Reviews

What really annoyed me about this film is how much it actually undermined the original Cinderella film from 1950. Instead of leaving it with Cinderella having married Prince Charming and lived happily after ever with him as the original film ended, it actually ended up changing and messing with this by making it so the original ending of Cinderella didn't happen after all, by instead altering the timelines which just ruined the whole beautiful, magical concept of the original film's ending.

I just hated what they did here, having Lady Tremaine actually get hold of the fairy godmother's wand, who is turned to stone for most of the movie, and casting a spell on the prince so he doesn't remember Cinderella and can marry Anastasia instead. I hated seeing this, as I remember it's such a beautiful, heart-warming feeling at the end of the original film when she finally manages to escape all the abuse and adversity she had been enduring for years under the hands of her stepmother and stepsisters and marries the man of her dreams, so when all that gets taken away from her and she has to fight for it all over again it just really infuriated me. Like what's the need?! Especially seeing him almost marry one of her mean stepsisters as well while having forgotten Cinderella completely just didn't feel right at all.

So it's because of this that I don't like to consider this film canon to the original 1950 Cinderella, as despite what it may say in some sources, I don't see how it actually could be canon when it was made by different people, as this was made long after Walt Disney himself died who had made the original one of course. In my own head canon it does not exist basically.

I just didn't like them messing with things this much, like why couldn't they just have left well enough alone, and just leave it how it ended in the original, letting Cinderella get to live her happily ever after properly, rather than all this messing with timelines.

It wasn't bad as a film in itself, but as a sequel to the original Cinderella I was really not happy with it. Just keep things classic.

Okay, now, just where do I begin? Oh yes, well the script was clearily a real problem here, with most the dialogue being just unfaithful and altered. It was completely irrelvant and inaccurate to how the story went, very forced at that. I would complain about Heathcliff being too pale, but that is actually the least of my concerns when looking at just how wrong they got this story overall.

They changed the story almost completely, portraying Heathcliff and Cathy's relationship as more of a typical sexual, modern-day kind of romance, lacking the actual temptestous theme their relationship was supposed to have. They are not meant to kiss that much and all those sex scenes, not even just between Cathy & Heathcliff, but Cathy and Edgar and Heathcliff and Isabella too were just so unneccessary and irrelevant to a story set in the 18th century. It was like they were just trying to adapt to a modern day audience, making it commercial. It's like they kept showing these sex scenes, zoning close in on them like they were desperately trying to make a point, like "Look omg it's a sex scene it's very crude, young people these days will love this" when no it's not about what young people these days will love, it's about what true fans of the original novel will love, who can actually appreciate period, traditional themes. This adaptation of Wuthering Heights was even rated 15, which seems crazy considering the original novel was not meant to be that mature and explicit in content. Heck I even first read the book when I was 10, as one of my school reading books (it was the highest level of course) and all the other screen adaptations seem to be 12 rated at most.

Everything about it seemed too modern to me, as there was also the matter of the actors/characters appearing too modern in their actions and costumes, as well as the way they spoke, especially Cathy, who looked and acted far too modern for the role. It did not give off that historical, traditional atmosphere with any feel of the 18th/19th century, nor did it give any real atmosphere of the landmark moors. In fact, they level and style of gothicness was just lacking, as there just seemed to be sunlight the whole time, rather than the bleak and bleary weather that is meant to represent the darkness of the novel and heathcliff's character, defeating the ultimate symbol and expression of the story.

The omission of important scenes along with changing important details of the story and adding new scenes/details of their own was another thing. Let's start on the omission of Lockwood. This is similiar to what someone also mentioned in this blog I found on another site about Wuthering Heights, saying that no matter what some adaptations may make out, Lockwood is essential, which I couldn't agree with more. This is because of course he is the one who provides us with the view of the reader, as from his perspective, just like us, he is just walking into and being introduced to the story. Not to mention of course, as a result of omitting Lockwood, you are omitting the significant, symbolic, memorable scene of Cathy's ghost at the window, which is exactly what this TV adaptation did of course. Lockwood discovers Cathy's ghost at the window, as she introduces herself to him, asking him to let her in, at which in response he of course screams with terror, resulting in Heathcliff looking for her ghost once she has left. Without this, you are taking away a key piece of the story which contributes to the ultimate meaning and symbolism of it. It is not only an iconic scene from Wuthering Heights, but an iconic scene from literature too.

