Critics at Large Live: “Wuthering Heights” and Its Afterlives

Summary

Critics at Large Live: “Wuthering Heights” and Its Afterlives

Podcast: Critics at Large | The New Yorker
Episode Date: February 26, 2026
Hosts: Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, Alexandra Schwartz
Location: Live at 92nd Street Y, NYC

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Episode Overview

This live episode of Critics at Large dives deep into Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë’s singular, nearly 200-year-old novel, and its many reinterpretations—focusing on the newest, headline-making film adaptation by Emerald Fennell. With humor, candor, and passionate disagreement, the panel explores what keeps this “weird, weird story” so alive in culture, why it’s so hard to adapt, and what every new version reveals about its era—and ourselves.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Audience Reactions to Fennell’s Adaptation

• Split Room and Mixed Reviews ([02:14–03:17])

  • Vincent Cunningham polls the live audience: The crowd is 50/50 on the film, echoing polarized press and public response.
  • Alex notes, “I don’t know if I can remember a divide between professional critics and viewers as I can with this movie. This movie is doing very well and people love it. And critics, I think, really mostly don’t.” (03:01)

• Personal Theater Experiences

  • Naomi describes nearby viewers “sobbing”—contrasting her and her husband’s skepticism ([04:11–05:02]).
  • Alex shares a vivid anecdote about a Gen Z man in the theater: “He had absolutely no idea what was coming ... Each new thing was too much for him to take ... In between sobs, he just said, ‘That was so fucking dope.’” (06:16)
  • Vincent went alone, observing weeping, indifference, and “people being blown out of their seats. It was, it was, it was.” (07:00)

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2. Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights: What’s New, What’s Wild, What’s Missing?

• Schwartz’s Playful Synopsis ([07:26–10:17])

  • “We’re on the moors. Where else would we be?” (07:42) — The adaptation dispenses with some core characters and conventions, instead accentuating violence, explicit sex, modern fashion, and eccentricity (think Margot Robbie’s gold tooth and Met Gala entrance).
  • The synopsis highlights both the film’s excesses and absences: “If you haven’t seen this movie yet ... not only is there an extratextual hanging erection, there also is so much fucking at the center of this movie.” (09:34)

• Initial Takes: Flatness Amidst Frenzy

  • Naomi: The movie is “just the most kind of, like, conventional, boring period drama interspersed with these, like, bursts of, like, ooh no, but actually I’m like, I’m a little bad ... mostly flat.” (10:27–13:24)
  • Alex: “I found the sex to be pretty boring ... it exemplified to me what the weakness of the film is.” (13:40–14:11)
  • Lack of true eroticism or chemistry; the adaptation “brought the stakes way down” and made it into “a kind of conventional infidelity novel ... Wuthering Heights really isn’t.” (15:12–16:29)

• The “De-fanging” of Brontë

  • Alex spots more genuine “vengeance” in Fennell’s previous films (Saltburn, Promising Young Woman) than in this supposedly wild adaptation (16:33–17:08).
  • Vincent’s Defense: Suggests the film is intentionally idiosyncratic—a version told by “a traumatized young woman ... furiously masturbating with a copy of Wuthering Heights and therefore only picking up the parts of it that that young woman would care about.” (17:26–18:38)
  • Naomi, wryly: “So basically ... a Cliff Notes, drugstore version of this classic novel.” (20:15–21:23)

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3. The Book Itself: What’s Enduring, What’s Unadaptable?

• Brontë’s Wild Genius

  • Alex: Wuthering Heights is “an explosion ... there’s nothing like the intensity ... the strangeness of this book ... a singular work of genius.” (23:58)
  • Discussion of its shifting narrators (Nellie, Lockwood), interplay of realism and madness, and structural innovations ([24:11–26:15]).

• On Narration and Perspective

  • Vincent: Brontë uses “a kind of puppetry ... this writer has a philosophy and is trying to express it through this, like, polyphony of voices.” ([26:15])
  • The servant as the disruptive, meddling, and resentful narrator adds ambivalence and unpredictability ([24:19–25:28]).

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4. Themes of Race, Class, and Otherness

• Complexities in the Text vs. Film ([26:47–32:47])
  • Vincent: Noting “Heathcliff is this racial other ... race actually plays out in really small moments,” often interwoven with class and emotional intensity.
  • Alex, quoting the book (29:00): “A good heart will help you to a bonnie face, my lad ... Who knows? But your father was Emperor of China and your mother an Indian queen ...” Signaling the novel’s deliberately ambiguous otherness.
  • Naomi and Alex: Kathy’s struggles with “degradation” tied to love, class, and identity.

