reading this book for the first time. This is a book by Emily Bronte that came out in 1847. Contemporary reviews were really polarized. It was controversial because of its depiction of mental and physical cruelty, domestic abuse, and how it was challenging to Victorian morality, religion, and the class system. I would say it's more like mystery, suspense, drama, maybe a little horror. Very gothic, not really romance. Yeah. So a teen girl's reading this. Point one, Heathcliff is ethnically ambiguous in the book.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Okay. So the first big difference. Secondly, he's treated as Mr. Earnshaw's favorite when he gets adopted, to the point that Mr. Earnshaw neglects Catherine and her older brother, who is living. Heathcliff and Catherine still grow much closer over time. Catherine's mother dies, and her older brother relentlessly beats up and bullies Heathcliff.

unknown 17:45

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Mr. Earnshaw dies. Catherine's older brother and his wife take over Wuthering Heights. They force Heathcliff to live as a servant and abuse him.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Oh. Edgar's Cinderella story for him.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Yes, a little bit. Yes. If Heathcliff is Cinderella, yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Yes, he's Cinderella.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Edgar and his sister Isabella live at Thrushcross. God, Thrush Cross Grange. I don't know why that gets me every time I have to slowway down.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

At the neighbor's house.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

At the neighbor's house. Catherine and Heathcliff are both intrigued and go spy on them. Catherine does get injured, but Heathcliff gets sent away. Edgar and Catherine's brother both make fun of Heathcliff and abuse him. So Edgar sucks to Heathcliff from the jump in the book.

unknown 18:33

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Heathcliff gets banished to an attic and then swears he's going to have his revenge. The engagement to Edgar, Nellie and Catherine talking about Heathcliff's low social status being a difficult thing for her wanting to marry him, Heathcliff overhearing it and fleeing the household. That's all more or less the same. But there's a whole inheritance drama about the neighbor's manor, thrushcross grange, and Edgar and Isabella's fortune. That's not super important here, but there that's a whole thing. Okay. Years pass. Edgar and Catherine marry. Heathcliff does indeed return weirdly wealthy out of nowhere. He flirts with Isabella to try to revenge himself on Edgar. Not Catherine.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Do we in the book know that in the book, do we know that Heathcliff and Catherine are in love with each other?

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah, they they spend a lot more time in the book on this idea that like their souls are made of the same stuff that they're like into.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Which is a cute that's a sweet line. I liked the less.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

And you get a little bit of that in the movie from how they they can be very cruel in the same ways. And yeah, there's clearly a lot of closeness and mutual dependency between them. But yeah, Catherine still does the same move where she starves herself out of despair. Heathcliff exploits Catherine's older brother's gambling issues to take over Wuthering Heights and does elope with Isabella. Catherine does get gravely ill and pregnant. Heathcliff does visit her in secret. She dies shortly after she does give birth to a daughter, which confusingly she names Kathy.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Weird. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Heathcliff is enraged and it does demand Catherine's ghost haunts him.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

That's the book.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Isabella, so that's where it ends, but it continues. The book is not over at that point.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Okay, that's where the movie ends. But the book continues.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Isabella's bitter about Heathcliff's obsession. She runs away. She gives birth to Heathcliff's son named Linton. She dies 12 years later. That child is now going to inherit the neighbor manor. Okay. Heathcliff insists his son come live with him at Wuthering Heights. So then Kathy's daughter and Heathcliff's son develop a relationship. Heathcliff schemes for them to marry so he can control both estates. Edgar dies. Kathy, the daughter, moves to Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff starts getting spiraling out of control. He reveals, okay, this is wild. I'm shocked they didn't have this in the movie. This would have been good. He reveals that at one point he dug up Catherine's grave in a grief-filled rage.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

What did he do with the body?

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Look, that's neither here nor there.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Blair! Does it tell us? Do we know?

SPEAKER_01 21:32

I don't I don't think so. To my memory, they're not super specific. They do the like Victorian thing where they use all this language, and you're like, wait, so he hold on, he what? Okay. So he digs her up. He has this whole thing where he's like obsessed. He's still clearly very much obsessed with Catherine. He like opens up the side of her coffin so that he can be buried basically inside her coffin with her when he dies.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Does he are we supposed To assume that when he digs her body up, that he has relations with the body?

