The passionate “Wuthering Heights” is hot but empty.

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The sound of groans, creaks and squeaks in the beginning fits what “Wuthering Heights” has been promising for months; a sleazy erotic reimagining of Emily Brontë’s death-filled 1847 passion drama Swindling Heights. But as the picture becomes clearer, it’s almost about something else anyway. Young Cathy, still a child, becomes a wide-eyed spectator of a perverse execution in which a social outcast is dangling from the gallows while the enraptured audience explodes with ecstasy.

Today’s most outrageously baroque director sets the reader straight. Eros and Thanatos. sex and death. A great and chaotic beginning that unfortunately for all of us Emerald Fennell lovers doesn’t lead to anything really memorable this time around.

Like several Other adaptations – and there have been many throughout film history – “Wuthering Heights” sticks to the first part of the book and blithely removes a large part of the novel’s characters as well as siblings and children. We quickly move past Cathy (a starry-eyed Charlotte Mellington) and foundling Heathcliff (“Doggie-looking Adolescence” star Owen Cooper) become a tenderly intimate couple and kindred spirits in the endangered home for addicts on the Wuthering Heights estate.

Quick cut to the two, who are adults and suddenly discover that they are more bodies than souls. Of course, Cathy immediately regrets that she chose the effeminate rich man Linton instead of the muscular and stable-smelling Mr. Heathcliff. Especially when she reappears after a long absence with a gold ring in her ear – now as her husband’s wealthy competitor.

Signals typical of the time such as snail slime, fermenting white dough and BDSM fuel the young Tu.

Anachronistic signals such as snail slime, fermenting white dough and BDSM fire up the young Tu. This interpretation undoubtedly focuses on desire, limitless and captivating sexuality. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi may be a little older, but there’s nothing wrong with their chemistry. More hot and intimate than sleazy. Arguably the most compelling element of this film.

One expects Maybe she doesn’t have much heart for Emerald Fennell, she seems more interested in the destructive than the romantic in human existence in general, which makes her exciting and smart, but I’d like a lot more intensity and meaning than just hot sex between pretty people – especially when she leans into a ripped classic.

While the attention-grabbing debut “Promising Young Woman” was a furiously strong and colorful showdown with men who hate women, and the sequel “Saltburn” was a hilarious and unbridled satire of British class society, “Wuthering Heights” relies largely on nothing but a huge, bloated figure of speech.

The environments are lavishly lavish and without much symbolism. On one side the gloomy old manor house, as dark, angular and gothic as Heathcliff’s lost soul, on the other side Cathy’s new home, which features elaborate tableaus in sizzling colors with insanely luxurious costumes, insane table settings and sumptuous interiors with skin-colored silk wallpapers, entirely in keeping with the surface of Cathy’s contradictory nature.

In between, of course, were the mighty, misty moors, in which recurring rain showers repeatedly drowned the lovers. “Wuthering Heights” evokes strong emotions and begs for audience tears, but remains as empty and lifeless as the film’s most unfortunate interior detail; Cathy’s sister-in-law Isabella’s dark dollhouse.

See more. Three other closely related films: Sally Wainwright’s “The Brontë Sisters” (2016), Andrea Arnold’s “Wuthering Heights” (2011) and “Emily” with Emma McKay as Emily Brontë (2022).

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