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5. Adaptations Galore: Failures, Freedoms, and Hauntings

• Adaptation Challenges ([35:33–38:36])

  • The second generation’s narrative complexity is “intentionally confusing” and “hard to depict” (36:02), resulting in most film versions avoiding it.
  • Heathcliff’s true monstrousness (“child trafficker,” “pure rage and anger and vindictiveness”) usually erased or sanitized.

• Notable Adaptations

  • William Wyler’s Laurence Olivier–starring version: classic, romantic, but incomplete.
  • Andrea Arnold’s 2011 film: The only major adaptation with a nonwhite Heathcliff—depicts “viscerally” his rejection and rage (40:34).
  • Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”: Alex champions the song as “a great adaptation ... a monologue in Kathy’s voice ... the imploring eyes ... haunting” (44:12).

• What Does an Adaptation Owe?

  • Vincent: “All I want is a sincere grounding in the presence that acknowledges some kind of parentage or heritage from the former ... the more freedom, the better ... a prismatic experience.” (41:18–43:43)
  • Naomi: “I don’t think it needs to be faithful necessarily ... I just can’t imagine being the person who does it.” (43:43)

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6. Period vs. Modern, Haunting vs. Affair, and Cultural Reflections

• Haunting at the Heart ([44:37–46:44])

  • The song’s success is that it is “about haunting,” while Fennell’s film is “about an affair.”
  • Vincent: “The adaptation itself becomes a portrait of the time in which it’s made.” (45:30)
  • Pandemic parallel: Alex and Vincent note the enclosed, solitary world of the book aligns with recent generational isolation (“The first great pandemic novel”). (46:22)

• Visceral Modernity

  • Fennell’s version feels “tiktokified,” made for “short clips and short bursts, but at the expense of character.” (46:44)

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7. The Dream Cast: Who Should Play Heathcliff and Cathy?

• Hosts’ Dream Casts ([47:18–49:35])
  • Nomi admits she’s terrible at this (“Julia Roberts or Robert Redford, I guess—think young!”).
  • Alex demurs.
  • Vincent’s cheeky answer: Rachel Sennott as Cathy (“she can access awful young person”), and—jokingly—Timothée Chalamet as Heathcliff: “He’ll finally get his chance to play black in a movie.” (49:12)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Cinema’s Power:
  “If you can get that, like, ride that high ... I love being just completely disarmed in the movie theater.”
  — Alex Schwartz (06:17)

• On Emerald Fennell’s Adaptations:
  “Emerald Fennell has been making Wuthering Heights ... through her whole filmmaking ... the vengeance at the heart of this novel really doesn’t come up so much here—but there is vengeance in Saltburn.”
  — Alex Schwartz (16:33)

• On Adaptation Philosophy:
  “All I want is a sincere grounding in the presence that acknowledges some kind of parentage or heritage from the former ... the more freedom, the better.”
  — Vincent Cunningham (41:18–43:43)

• On Modern Resonance:
  “It is the first great pandemic novel ... Katherine Linton ... her father doesn’t let her leave their property ... like the second she leaves, she falls into the snare of an evil maniac.”
  — Alex Schwartz (46:22)

• On TikTokification:
  “There’s so much to me that does seem like tiktokified ... stuff that’s gonna look amazing in short clips ... at the expense of character.”
  — Alex Schwartz (46:44)

• Casting Joke:
  “Timothée Chalamet. He’ll finally get his chance.”
  — Vincent Cunningham (49:12)

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Key Timestamps for Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Discussion Topic | |:----------|:------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:14 | Polling audience on Fennell's Wuthering Heights, split opinions | | 05:02 | Alex’s Gen Z theater anecdote | | 07:42 | Alex’s summary of the new film adaptation | | 10:27 | Nomi’s critique: flashes of “batshit” vs. boring period drama | | 13:35 | Audience Q: Is the sex actually sexy? Host reactions | | 16:33 | Alex: Fennell’s adaptation is de-fanged; more fangs in her other films | | 17:26 | Vincent’s psychological reading of the film’s narrator | | 23:58 | Alex on the singular genius and strangeness of the original novel | | 29:00 | Alex reads Brontë's racial ambiguity passage about Heathcliff | | 36:02 | Why most adaptations cut the second generation plot | | 40:34 | Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation discussed | | 41:18 | What do adaptations owe to the original? Panel muses | | 44:12 | Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” as adaptation; haunting vs. affair | | 46:22 | “First great pandemic novel” parallel | | 47:18 | Dream casting segment | | 49:12 | Vincent’s joke casting: Chalamet as Heathcliff |

