The book, “Wuthering Heights” , written by Emily Brontë, was published in December 1847 and is one of the most well-known books of its kind in history. Five movies have been produced from 1939 to 2011; with this new version, starring Margo Robbie and Jacob Elordi, the sixth. This new movie is only inspired by the original book and is not a faithful adaptation. For those thinking that this movie is a typical love story with a happy ending, you will be disappointed. The main message I received from this film is that love can bring out the best and the worst in people. Love can invoke extreme anger, jealousy, rejection, fear, ego, cruelty, depression, and revenge. Far too often, the joy that comes with love can be followed by an equal amount of unhappiness and anger.

This story starts with a poor family adopting a homeless boy, and over the years, the boy, Heathcliff, becomes more than brother and sister to his new sister, Cathy. Their father is a very unhappy, cruel man, played by Martin Clunes, who gambles away all their money. By a fluke of luck, Cathy is taken in by a wealthy family, which forever separates her from Heathcliff, providing the major conflict of love and loss for the remainder of this story. When Cathy and Heathcliff reunite after many years, their reunion creates a great deal of anger and revenge, not happiness. Within a few weeks, Heathcliff marries a young woman, Isabella, played by Alison Oliver, who is part of the wealthy family, even telling her that the only reason he is marrying her is to hurt Cathy. What follows are scenes of Heathcliff abusing Isabella, with one disgraceful and unnecessary scene where he has Isabella crawl around on the floor and bark like a dog. Why the hell have a scene like this in any movie like this one? We get it. Love can hurt. We know this, we also do not need to see someone being cruely treated and abused.

The ratings for this movie are correctly low with both IMDB and with the critics. If there was any chance for this film to receive high ratings, the abusive, cruel scenes, and the depressing, too-long story killed any chance of positive reviews. It is hard to understand why a movie like this was made, and why rising and famous actors like Margo Robbie and Jacob Elordi would read a screenplay like this and then agree to take the part.

The IMDB rating of 64% and the Rotten Tomatoes rating of 63% are correct, and I rate this movie 50% and advice to steer clear of this too-long, dark, depressing mess.