SPEAKER_01 22:06

They don't go that far. They make it sound like he has this sort of like he cries, maybe kisses her, holds her, maybe lays in the coffin with her. But I don't get I didn't have the impression that he had sex with the corpse. That's the right. But she was remarkably preserved. Just like the Saints. Just like the Saints. Eventually, Heathcliff's son dies, and so now, I know it's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

And Heathcliff's still around? Yes, Heathcliff is still around. Does his does his like grumpiness and cruelty preserve him? My God.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Apparently. And then he and Catherine's daughter are stuck living together at Wuthering Heights with increasing hostility. Eventually Heathcliff dies when he just sort of like stops eating. He dies in Catherine's old room, and then locals will report seeing the ghosts of Catherine and Heathcliff together on the moors.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff are all buried side by side by side.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Thruple.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Thruple. Catherine in the middle. That's the end of the book.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

That book has very little to do with anything that happened in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Loosely based. And also wild to me, a teenage girl's experience reading the book for the first time. I mean, maybe if the teenage girl went on fanfiction.net and wrote a fanfiction about it.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

But it has very, very little to do with the actual book.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Right. And if the book is a commentary on class and race, we have maybe there's a conversation on class that happens around like the decisions that people have to make in order to secure a livelihood, right? I think that a lot of period pieces we'll explore have that element, and historically, you know, that's a thing. However, Jacob Alord is a white guy.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Right. He's a white guy. They're all white. They don't really get into. Yeah, there's like a brief mention that, like, but Heathcliff's poor, so I obviously can't marry him. They don't get into the whole, like, he's only mistreated in the movie by Catherine and her dad. Nobody else is like shitty to him because he's poor or orphaned or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

No. So they don't really actually have that discussion.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

No. Yeah. The if the whole reason everyone is shitty to him in the book has to do with his race, this ain't it. And also the only people of color in the movie are people we're not supposed to like as the audience, which I take great issue with, right? Like Edgar, I mean, Edgar, I think we're supposed to feel neutral, mild to moderate about, right? He's like the classic, well-meaning rich guy who makes sense to marry, but you don't love, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:15

He's just moved toast.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

But Nellie is kind of a big villain in some of her decision making, or we're made to see her as a villain.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

And given the whitewashing of the film, like that's so fucked.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Yeah, it's very fucked up. And yeah, and Nellie is sort of a mixed character in the book, the way I recall it, but it the book seems to paint a much firmer picture of the way in which being trapped in these secluded locations with the same people can bring out a lot of cruelty and viciousness and pettiness between people. And they treat each other in remarkably cruel ways that are also very mundane and boring. Like it's the horrors of domestic life in this time period. Yes. And that's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

I think the most that we the most we see that symbolized or alluded to, I think, is through Isabella. When Margot Robbie moves in after getting married to Edgar, when Kathy moves in with them, they're getting a tour of the place and all of the changes they've made to welcome Kathy to it. And Isabella, who in the movie is like a ward of like cousin, niece, I don't know. They're not related, but there's some sort of sense of obligation and duty to house her. She's presented at first as maybe a little childlike, but I think mostly like quirky, slightly unhinged lady who's making dolls out of people's hair and has a dollhouse that she's made that's a direct replica of all of them.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Their actual house.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Right. To the point that there's a a scene where like they're standing in real life next to the dollhouse, and the dolls are in the same room in the dollhouse next to a dollhouse. Like it's scaly.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

All of her play is even confined to the house. Her whole life is just that house.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Right. And so we I think we get to see an allusion to that. That perhaps, if not examined, just shouts out to like Isabelle's Isabelle's a quirky girl. But the reality is, is like what a desolate existence. There's not a drop of sunshine the whole time. They're on these moors that are stunning, but also sad, true, truly gothic and like secluded and violent in their own way, right? Like dangerous to traverse. Yeah, I am curious. I am curious the the decision and the choices to completely shift it to be a moody, tragic, kinky romance, besides financial reasons. Like this would be a more titillating film to create for pop culture in America.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Right. Well, and that's what I mean when I say I'm I'm thinking a lot about how the director was saying it's meant to be a reflection of a teenage girl's first time reading this book. And it kind of does make me think about like young, young people. I know I've had similar experience, for example, with Lolita, reading Lolita as a young person and not having the type of education that really gets into why it's problematic and how, like, what is toxic about this relationship, like what is unhealthy, what is abusive and controlling about this relationship that is concerning and what makes this author unreliable, or the narrator rather. And the same way with Wuthering Heights, I could see how if you're a kid and you're reading it and you're like getting confused, and there's like two Catherines and Kathy's and all this bullshit that's like I don't know, the thing you fixate on is when they say this thing of like, our souls are made of the same stuff. Like, oh, so Heathcliff and Catherine are like meant to be. Right. And you can gloss over so much obsession and cruelty and mistreatment and jealousy, and just say, Well, yeah, but I guess that's romantic, right? Because they're meant to be.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Right, right. And uh the whole premise is such a gray incestual area.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