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Flow and Feel

Lively, frank, and packed with literary/film nerd wit, this episode is a rollicking, accessible deep dive for both Brontë devotees and newcomers. The hosts juggle big themes—race, class, lust, obsession, adaptation theory—while keeping the energy up and inviting both laughs and audience reflection. Their generosity with each other’s takes and the inclusion of audience questions make for a rich, multi-perspective conversation.

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If You Haven’t Listened...

This episode will make you want to (re)read Wuthering Heights, queue up the Kate Bush song, and seek out both classic and oddball film versions. It’s also a sharp look at how adaptations refract classic stories for new generations—sometimes flattening, sometimes sharpening, and always revealing modern anxieties and tastes.

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Further Reading/Viewing Suggested by the Hosts

• Wuthering Heights (1847 novel), Emily Brontë
• Emerald Fennell’s 2026 Wuthering Heights adaptation (Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi)
• Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation
• William Wyler’s classic adaptation with Laurence Olivier
• “Wuthering Heights” (song), Kate Bush

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Final Note

If you like culture talk with laughs, nuance, and permission to hate or love (or both) the things we obsess over, Critics at Large’s Wuthering Heights episode is essential listening.

Transcript

[Alex Schwartz]

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[Vincent Cunningham]

Welcome to the David Geffen stage at Kaufman Concert Hall. Please take this moment now to silence your cell phones. Hey, how you guys doing?

[Nomi Fry]

Hey. Hello. Hey, everyone.

[Vincent Cunningham]

We are thrilled to be here at the 92nd Street Y for a special live taping of critics at large. Thank you. I'm Vincent Cunningham and these are my wonderful co hosts, Alex Schwartz and Nomi Fry. We love doing this with an audience. It's one of the intermittent joys of this job. And so we really do want to hear from you. As you can see anytime during the show. If you have a question for us to text the word critics to this number to send us a question, and some of them will pick to be part of the conversation. So, Wuthering Heights, it's Emily Bronte's only novel published nearly 200 years ago. And in that time it's inspired dozens of adaptations in every medium you can imagine. We've had movies, we've had operas, we've had a really good Kate Bush song that I came to way too late in my life. And now we have Emerald Fennell, that wily filmmaker. Emerald Fennell's very 2026 take, a film starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi with a score by Charli xcx.

[Alex Schwartz]

Why did you leave me?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Why did you betray? Can we get just a quick poll? If you've seen the new Wuthering Heights movie and you loved it, please clap.

[Nomi Fry]

That's respectable.

[Vincent Cunningham]

If you've seen it and you hated it, give it a boo.

[Nomi Fry]

Okay, crowd of haters.

[Alex Schwartz]

I think that's kind of 50. 50.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It might be 50 50.

[Nomi Fry]

I feel like the haters were like, more louder.

[Alex Schwartz]

Maybe you would feel that.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Have you guys seen a lot of reviews? Have you been looking at the yeas and nays in various periodicals?

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah, I've been reading reviews. I think they are also somewhat polarized. I don't know if I've seen a rave.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

What I've become aware of in the past week since I saw the movie is that I don't know if I can remember a divide between professional critics and viewers as I can with this movie. This movie is doing very well and people love it. And critics, I think, really mostly don't.

[Nomi Fry]

That's a really good point.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, we're going to bridge that divide tonight. Whether you loved it or hated it, the intensity of the response speaks to a lot of people's feelings about the novel, which are still also very strong. And so today we're going to be talking about this latest adaptation and also, of course, about the book itself and the many attempts that have been made over the years to pin it down. We want to know, like, what do these different versions tell us about the artist that made them? And why has this story, this weird, weird story, endured the way it has for 178 years? So that's today on this live show of critics at large. Wuthering Heights and its afterlives.

[Nomi Fry]

Yay.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Woo.

[Nomi Fry]

Woo.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Okay, set the scene. How did you guys. We all watched it separately. How did you guys feel? What was it like going to the theater to see it?

