- The first teaser trailer for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights has been released
- Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi lead the cast as Catherine and Heathcliff
- The new movie releases on Valentine’s Day 2026
The official trailer for the 2026 adaptation of Wuthering Heights, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, has been released, and boy has the internet instantly reminded everyone that it loves to criticize director Emerald Fennell.
Due to release on Valentine’s Day, the trailer swings big with a delicious visual feast of scenes that feel very far removed from our ‘I studied Emily Brontë at school’ years, with a hint of rampant BDSM and an original Charli XCX soundtrack thrown in for good measure. Frankly, as an Emerald Fennell truther, this is all exactly what I wanted.
Following her previous two releases Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, the director has become a divisive filmmaker with audiences, yet both movies have continually won me as well as many others over. Each feels like a fever dream in opposite measures – the former a damning indictment of a system gone wrong, the latter an absolutely unhinged tale of wanting to be somebody you’re not. I had Tomcraft’s ‘Loneliness – Klub Cut’ on my 2023 Spotify Wrapped for a reason.
For me, the Wuthering Heights trailer suggests she’s going three for three, but we’ve potentially got our collective knickers in a twist too early. Clearly, this isn’t going to be a like-for-like adaptation of the original text, and I don’t think it should be. In fact, the biggest clue that we’ve got no idea what’s coming us already staring us in the face.
Opinion: Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights trailer uses quotation marks in the best possible way
Here’s the important thing you’ve possibly missed: the new movie isn’t titled Wuthering Heights, but “Wuthering Heights.” Immediately, this means we’re not actually dealing with Brontë’s story but another that’s loosely inspired by it, meaning creative freedom can run amok.
There’s obviously a solid argument here that Fennell’s vision will be lacking something by not tapping into the social and cultural criticism that Brontë’s novel holds, namely around race and class. Cathy isn’t a blonde 35-year-old woman without a Yorkshire accent, and Heathcliff isn’t a buff twentysomething white guy who’s previously been Elvis Presley and Frankenstein.
However, if we must have another Wuthering Heights remake – and to be clear, I don’t think we need more at all – I want it to be completely different to anything we’ve seen before. I want it to take us to new places, challenge us in new ways and offer something to the cinematic canon that distinguishes it from the swathes of reboots we’ve seen before.
Frankly, I think a lavish and overtly erotic push-and-pull dynamic that I absolutely don’t want to watch with my mother fits the bill. Fennell isn’t the perfect director (who is?) but she’s astounding at creating cultural moments. She’s got us all talking about an almost 200-year-old story in a completely new way, and all PR is good PR, right?
Add in the fact we’re surprisingly getting new Charli XCX music after she stated she didn’t think she’d ever release songs again, and I’m aghast. Never mind floating through the window, this gothic romance has got me simultaneously re-streaming ‘Brat’ and obsessed with a new movie I’ve not even seen yet… and that’s a feeling I’ve been missing.
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jasmine.valentine@futurenet.com (Jasmine Valentine)