That if even if those other things weren't true, right? Even if we flash forward to them as adults and they treat each other beautifully and are just victims of circumstance, it would still be a complicated dynamic that literally this poor, abused, traumatized young boy is brought to this home as a present, as an object, as a pet to this girl who calls him hers and very clearly treats him as something that belongs to her. And they both use that language even in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_02 30:42

That, like, no, he belongs to me. I gave him his name, right? All of that exactly is feels very, very complicated and seems like a trauma response. More than anything.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Like, even if they had a delightful relationship together, that that's really the thing that's binding them together, less so than like a genuine. We have a lot in common. We have the same interests, we make each other feel like nice and supported and respected.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

And are raised as brother and sister.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah. Yeah. It's tricky. I'll say that. Well, and the book ends with cousins marrying, because Kathy and Edgar's daughter marries Isabella and Heathcliff's son.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Which I guess was more common in the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

I uh if period dramas are to be believed and the Habsburgs are to be believed, then yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Yeah. Yeah. And so it feels it feels very confusing, even as an adult who thinks about this stuff all of the time, right? To see there are glimmers, even in the movie, of I think real direct consent forward communication that I liked to see. And at the same time a lack of acknowledgement of all of the moving pieces that are at odds with people being able to choose willingly and freely, but that is seen as like passion forward and glorified. It feels like there's like a 50 shades of gray ethication of this story happening in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Yes, it feels like that, and it feels like the same thing that seemed to happen around Harley Quinn and the Joker when there were a lot of those movies coming out where people were like, they're like ride or die for each other, and that's all that matters. And and not paying any attention to that that they treat each other horribly. It's a very abusive, bad relationship and not something to be aspired to. I think you're right. Even as an adult who thinks a lot about these things, watching this movie, there's times when you're like, oh, but they are perfect. Why don't they just find each other and like run away together? They should just do that. And also there's times when the way they talk to each other is so uncomfortable and like hateful.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Mm-hmm. Right. It's very maybe an accurate depiction of how complicated it is when people who have endured great abuse together or separately are trying to be in relationship. I think it's a depiction of that. However, it's not we aren't it is not packaged in that way. It is packaged as look at this love. God.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

What an intense, undying, find you in every lifetime kind of love. But then when they are together, when they're not fucking, they are shit to each other.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah. Yeah. And I guess it also is similar to those kinds of relationships people can find themselves in where they're like, but my partner is so hot and the sex is so great, but also we kind of hate each other's guts the rest of the time, and we're not sure what to do about that. Because culturally, we conflate so much of like sexual chemistry and romantic love as a one-to-one.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Yes. And that it's a when there is violent behavior, it's kind of like, look what you made me do. Yeah. It's very victim-blamey sort of narrative that I don't know. I don't know that any a lot of that is depicted and not a lot of it is explored. And I think that there's a difference in that, right? Like, is this am I supposed to consume this as a romp that's slutty and like a bodice ripper? Or am I supposed to take this film as a commentary on all of these things? It sounds like the book was a commentary on all of these things. And the movie said, What if you vaguely heard about Wuthering Heights a few times and wanted to make like a a romanticy uh bodice ripper with those people's names is basically what happened.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Right. Like this movie summary sounds to me like what you might have put on your quiz as what happened in Wuthering Heights when you heard classmates talking a little bit about it here and there, and you didn't actually read it.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Correct. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Yeah. So in that sense, I guess I see the like young, a young girl's experience reading it for the first time is also maybe being a little confused. Like, wait, is this a love story or is this like bad? I am a little confused what's going on in here.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Mm-hmm. Is is the director a woman?