[Nomi Fry]

Okay, so first of all, we were sent out to make some content for the New Yorker social channels. We went to the movie theater armed with a little mic and documented our steps as we went in. And, you know, and I think that made me at least more aware of the reactions of the people next to me. And you know what? And the first thing that I can say is that while me and my husband were kind of maybe groaning and rolling our eyes at certain points, and we're like, checking our watches and et cetera, the couple of women next to us were sobbing. And Alex, you had a similar experience, right?

[Alex Schwartz]

I did have a similar experience, yes. We'll talk about our own reactions, I think, in a second. But while watching this movie, I. I became very aware of, I venture to say, the Gen Z couple to my right, man and woman. This man was having the emotional ride of a lifetime, and I hope he's here tonight. He had absolutely no idea what was coming. And each new thing was too much for him to take, but he just had to keep going with it. And he just. The. Oh, my God. And, oh, no, there was a lot of that. His girlfriend was, like, checking on him. There was a moment when she felt it was appropriate to go to the bathroom. And this was when Heathcliff made Isabella Linton into his sex slave. And when she returned, he was like, he's a sex addict. And it was just. He was really processing what Emily Bronte dished out. And Emerald Fennell served up for the first time. And at the end of the movie, I was also with my husband, who was. He enjoyed the movie quite a bit. And we both looked at this guy head in hands, weeping, and his girlfriend.

[Nomi Fry]

Head in hands, yes.

[Alex Schwartz]

His girlfriend was, like, comforting him. And honestly, that visceral experience is what it's all about. If you can get that, like, ride that high. I love being just completely disarmed in the movie theater. And in between sobs, he just said, that was so fucking dope. So I was so happy for him. And it just made my own, like, shriveled reaction to this movie feel like my sad little, like, raisin in the sun reaction to this movie just feels so depressing to me.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Gen Z, Loverboy, if you're out there, I can't stress enough to text critics to the number. You gotta make yourself known. You know what's weird? A single man in a baseball cap going to see this movie.

[Alex Schwartz]

I love it.

[Nomi Fry]

So you were alone?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I was alone. There was all kinds of weeping in between. You know, this is how we go to the movies now. People bringing out burgers and fries and shakes. People are like, oh, my God. You know, it was. It was really. People were being blown out of their seats. It was. It was. It was.

[Alex Schwartz]

It was everything except for us.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, you know, I think I was. I might have been a little bit blown out of my seat.

[Alex Schwartz]

Okay, before we get to that.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yes. Before we get to our reactions, I do want Alex, who is, like, in many ways, our chief synopsizer on this podcast. Nobody gives a. An artful summary like Alex Schwartz. Could you just. Could you walk us through Emerald Fennell's wild vision of Wuthering Heights?

[Alex Schwartz]

We're on the moors. Where else would we be? And a young lad named Heathcliff is brought home by a Mr. Earnshaw, who's a bit of a degenerate also, I should say. There's a hanging and an erection like, one second into this movie. So if you haven't seen it yet, prepare. There's an extratextual erection hanging. And after that. After that, Heathcliff is brought home, this little abandoned boy, and Kathy makes him her plaything. There's no brother, as there isn't a book. It's just the two of them on the moors, running around the moors, doing their thing. And of course, things go badly for Heathcliff in this case. The dad is quite brutal with him. He's the. There are beating scenes, but they grow up. In fact, they grow up to be, like, 35 years old in the case of Margot Robbie. And 28 years old in the case of Jake Elordi. And one of them is a scruffy giant with a Yorkshire attempting accent. And the other one did not make an effort to travel north vocally. But that's okay.

[Nomi Fry]

It's okay.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's okay. Because we know it's. And it's the movies. And here come the Lintons. They are a wealthy man who's a little bit weird, and his ward, who's even weirder. And they live in a nice house. Once Kathy goes there, it's all over for Heathcliff and his dreams of being with her. Because Kathy likes the fine things. She comes out of the carriage upon her return just like as if she's going to the Met gala. She's ready to be part of the high life. Heathcliff goes away when he hears that Kathy isn't gonna marry him. He comes back, he's rich now. He also has a gold tooth.

[Nomi Fry]

A gold tooth. And a hoop earring.

[Alex Schwartz]

And a hoop earring, which I. Which is bling.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Bling.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Nomi Fry]

So.

