Like most classic novels, Wuthering Heights has seen several incarnations on both the big and small screen. Each would focus on one or more of the several themes Ms.Bronte dealt with: physical, verbal and psychological abuse, betrayal, cruelty, child neglect, discrimination, harsh weather and so on.
Fans of the novel have grown accustomed to slight disappointments when watching an adaptation, for none has ever been perfect. Let's just look at some of the various Heathcliffs: Lawrence Olivier's was too polished, Timothy Dalton's was quite believable until it was mutilated by poor script writing and a ridiculous change of ending, Ralph Fiennes' was too unlikely despite being so well acted, Tom Hardy's was too clean - literally, how did Heathcliff keep his face so grime-free with all the grunt work he was supposed to be doing?
But the acting was satisfactory when not superb, the story almost always faithful and you could tell these Heathcliffs tried hard.
Now, I don't want to be harsh on James Howson, this was his first film and the worst thing I can say is that it shows. You cannot blame a first-timer for his shortcomings: you must blame the director.
Andrea Arnold should have given her actors more direction and honed their abilities. Instead they appear to be mannequins placed in the middle of the moors - they hardly speak, they hardly move and nothing seems to happen for most of the time while we are shown cloudy footage of the Yorkshire moors. Which one can suppose are being used to emphasize the harshness of the environment surrounding the protagonists and therefore the harshness of the events playing out, as in the book. And for perhaps the first time in history they fail, for just five minutes into the film I felt them to be pointless and entirely void of atmosphere.
But here's Andrea Arnold's worst sin: Emily Bronte's characters have always been excessively flawed, the protagonists in particular don't have a redeeming quality to share between them apart from their obsession for each other, but one thing they had never been guilty of was being boring. Until this film came out.
Fans of the novel have grown accustomed to slight disappointments when watching an adaptation, for none has ever been perfect. Let's just look at some of the various Heathcliffs: Lawrence Olivier's was too polished, Timothy Dalton's was quite believable until it was mutilated by poor script writing and a ridiculous change of ending, Ralph Fiennes' was too unlikely despite being so well acted, Tom Hardy's was too clean - literally, how did Heathcliff keep his face so grime-free with all the grunt work he was supposed to be doing?
But the acting was satisfactory when not superb, the story almost always faithful and you could tell these Heathcliffs tried hard.
Now, I don't want to be harsh on James Howson, this was his first film and the worst thing I can say is that it shows. You cannot blame a first-timer for his shortcomings: you must blame the director.
Andrea Arnold should have given her actors more direction and honed their abilities. Instead they appear to be mannequins placed in the middle of the moors - they hardly speak, they hardly move and nothing seems to happen for most of the time while we are shown cloudy footage of the Yorkshire moors. Which one can suppose are being used to emphasize the harshness of the environment surrounding the protagonists and therefore the harshness of the events playing out, as in the book. And for perhaps the first time in history they fail, for just five minutes into the film I felt them to be pointless and entirely void of atmosphere.
But here's Andrea Arnold's worst sin: Emily Bronte's characters have always been excessively flawed, the protagonists in particular don't have a redeeming quality to share between them apart from their obsession for each other, but one thing they had never been guilty of was being boring. Until this film came out.