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Yes. Emerald? Emerald Fennel, she did Barbie.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

She acted in Barbie. As well as What? She was in Call the Midwife. I love me some Call the Midwife, I tell you what. Okay. Here we are.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

It really shifts my experience of the movie now, knowing all the things I know. Look at learning. Look at what learning can do for us.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Say more about the shift, Veronica. I want to hear it.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Watching the movie, knowing nothing about the plot, just knowing vaguely there was controversy around it that I wanted to wait until after I watched the movie to read about. I experienced the movie as visually beautiful with a great soundtrack. And as an intimacy coordinator, there were some really cool sex scene moments that I thought were like interesting choices. So I'm over here making notes like, I'll read you some of the notes I took.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Yeah, yeah. I want to hear your notes, especially your intimacy coordinating notes. I'm curious about that.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

There's a moment where he blocks the rain out of her eyes with his hand, like they're having a conversation while it's raining outside, and she's looking up at him talking, and he just like almost makes a little umbrella out of his hands and puts them above her eyebrows so that she's not getting rain in her eyes, which is so tender and such a small, not small physical storytelling moment. He licks her cum hand after she masturbates. He literally lifts her by her corset.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Yeah, that was wild.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

The hands over her eyes and over her mouth while she's kind of being a little voyeur to the servants that are fucking in the like carriage house beneath them was super complicated. I mean, it was a really erotic and tension-building scene, but it was super complicated because the first time we see them together as children, he is hiding under her bed and pulls her under the bed and covers her mouth with his hands there. So this is the second time we see him doing that, and it's in a much more like erotic setting. And I think that again really complicates, continues to complicate this uh family of origin incest dynamic thing that's happening. There's a wall lick that happens in their house because Edgar's like, I wanted them to paint the room the most beautiful color in the world, which is your skin, which now knowing, knowing and all the whitewashing in this film, they have the audacity to call this white woman's skin the most beautiful color in the world. Tricky. And when, listener, when we say, Oh, they painted the room the color of her skin, I'm saying there's freckles painted on the wall.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Yes, there's like it looks like fabric, it looks like pulled fabric that's like canvas, so it really feels like flesh in a way.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Yes, it does, because it's like squishy, and then she and Jacob Alordi, aka Heathcliff, are fucking in that room. He's licking her face essentially by licking the wall. He's very lick forward in this film, yeah. But the whole time, I'm like, the audacity that they're fucking in her house with Edgar across the hall, presumably, is audacious to me. There's a lot of hands going in mouths, which was hot. However, it is not a clean.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

No, I was concerned about that as well. I was like, did they wash them?

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Probably not.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

No, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:06

And if they did, there's no antimicrobial soaps.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

That's got all that more bacteria, all up under those.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

We got more bacteria. We got him working the land. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Farming. Listen, if she's farm animals.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Exactly. And blood of said farm animals.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

I'm just saying. It feels like if she wasn't gonna die in childbirth, she's gonna die from some sort of uh sucking on the children. Not even sexually trans sexually transmitted, just like in the act of sex, he's sticking his dirty hands in her mouth.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

She didn't catch TV or something from that. I don't know. Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Consumption.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Truly. So that was distracting to me. It was also really interesting to see the commingling of violent morbidity and death and the erotic was really tangled up. Like the whole film starts with while it's still just like a black screen with credits, we hear these noises that one is supposed to think it are sex noises, but then we come to and we see that the man being hung hasn't died fully. And those are his noises struggling to breathe. And everyone is starting to get excited and aroused because when apparently when you don't when your neck doesn't break and you're struggling to breathe, like it the people will get erections, I guess, as they are. I guess.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

I don't know if that's true.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

I have not, I'm not a dramaturg. I did not cross-check these facts.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

And so everyone's looking at this guy's erection, and for that to be some of the earliest connection of arousal and genitals that young Kathy is seeing, or that anyone is seeing, as like entertainment.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

There's a lot of kids there.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

A lot of kids there. This was like going to the movies, really, I think. Was like, well, what else is going on? Let's see who's getting hung. Hanged. I'm sorry. Murdered in the public. Murdered in the public square. I I yeah, I'm just super aware of that co-mingling throughout the whole film, right? We see like the blood splattering of the pig that they're killing. And then while he is like, I guess, cutting this pig up, she walks by and they have this like close tense.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Because he like stops her and won't let her pass.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