[Alex Schwartz]

And things go badly, guys. Things go really badly for these two lovers. Except one thing doesn't go badly. And here I'm just gonna go ahead and I'm gonna spell it out. If you haven't seen this movie yet and you have, and this is your first encounter with it, I'm sorry, But not only is there an extratextual hanging erection, there also is so much fucking at the center of this movie. They're having such an affair. They're like, you know, in carriage. I will say, well, yes, anyway. And then I don't feel bad about spoiling this book. She dies and the movie ends.

[Nomi Fry]

Ends.

[Alex Schwartz]

And that's it. Oh, thank you.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Didn't I tell you?

[Nomi Fry]

The master, ladies and gentlemen, we've been

[Vincent Cunningham]

playing around with it for a while, but I do want to know, how did you guys feel about it?

[Nomi Fry]

Nomi, I really didn't like the movie. The thing is, I am totally willing and welcoming of like a batch it adaptation. Like when it started, actually. So the way it starts with the hanging, the. There's. It starts with just sound. And you're not sure what the sound is. There's the sort of creaking in one of the reviews. I think it might have been Justin Chang's in our magazine. There's like this sound. It sounds like maybe the creaking of the springs of a bed. Like maybe this is this. I was like, oh, it's emerald fennel. Like there's already sex you know, no, it's not sex. It's the rope hanging of the guy, you know, taking his last breaths. But there is sex in there. There is. He. He gets an erection. There's a nun in the crowd who gets very excited, you know, so immediately, in, like, the first three minutes, this thing that has really nothing to do with anything that happens after, it just signals like I'm a freak. And I'm going to, like, you know, I'm going to do something freaky. Oh, he's dying. He's. Oh, but he has an erection. Oh, she's getting excited. She's a woman of God. Oh, you know, like the sort of, like, desecration. Like, oh, we're going to be bad here, right? And I was like, okay, you know what? Fine. This is fine. I'm going with it. I'm not getting, like, offended that this wasn't in the book. I'm not getting offended that this doesn't necessarily. It's not necessarily the version of Sex or Death that the book has. Whatever. I was like, I'm going with it. My issue was that there were these, like, you know, flashes of these, like, bad moments. You know, it's like, oh, like, Heathcliff marries Isabella and she makes the sex addict part, right? He makes her his sex slave. It's like this sort of consensual S and M relationship. She wears, like, a dog collar. All of these bad parts, these sort of kinky, contemporary things kind of imposed on the novel. But then the rest of it is completely bland. So, like, we have Margot Robbie, a gorgeous woman, a very good actress usually, you know, was amazing. For instance, in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. She was great in Barbie, too, I think, but completely unfitting to this role because she's totally. She's the most, like, basic, beautiful woman, unblemished. Also too old for the role, even though she's still young, of course. But this is supposed to be kind of like a crazy sprite, you know, and it's the most kind of, like, conventional, boring period drama interspersed with these, like, bursts of like, ooh, no. But actually, I'm like, I'm a little bad, you know, so it was. It was confusing to me. And just mostly, mostly flat in the

[Vincent Cunningham]

way of asking you the same question. Alex. I'll actually borrow from one of the questions from the audience, which is, hi, critics. Thank you. Did you guys find the sex in the movie actually sexy? And if not, why not?

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm ready to go right for that.

[Vincent Cunningham]

So is Emerald Fennell.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes, indeed. I found the sex to be pretty boring, I have to say. And it's no longer enough to gesture at cunnilingus filmmakers, like, we get it,

[Nomi Fry]

you know, it's so you want, like a smash cut into, like.

[Alex Schwartz]

I just feel like, as I always

[Nomi Fry]

like to say, like a penis going in and out of like.

[Alex Schwartz]

Do you always like to say that?

[Nomi Fry]

Well, I do like to say. I do like to say. Wouldn't it be funny if suddenly

[Alex Schwartz]

I found the sex. I found the sex to be pretty boring. And I actually think it exemplified to me what the weakness of the film is. So, for instance, you know, Wuthering Heights. And we're gonna talk about the book itself. So a pretty crazy book. Before I even saw the movie, I was in my local Barnes and Noble and I saw a copy of Wuthering Heights. Look, I have my ancient 90s, you know, yellowed. They're the moors. Usually you see the moors on a copy of Wuthering Heights.

[Nomi Fry]

I have this too. The Moore stayed old copy.

[Alex Schwartz]

I don't even think that's Moore's, but it's not a Moore.

