This bold revamp of Emily Brontë’s novel is “sexy, dramatic, and swoon-worthy romantic.”

Ruby appears in the first of many red and white dresses, and her performance is sublime, portraying Cathy as unruly and selfish but with a conscience and innocence beneath her sense of entitlement. And she forgets her age. Vinyl simply makes the characters older. Mr. Earnshaw even says, “I’m already over spinsterhood.” Elordi embodies Heathcliff’s dashing, bad-boy energy, even when he’s stuck with a scraggly wig. Heathcliff is more than just a shirtless, sweaty man, although he often is. Elordi reveals how defensive and easily injured he is, and how he resents his status as a servant.

While Fennell highlights a sexual desire that Brontë can only hint at, she creates a tease that is far too long. Cathy and Heathcliff cast hungry glances at each other. Everyone gets a masturbation scene. When he hears Cathy say “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff” – one of the novel’s famous lines – he flees Wuthering Heights before he hears her add how much she loves him.

Sometimes the film’s over-the-top choices feel corny. Heathcliff rides his horse against a bright orange sky, his long hair blowing in the wind as if he escaped from the cover of a romance novel. But overall, Fennell uses stylized imagery well. After Heathcliff leaves, the overhead view shows Cathy falling to the ground so that all we see is her billowing red skirt, her desperation and sadness shown in one shot.

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Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), the wealthy man Cathy marries, is attractive and loyal. She loves him; It’s not Heathcliff. Alison Oliver gives a lively, lively performance as Isabella, Edgar’s adult and childish ward, who is in love with Cathy and creates a doll with locks of Cathy’s real hair.

The now prosperous Heathcliff returns years later, looking like a gentleman. He and Cathy have sex in the windswept swamp, in her wagon, and after he climbs through her bedroom window. It’s all steamy but discreetly filmed. When his jealousy becomes more cruel than ever, and he manipulates the innocent Isabella into becoming his chattel, the change is very sudden.