Exactly. And they're having this like moment, and all the servants are just looking at each other like, these fucking kids, like, this is so weird.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Right next to this dead pig, right? Like, I feel like throughout the film, this brutality and death and violence is intrinsically connected to their experience of desire and arousal.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

But I don't know that it I don't know how they could have depicted it in a different way that would have shown us that it was a commentary on it rather than just presenting it as.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Yeah, there it is. Yeah, well, especially when we have some sex scenes and like sexual tension, like you said, that's depicted as like we, as the audience, seem intended to find it erotic as well, and to to root for the couple to some extent. And then we have these sort of bland sex scenes that she has with Edgar, where then she'll have him cover her eyes and mouth, presumably fantasizing about Heathcliff. And then we have this what I thought was a very negative portrayal of a BDSM relationship between. Isabella and Heathcliff, because everyone is reacting to it as like, wow, how horrific. This is awful. And Heathcliff is like, Yeah, yeah, write to them about what we're doing over here so they'll get so scared and have to come see. Like that that was depicted so negatively, I don't know. It does make it seem more like they're sort of saying, Yeah, violence and this sexual tension is just it kind of is, it's kind of fun, right?

SPEAKER_02 44:27

That's interesting. I was really struck by the way they did the Isabella Heathcliff kink experience. Because without, if there hadn't been moments where we see the joy and mirth that Isabella is experiencing in the dynamic, it would be more cut and dry for me that, like, ugh, this is kind of like a shitty BDSM kink negative portrayal.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

We see the characters around them experience it that way.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

But we also see like they're doing straight up puppy play at this point, and Nellie is like, let me take you with me. And she winks at her and she's like, I am home. Right. There's like a there's a choosing that we see Isabella do that I think was different than I would I expected, given everything else in this film. Even as she's writing the letter, and they have this back and forth about how he can't write or read. She they say something. I forget what it is that they say.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

She's like, then you'll be nice to me after I write this one.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

And she pulls him into her for this really like mischievous kiss that I think disrupts maybe some of the power dynamic BDSM negative portrayal that maybe we see in other depictions of BDSM in pop culture. Like they're that felt different to me than being as cut and dry. But I don't know. I think that's a valid read too, though, that like, oh, everyone is looking at Kink and BDSM as monstrous in this film.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

I guess I just feel sort of like you're saying it the film was maybe not super clear where they're where they're landing in their intent with it. Because, like you said, there's this mix of like, I agree. I really liked that Heathcliff was very, very direct with her. He said, This is what I'm gonna do. Do you want me to stop? And she said, No. And he did that. I love taps. It's gonna be he was he laid out the whole contract. This is what it's gonna be. Do you want me to stop? Because I'll just dip right back out your bedroom window. If so. And she repeatedly is like, No, I'm on board. I'm on board with this. And like you said, when even when Nellie comes, and Nellie's like, oh my god, you're degrading yourself so much. Like, Isabella's having fun. And Heathcliff is like, bro, she wants to be here. And he like drops her little puppy collar chain. And she still just stays. It's not like she flees at the first chance she gets.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

So it's on on the one hand, it does seem like Isabella at a minimum is fully consenting and happy to be in what she's in. And also, because of how they've been portraying her as this like odd, like butt of the joke a lot of the time, I wasn't certain if they were doing the same here, as like she isn't even really getting how much Heathcliff is using her and making her like humiliating her, and like that the viewers meant to feel sorry for her rather than like she's allowed to make this kind of choice, and if she likes it, she likes it, and that's fine. They negotiated it pretty clearly, and she can leave, so it's all good. Like, I I just couldn't tell if the film was saying, no, she's allowed to do this, and it's fine, actually, no matter how the other people in the society see it, or if the film was saying, isn't she continuing to be this eccentric freak, for lack of a better like because that's how they put her in the beginning. She's like rambling, she's weird, she's not styled nearly as like put together and glamorous as Margot Robbie is.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