[Nomi Fry]

But it's like nature.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's nature. It's enough. It's like, you know, were out here in Yorkshire, and then I suddenly encountered this copy that said, Emerald Fennell presents Wuthering Heights. And I saw upon the COVID a riding gear. And I was like, okay. So there is a scene in this movie where Kathy, who apparently has never encountered sex before, even though, as we say, she's 35, is like, peering through the floorboards at two servants drawing, going at it. And one has a riding crop and the other one has, you know, whatever one is being the horse, let's put it that way. And Heathcliff and this I kind of did, like, you know, this was good. This was pretty good. Yeah. Heathcliff covers her mouth and her eyes, but leaving her ears mysteriously unaccounted for. So she can still perceive what is going on. So I was like, okay. As you said, Nomi, I was there for the hanging. I was there for the rough play with servants being observed between the floorboards. I was there for masturbation on the moors. And the. You know, than the finger licking that followed. Like, I was like, fine. But this movie really lost me at the affair between Heathcliff and Kathy because it made it seem very conventional. It suddenly became a different kind of 19th century novel. It became an adultery novel. And that's something that Wuthering Heights really isn't. I don't care about fidelity to the book. Like, I'm not sitting there checking off stuff that happens in the book, but I think in making it a kind of conventional infidelity novel, it brought the stakes way down. And suddenly I'm looking at, you know, many scenes of what to me are kind of like not that sexy sex. I didn't think there was great chemistry, actually, between the leads.

[Nomi Fry]

And, yeah, they've, like, never met.

[Alex Schwartz]

It definitely felt weird. And, you know, I had this thought, and then, vincent, we must hear what you thought. But I had this thought, which is, I kind of think Emerald Fennell has been making Wuthering Heights through her whole. This is only her third movie, but through her whole filmmaking. And parts of the novel that are more interesting to me appear in some of her other movies. Like the vengeance that's at the heart of this novel really doesn't come up so much here. There's jealousy here, but there's not vengeance. But there is vengeance in Saltburn, where the main character of Saltburn wants to destroy a family by taking property and installing himself in it. Much as he does, and in fact does.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah, no, he's a total Heathcliff.

[Alex Schwartz]

He's a total Heathcliff. There's, like, also, like, you know, grave stuff that happens in that movie. And there's revenge and vengeance in a promising young woman. So I almost feel like Emerald has really been working her way to doing this adaptation. And one question I have for us, for everyone, is why did she defang it so much?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, see, I think the question of the fangs or not fangs, the correspondence or non correspondence between this film and the novel are kind of the site, perhaps, of my qualified defense of the film. And this is what I will say. I think Fennell has made a big deal of the fact that there are quotes around Wuthering Heights in the title, as in, this is very much my version. And I think that this is. I think that this is her most personal film yet. I think that it's not Wuthering Heights. It's a young woman who perhaps has a somewhat traumatic past. It seems to me very significant that in the novel the father dies pretty early on, and here he's alive for a long time and he's a terrible alcoholic, and he physically abuses both characters. And it seems to me that this traumatized young woman, the narrator of this Wuthering Heights, is laying on her bed furiously masturbating with a copy of Wuthering Heights and therefore only picking up the parts of it that that young woman would care about.

[Alex Schwartz]

But are you saying that Emerald Fennell is the traumatized young woman.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I don't know.

[Alex Schwartz]

Okay.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'm saying that her narrator is.

[Alex Schwartz]

Because I'm pretty sure her father is alive.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I don't know anything about that.

[Alex Schwartz]

I just know that aristocracy is.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'm not saying that it's biographically correspondent to her life. I'm saying when the father dies, he does so in a room that has literal huge bottles piled up to the ceiling. It's what a child thinks. Alcoholism is the flesh walls are what a child thinks is weird, but also kind of interesting. Romance as gesture. I think this accounts for the weird casting. Jacob Elordi is. I mean, is he Heathcliff? I don't know, but he's Heathcliff to this young woman. And also, I think it so matters that Margot Robbie was Barbie. Cause she's just Barbie in this movie. This narrator of this movie is just smashing plastic genitals together. Do you know what I mean?