Another omission of an important, ESSENTIAL scene was Heathcliff running away upon hearing Cathy telling Nelly that it would "degrade her to marry Heathcliff". In this version, Heathcliff just runs away casually, without even having heard this. She then as a result doesn't go out in the rain looking for him after hearing from Nelly that Heathcliff had been listening in and fled after hearing what she said about him. This of course defeats the entire point of this scene with Cathy's speech to Nelly, like they just included it 'cause they knew they had to as it was of course an essential scene and they'd receive controversy possibly if they didn't. It eliminates a great deal of the passion that the novel intended on demonstrating of their relationship, their love, with this scene. Instead, they changed it round completely so they had Cathy instead going out in the rain shouting for Heathcliff and getting sick as a result at the much later point in the story when she is first on her death bed, with Heathcliff finding her and rescuing her. Cathy then says when she sees him "I thought you'd forgotten about me". No, that's not how it goes. That's not what happened and Cathy was never meant to say anything like that, it was just making it out to be a typical, modern-day romance of two needy, childish lovers, rather than ones with a tempestous, passionate, complex, relationship, of untraditional romance.

Now onto Heathcliff. No, just no. The portrayal of Heathcliff here was so wrong, as I did not feel any sense of fear or anger from him, which is exactly what the character is supposed to project, really strongly too. Heathcliff is supposed to be cruel, abusive, angry, ferocious and villainous. With this Heathcliff you do not get that vibe at all. He actually just keeps the same facial expression the whole time, as well as speaking in a funny tone of voice, like a cartoon or panto villain, rather than that of serious anger and aggression. It's like he is trying to portay Heathcliff in a comedic, spoofish kind of way with the way he speaks, not coming across anything like as fearsome as he should. They have one or two occasions where he tries attacking Edgar, and seemingly kills Hindley, but you are still not convinced this is a fearsome, ferocious, abusive guy. I've seen loads of people saying Tom Hardy is the best Heathcliff and all, which just seems to me like they are biased, Tom hardy fangirls (or fanboys even) rather than actual true Wuthering Heights fans, who probably haven't even read the book, or at least prefer Tom Hardy to Wuthering Heights. I'm sure he's good in other stuff, but in this role this was not the case.

One thing that really annoyed me is how wrong they got the whole part with Heathcliff's and Isabella's relationship. They made out that Heathcliff was just using Isabella as a rebound, when in the book as everyone knows surely he seduces and marries Isabella as part of his whole revenge scheme involving the Lintons. This therefore again completely defeating an important purpose of the story, which was Heathcliff's revenge, or at least a significant part of it, the main aspect the story ultimately revolves around. It annoyed me so much how they changed this, with that whole dialogue they made up with Heathcliff even saying to Isabella "I'm afraid I cannot bring myself to love you." with Isabella replying "What is getting in the way of this process" and "Say her name!" Ugh, that is NOT and I repeat NOT how the story goes at all, that is simply not what's supposed to happen at all. Along with this, Heathcliff in this version never actually properly abuses Isabella, being just simply rather cold towards her, which again, along with him merely using her as a rebound and confessing he couldn't love her, eliminates and undermines the true cruelty, abusiveness and ferociousness Heathcliff's character was supposed to represent. That's another thing, the Isabella in this version was just awful and unauthentic, though it's hard to know whether this was the fault of the actress or the scriptwriters. Well of course it was the scriptwriters fault but the actress too annoyed me as a result with how wrong the Isabella character was here.

Over-acting was another problem, along with everything seeming so contrived. For instance in the scene with Cathy, Heathcliff and Edgar where Edgar says he's now forbidding Heathcliff from visiting his house, they make it so melodramatic, with all this constant, OTT yelling and screaming, like it is some sort of a soap opera, something again from modern-day rather than you know, the 18th century! It's like they just think aslong as you scream and shout and yell as angrily sounding as you can that should do the trick, when it's actually much more than that, i.e facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. All the characters actually disappointed me in this version, except for Hindley, being the only character who was actually portrayed and acted accurately.