Right. And it may it makes me think of the question that is, because it it seems like a theme that we are continually butting up against, besides the like problematic whitewashing and like removal of an entire huge point of the story, right? Aside from that giant thing. Yeah. A theme that keeps coming up for us, it sounds like, is not being sure about the point of view of the director or storyteller, right? There are moments where it feels really clear that we as the audience are meant to feel turned on or horrified or scared, right? There are moments that feel clearer, but there are large swaths of the story that the point of view isn't very clear. And it makes me wonder is that something we are that we are entitled to or supposed to get from a film? Or is that the intention? I don't know. Right? There could there are some films where things are presented and it's like you get to decide how you feel about this or how the filmmaker wanted you to feel about it, versus something having a clear narrative to it. And I don't know, like, was that just crappy storytelling, or was that intentionally chosen? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

I mean, or or yeah, is it a poorly done, unreliable narrator in a film medium? Because I think you're right, like it there, we're not necessarily owed a perfectly clear laid out this is the meaning, this is the meaning, this is the point of view all the time. And I could I could see an argument that a teenage girl reading this book is going to be confused and is going to go back and forth a little bit about whether it seems exciting and and idealistic or whether it seems awful and scary, and that the the movie will also go back and forth a little bit about what it seems to be saying. I think there's an argument for that. I would I'd be more willing to believe that if there was like a little more inconsistency or back and forth. Like this amount of back and forth and vagueness feels accidental.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Versus like Yeah, it wasn't enough to be intentional.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

R yeah, to me at least, and you know, maybe it's unfair, but to keep coming back to Lolita, the unreliable narrator in that is extremely well done, and it is clear to an adult reader at least, that that he is an extremely unreliable narrator. Pretty quickly. He'll start saying things that he presents as 100% true and that he seems to fully believe, but that the reader can tell, like, okay, no, this guy's totally full of shit. There's no way. And I just feel like there would be a little more times where that doubt was seated more intentionally, especially early in. Because our establishing, like you said, our establishing moment of the film is that death is also erotic and exciting. That's what we start with. Not like how do you feel? It's not clear. Some people are scared, some people are excited, some people are this, or does he even actually have an erection, or is that something some people are like projecting onto him? Like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 52:02

Yeah. Mm-hmm. I do. And yeah. So if you were in high school right now, watching this movie for the first time, what messages might you be taking away? And what I guess is the gosh. What wishes, if you could wave your magic movie-making wand, what would you change about this story for young Blair watching it?

SPEAKER_01 52:37

I think if I'm a young person watching it, maybe the biggest thing I'm taking away is that intensity of feeling, good or bad, means love. So if you're a bit mean, if you're possessive, if you're jealous, if you lash out at other people because of how much you care about this one person, that's that's maybe kind of good. That just means how much you love them. And you can also be intense and positive toward the person you love, but being intense and controlling is just as loving. That's something that I I think and again, you know, what it was it rated R, you're not supposed to watch it unless you're at least 17, but that's never really how it works.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Right. What about Especially in the context of there being very little other direct and helpful conversation happening around relationships and sexuality in teen years, right? Like in terms of sex ed, in terms of just the culture of you know, the Epstein files being released around the same time that this movie comes out is just another ingredient in the cocktail that they inform each other, I think, in some ways.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

I guess I also would be taking that there's not really vanilla sex. There like is only that vanilla sex is boring because that's what she seems to have with Edgar, and kinky sex is the fun, good kind. Where you're like can be true to people. You're maybe getting caught. You're under time crunch, you're having an affair, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 54:25

Yeah, which like can be true, and it's about choosing it's like removing the hierarchy.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Yeah. One's not inherently better than the other. One might suit you better than the other, but it's not objectively better.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

Yes. Yeah, I think the takeaway message of intensity equals passion equals justification storyline feels very true here. And that to communicate respectfully and to have sex that is considerate is boring and bad, is very much a trope that is continued here. Oddly, I think the sex that we see the servants have, the first time that she sees kind of kink played out, feels like kind of a lovely depiction. We don't see a conversation that's happened ahead of time, but the way in which it happens, I think we're supposed to infer that this is not the first time they've done this particular style of role play. Right? Great term, great use of words because they put like the horse's bridle in her mouth, and she says, I think she says tighter.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 55:48

Which then we later see on Margot Robbie's wedding day, her punishing herself with the corset, saying tighter, tighter, right? There's so many, there are seeds of really cool commentary and storytelling, but I think to your point, the either there are not enough or there is not enough consistency in them to understand fully what is happening. And if the experience of a teenage girl watching this or reading this book for the first time is confused mixed messages, then I would say that they made the movie beautifully. Yeah. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

Potentially mission accomplished.