[Alex Schwartz]

I do know what you mean.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And that. Thank you. I'm glad. That sort of, like, psychological edge to the movie is really interesting. Somebody here asked, and this is a great transition to talking about the novel. Someone asked, do you think if you hadn't read the book, you'd see the movie differently? Most people that I know who didn't read the book loved it and vice versa. I don't know. I kind of think it's interesting to have read the book because it's like the book is acting, in this case, as a kind. As clothing for a totally divergent desire. It's like I got this feeling and this feeling and this feeling and this feeling. What story can I grab to, like, pretty up this wild, untamed thing?

[Nomi Fry]

It's so funny because it's. What you're saying, Vincent, is that it's like one of those, you know, like one of those, like, books for kids, which is like, who was Barack Obama? You know what I mean? Or like, who was like, Margaret Sanger? I don't know who I mean. I don't know why that came to mind. I don't know.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Can you give us one more historical person that's a. Who was Obama, Margaret Sanger? Who belongs.

[Nomi Fry]

I don't know, in that great litany? Who was RFK junior? I don't know. But it's just like. What you're saying is that this is basically the idiosyncratic, but in a way, kind of basic. Like. Like, I would say even not just like a traumatized young woman. I would just say like a teen, basically an imaginative, perhaps lonely, perhaps horny teen who reads the book and is like, I'm gonna like Cliff Notes my way out of this and make this kind of like drugstore version of this classic novel.

[Vincent Cunningham]

In a minute. Why Wuthering? The novel is about a million times stranger than this new adaptation. Critics at large from the New Yorker will be right back.

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And so I pointed the gun at

[Alex Schwartz]

him and said, this isn't a joke.

[Vincent Cunningham]

A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old and a centenarian rediscovers a love lost 80 years ago.

[Alex Schwartz]

101-year-old woman fall in love again. Listen to Heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts. I think I would say pretty definitively. Yeah. If you don't know the book, you should definitely see the movie first. Like, don't read the book in advance. Go have that experience. Hopefully enjoy it. Like, I'm still thinking of this dear man sitting so near to me because when he reads this book, it's all over for him. Like, oh, he thought that was crazy. Hold on. This book is so many times wilder and weirder. One thing that I love, Wuthering Heights is just, it's. I mean, I still actually remember reading it for the first time when I was probably around the age that Emerald Fennell was when she encountered it. And it's an explosion because there's nothing like this book. There's nothing like the intensity and of emotion, of passion, and there's nothing like the strangeness of this book. I really think it's a work of genius, like a singular work of genius. And it's crazy to me that Emily Bronte, who published this book as Ellis Bell, the same year that her sister Charlotte published Jane Eyre, like, what a run for the Brontes. And pour one out for Anne. But, like, you know, it's crazy that this book comes. She writes it when she's in her late 20s. It is published in 1847, and the next year she's dead of tuberculosis at 30. And the vehemence, the intensity. I think one thing that I love about this book, that I do see Emerald Fennell going for, and we're going to talk about other adaptations, is the very strange interplay between realism and its total opposite. For example, a lot of the book is told by a maid who has known this whole both families, the Heathcliff family, the Earnshaw family, all three families, and the Linton family forever. It's told by a maid to this random guy, Mr. Lockwood, who's just stumbled into this insane mess. He's renting this haunted house and for

[Nomi Fry]

some reason insists on, like, staying there and then coming back there.

[Alex Schwartz]

And then arguably Mr. Lockwood is the freakiest freak in this whole book.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Just had an awful dream about. About a maybe dead little girl. Tell me about it.

[Alex Schwartz]

Exactly. She can't. Yeah. In the beginning of the book, Kathy comes through the window at him and he's like, tell me more. I want to stay here now. But the structure, device of this hearsay, of this gossip of. And I think it's very significant that it's the lower classes gossiping about what's going on with their masters and mistresses. And I think this is something that Emerald Fennell is trying to get at her. Nellie, the version of the maid, is a very vindictive, I think, pretty flat character who really just hates Catherine and wants to take her down. But there is something fascinating between the need to serve, be obedient, facilitate the lives of these people who are living out their passions and also to disrupt them constantly. And this is my third reread of this book and what I'm very struck by in this reread is how meddlesome Nellie is. She's messing stuff up non stop. She's like, oh, yes, I was not supposed to take her. Take my young Ward, Kathy Jr. Daughter of dead Kathy was not supposed to let her meet Heathcliff. Like, oops, we happened to stop in his house for tea. Like, what are you doing? Oops.

