I rarely write about movie posters, unless they’re either god awful or gloriously great that attention must be paid to them. The one just released for Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” sort of falls into the latter category. At this point, it’ll be worth seeing Fennell’s film just for the posters alone.
Of course, you also have the trailers, and it seems like with each new trailer, the conversation around this film keeps growing, both positively and negatively, people are split on it, and nobody’s seen it. Yet, the posters aren’t talked about enough.
The latest poster — below— fully embraces the kind of art you’d see in a bodice ripper, a sleazy erotic romance novel — Wycaro by Carol Sturka, for you “Pluribus” fans? — and apparently, according to some of the test reactions, the film will play exactly like those novels. Is it any coincidence that Fennell has pointedly mentioned that the title isn’t Wuthering Heights, but rather it’s “Wuthering Heights”, emphasis on the quotations. It’ll be nothing like the Emily Brontë novel, purists be damned.
It’s a Valentine’s Day release for the most toxic relationship in literature. This is not faithful, whatsoever, to the Wuthering Heights we’ve come to know, and maybe that’s a good thing — who seriously wanted the umpteenth straight retelling of this story? Absolutely nobody. Fennell got the memo.
I’m actually reminded of when Sofia Coppola turned “Marie Antoinette” into a pop cultural artifact and infused her film with rock and roll songs. Fennell has taken that cue here — her film is filmed with 35mm VistaVision cameras and the soundtrack is by Charli xcx.
Fennell, known for “Saltburn” and “Promising Young Woman”, has said Brontë’s gothic classic “cracked me open” when she read it at 14. “I’ve been obsessed. I’ve been driven mad by this book,” Fennell said. “I know that if somebody else made it, I’d be furious. It’s very personal material for everyone. It’s very illicit. The way we relate to the characters is very private.”
In a way, purely based on the limited interviews Fennell has given about this film, it seems as though the film version Fennell has concocted out of Brontë’s novel is the one she imagined in her head as a 14-year-old girl, which means it’s unfiltered, adolescent, heightened, and no “proper” literary adaptation. It’s the version born from a teenager’s feverish encounter with a book that felt dangerous and seductive and strange.
Warner Bros. has set up a February 14, 2026 release for “Wuthering Heights.” In the meantime check out these posters.