SPEAKER_02 56:26

I yeah, I would recast with the actual ethnicities and races that were a main plot point in this fo in this book from the jump. And I think even if you are telling a story that the answer is like, this is complicated, I think I I my wish would be if my movie making wand got to be a part of it, would be like, I I need more clarity in that through line.

unknown 56:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:55

Yeah, I need more clarity that you know it's complicated. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:01

Exactly. Yes. Because that gets to be a conversation starter. That gets to like have people leaving the theaters with some really juicy, like, well, what was that about? And like, is it okay that because he said directly, I'm going to do this to you, I'm going to do that to you? Is that okay? Is she in a position to choose freely in that situation? Because he just this giant seven-foot-tall man just snuck into your bedroom in the rain and is approaching upon you and undressing you while this conversation is happening. Is that like there could be really cool conversation starters for folks as they're leaving the theater if that narrative of confusion was more intentionally laid out. But instead, it feels like a patchwork quilt that the pieces could go together, but you're not sure really how.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

Yeah. Yeah. I think that that is how I feel too. It's just a little, a little too all over the place for me to feel confident.

SPEAKER_02 58:06

Yeah. I mean, my wish for the characters is that they when Heathcliff came back, Rich, that she'd be like, oh, uh, JK, I'm cool. Let's run away together. The end.

SPEAKER_01 58:17

Well, or frankly, even like if you still want to have a dark movie, and we're saying that it maybe has relatively little to do with the book. Okay, we're moving on from the book. The book is just the starting premise. And I would have had when he says he's having sex with her and saying, and I could kill Edgar. Don't you want me to kill Edgar? I kind of wish she had just said, Yeah, let's fucking do it.

SPEAKER_02 58:42

Go kill him. Right. I thought that's where we were going, and frankly, I was disappointed it didn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

Yeah. Yeah, let's fucking kill him and we'll leave. And he already said, Are you sure that it's not my kid? I'm low-key willing to just believe it's my kid or raise the child as if it's mine anyway.

SPEAKER_02 58:56

And they then they're on the lamb, they take off in a carriage through the moors to be continued.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

Yeah, that that's frankly, for the characters we have in here and still wanting to preserve a sort of dark, darker love story. That that's what I wish had happened.

SPEAKER_02 59:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:17

Perfect. That's just me.

SPEAKER_02 59:20

Alright. So how many stars are you given this one, Blair?

SPEAKER_01 59:24

Oh god. How many stars? Okay, out of how many? Are we doing a five or ten star? Five, baby. Five. Oh god, I feel mean. I'm gonna do two. Like Jacob Elordi, something about him, I have never gotten over him in euphoria, so I can't see him as anything other than sort of a douchebag. But he did a great job with the accent in this.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Um yeah, he got liver puddle in towards the end. At first he was a little Scottish as a child, but then once he came back with his earring and his gold tooth, it was very northern England. He was a straight up beetle, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:00

Good job. So I I'll give it two for the acting that everyone did. I'm taking away because of the press tour and the obsession and how unclear the messaging is.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:15

Yeah. I'm giving it for the visual feast of for the eyes and the costumes and the set and the camera work. I give that a five. I give everything else about it a two.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

The acting itself was stunning. Like the acting of the material was closer to a four. But like the material itself and the story it was telling and the kind of disjointed way in which that narrative was told, I will give a two.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Yeah, agree.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:49

Perfect. Where the new what is it, Cisco and Ebert? Is that them? The reading.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

I'm not educated enough to know who you're referring to.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:58

You know what? And that's the perfect thing to end on, Blair. Being brave enough to say, I don't have enough information to receive.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

I am brave enough to say, I am ignorant.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:10

Beautiful. And on that note, I think mom's on her way home, so let's get out of here. All right, see ya.

unknown 1:01:17

Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

Thank you so much for joining us today on Mom's Not Home Till Six. Pitch us your healthy ever after. Leave us a rating or review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find more from us by following me, Veronica, on Instagram at the.dressrehearsal, or you can support us on Patreon at the DressRehearsal Studio. We'd like to extend our gratitude to the queer and trans communities, past and present, who have made it possible to be the people we are today, and to you for listening. Now be sure to go change that TV channel to something appropriate. Catch you next time.