I should also mention the unnecessary structure of starting the story over halfway through book, with the second generation, then going onto the beginning of the story with Heathcliff being brought home by Mr Earnshaw. That just made things really confusing, defeating the whole story's structure making it almost impossible to follow that way. I mean, why do that? Was it just yet again another attempt to be and come across all clever with a supposedly unique approach?

One more thing, it was a mini-series, meaning they had the perfect chance to cover the whole book, making it as faithful and accurate as possible. However, in the time they spent adding all these new scenes of their own, i.e Heathcliff fighting the other local boy as a child, Heathcliff getting Cathy the horse as an adult, the scenes of them at church, amongst others, they could've used that time to include the scenes that you know, were actually from the book, like with Lockwood and all.

Just disappointing and irritating with all the unnecessary liberties taken.

Again, adapting a period classic to a modern-day, millenial audience to the point going as far to add contemporary themes, language and music is just a big fat cardinal sin, to put it kindly. It just shows to me that you do not appreciate the original, classic, period novel and its themes, and therefore should not be allowed to adapt such a masterpiece if you are gonna just go and ruin it and undermine it like that, especially contemporizing it like that. It is one thing to get the story wrong but contemporizing it is another. The amount of swearing was just unneccessary and absolutely ridiculous, as not only of course was there no cursing from the book, but swearing with the F words and N words etc. was very unrealistic to portray in the 18th century. It is simply not something that would have been in such a fashion back then, if even existent for that matter. It was rather just a chance for them to desperately come across as all dramatic and intense in their own "contemporary" kind of way. I should also add the contemporary music that was played throughout, completely ruining and eliminating the whole classic, historical, traditional theme.

One thing I recall watching and feeling very irritated about was the lack of dialogue and shaky camera. The lack of dialogue made it just really hard to concentrate and follow, just makes you really impatient and was therefore lacking in action and structure, like what was the need really? Was it again another attempt to come across as all unique and clever? The shaky camera also made it really hard to concentrate and follow, like it was just some sort of ammateur production by school kids for a school project or something, or some weird kind of documentary rather than an actual film. It therefore failed to keep you gripped or anything with the kind of pace this ultimately created.

I remember what really angered me the most was showing Cathy and Heathcliff AS KIDS acting all sexual together, stripping off even! Not only is it all wrong for them to show sex/sexual scenes in any adaptation of Wuthering Heights, but when they were only about 12 as well! I think they thought, like a lot of modern-day productions do, the more disturbingly erotic the better, despite the fact erotica was never a part of Wuthering Heights.

The acting was very poor, at best. Young Cathy just annoyed me with just how awful her acting actually was, coming across as really annoying and unlikeable. The script as a result was of course sorely lacking at best and abysmal at worst. However I would mostly like to signify, when discussing my negative reaction towards the contemporization of the whole thing, how they not only made Heathcliff black, but suddenly, "cleverly" introduced the issue and theme of racism directed towards him as a result. This is of course a concept which NEVER existed in the original Emily Bronte novel at all, being most irrelevant and incongrous. Heathcliff was described as being "dark" which was never meant as black of course though, just dark/brown in skin tone; tanned/olive skinned. It was of course a completely unrealistic theme to introduce here given that black people living in Yorkshire in the kind of position Heathcliff was would have been mostly if not completely non-existant in the 18th Century, nor was there such an issue of racism taking place in that particular context. This was most palpably another significant example of contemporization by trying to be politically correct, something that is a real ruination indeed of what is supposed to be a period classic, knowing that political correctedness is all our modern-day, snowflake generation is about nowadays.

One more thing: Hindley a skinhead? Such a hairstyle was most simply NOT in fashion back then, in the 18th century, to the point it for sure did not exist! Yet another example of ridiculous contemporization from this film, completely ignoring actual historical fashions and elements of that particular time period.

To sum it up, dire and atrocious would be my best way to describe it in two words. It makes me all the more mad when I see that it received generally positive reviews, mostly from critics I think though, even referring to it as a "beautiful beast of a movie." I wonder if those critics are actually fans of the original Wuthering Heights, or just like this in general for the film it was, or weren't fans of the original Wuthering Heights and much preferred this version with its more contemporary approach to it, being in the snowflake, politically correct generation they are?