Matters aren’t helped with the decision to cast Binoche in dual role of Catherine Earnshaw and Cathy Linton. Ralph Fiennes is, to a certain degree, effective as troubled Heatchliff, but he lacks chemistry with Juliette Binoche who is too cold as film’s heroine. While the costumes, production design and cinematography is great – as it was the case with most classic literary adaptations in 1990s – that can’t be said of acting. This is a problem for WUTHERING HEIGHTS, because viewers are forced with sympathise with people who couldn’t tolerate in real life. While the novel was referenced as best known Gothic romance, the film is more Gothic than romantic and the protagonists often commit violent and morally questionable acts. Vision of Emily Brontë is much more realistic and shows how people’s happiness can be destroyed both by social pressure and their own personal demons. WUTHERING HEIGHTS is a very dark film, and this might come as a shock to those viewers who based their perception of rural 19th Century England on the novels by Jane Austen. Hurt and humiliated, Heathcliff leaves the manor only to return years later as a very rich but still embittered man with terrible vengeance on his mind. Two of them grow up and fall desperately in love with each other, but, since Heathcliff doesn’t have proper background, she marries wealthy landowner Edgar Linton (played by Simon Shepherd). Two major protagonist are Heathcliff (played by Ralph Fiennes), a poor gypsy adopted by landowning family, and landowner’s daughter and Heathcliff’s foster sister Catherine Earnshaw (played by Juliette Binoche). The plot, set in rural Yorkshire in early 19th Century, describes the conflict between individual passion and strict norms of English society. Some of my suspicions were proven correct with the WUTHERING HEIGHTS, 1992 film adaptation directed by Peter Kosminsky. What little information I received about plot and characters led me to believe that the novel was not as great as it had been cracked up to be. As result, there was very little to time to deal with the novel itself. The documentary went to great lengths in order to provide as much details about life of Emily Brontë as possible. One of the episodes was dedicated to WUTHERING HEIGHTS.

Having little time to read the novel, I watched Discovery Channel documentary series dedicated to Great Books. One of those examples is WUTHERING HEIGHTS, novel by Emily Brontë and one of the classics of English literature. In other words, there are some Great Books I haven’t read nor I’m familiar enough to consider myself as much erudite as I would like to be. There comes the time when the author of this review has to admit that there are holes in his “general culture”.

Wuthering heights 1992 full movie