Wuthering Heights

Those three Brontë sisters certainly knew about religious hypocrisy and alcoholism. To judge by their output, those issues hung heavy on their poor heads. Just look at their work:

• Emily - Wuthering Heights;
• Charlotte - Jane Eyre;
• Anne - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Not one of these is exactly sunshine and lollipops, is it!

This new version written and directed by Andrea Arnold is unrelentingly gloomy with intermittent shocks (killing a sheep in living color, snapping a snared rabbit's neck, hanging a couple of dogs and leaving them strug- gling) mingled with senseless scenes that started for no reason, went nowhere, and then stopped.

If I hadn't read the book, I think I would have been utterly bewildered; as it was, I was just angry. We spent most of the movie on the first third of the book in which we saw Heathcliff as a boy from...maybe the Carib- bean? Cathy is still a brainless self-centered vamp, but she is still just as obsessed with Heathcliff as he with her.

I did NOT like:

• The dim, hazy production,
• The unrelenting cruelty,
• The herky jerky hand-held camera work,
• The indictment of those villainous Christians,
• The rainy muddy production,
• The occasional lag which would prompt bucolic interludes with moths, butterflies, birds, dogs and horses.

Yes, I'm aware that this entry to the 2012 Seattle International Film Festival from the UK, is an artistic work that has won numerous technical awards, but it certainly withered our hearts! (This review was first posted on June 4th, 2012.)

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Take a look at the trailer:
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3175717913/
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