Starring: Solomon Grave, Shannon Beer, James Howson, Kaya Scodelario
Director: Andrea Arnold Category: IIB
Emily Bronte devotees, look away now: Andrea Arnold's adaptation of Wuthering Heights looks nothing like the epic drama of the novel and the film and television adaptations which came in its wake in the late 20th century.
By focusing mostly on the teenage years of its ill-fated lovers, Arnold strips the original of its sweeping time span; by eschewing widescreen splendour (the film was shot on a 4:3 ratio) and employing handheld camerawork the film subverts the notion of space in the book. But this is what makes Arnold's film refreshing and exciting: her Wuthering Heights makes a good case of why literary classics warrant remakes - and how they should be made.
The film opens in the cramped confines of a small house, where the adult version of the film's protagonist, Heathcliff, writhes and bawls, possibly as he mourns the past. The agony is presented up close in a tightly-edited sequence: there is a striking similarity with scenes in Arnold's previous two features, Red Road and Fish Tank, in which characters exorcise their anguish in barren flats in tenement blocks.
Heathcliff's raw emotions are a harbinger of the fury to follow as the narrative proper begins. Young Heathcliff (Solomon Glave, above), an orphan on the streets of Liverpool, is inducted into the Earnshaw family, and develops a relationship with the clan's youngest child, Catherine (Shannon Beer).
As their romance blossoms, Heathcliff's confrontational relationship with Catherine's elder brother, the violent Hindley (Lee Shaw), intensifies. On the death of their father, Hindley orders Heathcliff to live and work as a servant. Meanwhile, Catherine is sent to board with the wealthier Lintons - an experience which alters her feelings towards Heathcliff.