[Nomi Fry]

And then, like, we got to speak. And.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, my initial read of Welling, it always seemed to be the first time I read it. It was one of the early experiences that I had that, you know, there is some sort of, like, hot potato with the narration between Mr. Lockwood and Nellie. Especially at the beginning that this device you say of, like, someone's telling someone else the long sweep of the story. I totally associate this with the 19th century. Turgenev loves to do this. He's like, I was sitting by my hearth and then some country doctor came in and he was almost dead. And all he wanted to do was tell me about the time he met this one girl, you know, and then the stories are really about the girl.

[Nomi Fry]

Every Turgenev book is this.

[Vincent Cunningham]

So I love that thing.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah. I was sitting thinking about my youth and then I told my, you know, the servant who came in about this one girl I knew, like, 40 years ago.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

This was the first book that I really remember that device happening and therefore being asked to think about the difference between narrator and author and thinking of Bronte as this, like, Vast intelligence, like, sort of like doing a bunch of puppetry. And it just seemed to me, I was just like, wow, this person seems to be so wild and so upset with something about the world. You know, the emphasis on landscape, the emphasis on the class position of the characters. It all just seemed to me to be expressing a philosophy that I couldn't, like, really grasp, you know? But I just realized, oh, this person, this writer has a philosophy and is trying to express it through this, like, polyphony of voices. This time, I don't know. I guess rereading it was a big surprise to me. Somebody mentioned, can you talk about the role race played in the novel versus the movie? In the novel, it's, yeah, Heathcliff is this racial other, but it's race actually plays out in these really small moments. When Kathy comes back from the Lintons. The first time she pulls off her gloves and it says her hands are whitened by, like, disuse. That the class experience of doing no labor has literally changed the color of her skin. And there's another moment when Nellie invites Heathcliff to look at a mirror. He's like, you gotta lighten up, dude, because your anger is making you look bad. And a change in attitude would change your visage. Like, bad affect, bad attitude becomes, on some level, bad race or something like that. So those touches in this. I mean, I'm really interested in what you guys think about this whole racial thing, too. It seemed to me to be expressing something that, first of all, Emerald Fennell I don't think is really interested in at all. She kind of uses race to delineate who matters and who doesn't. In a certain way, Nellie becomes a person of color, as does Edgar Linton. But I don't know, the book seems to me to be speaking in all these different tones about these issues of difference.

[Alex Schwartz]

I so agree. I think the timing of this novel is very interesting in that regard. I mean, this is right when Britain is becoming an empire. And there is a sense of all of these elements of exoticism. You know, there's. I want to find it if I can, but I don't want to take time on stage.

[Vincent Cunningham]

But take us to the text.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I love the text. Oh, here, guys. I underlined it. It's right here. I'm so excited.

[Nomi Fry]

Incredible hand for Alex.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, thank you. Thank you. I feel so supported by this wonderful audience. I actually think I just found exactly the part you're talking about, and it continues in a really interesting way. Vincent. So this is Nellie who's saying I. She says a good heart will help you to a bonnie face, my lad. I continued, if you were a regular black and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing and combing and sulking, tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome. I tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows? But your father was Emperor of China and your mother an Indian queen. Each of them able to buy up with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together. And of course that's exactly what's going to happen. But what I think is interesting here, you know, I've seen some mentions of people being like, Heathcliff's race has been debated for generations. Guys, we all know this is fiction, right? There's not an answer. There's not a definitive answer. And I think the fact that from Trinidad. Yeah, like, we found him. We. Yeah, we got Henry Louis Gates to like go into his background.

[Nomi Fry]

Like, no, he's 19% Ashkenazi Jewish.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes, he's one of ours. It's like, I think the fact that Emily Bronte uses so many different racial signifiers for him is itself very significant. He is coming into this small world. This is a very remote, very rural world. There are only two families we ever hear about. We hear about a village that we never visit and that.

[Nomi Fry]

Gimmerton.

[Alex Schwartz]

Gimmerton. And that, you know, that sounds so good. Yeah, but take me to.

[Nomi Fry]

Now we have to go to Gimmerton.

[Alex Schwartz]

Get me the hell out of here and take me to Gimmerton. Like, I need to buy new shoes. Can someone get me out of here? But Heathcliff is this exotic other. And I think that both explains his sense of. I mean, his othering within the family. He's treated in a very straightforward way as the help by his foster brother. And it also explains a kind of vengeance. You absolutely, I think, can read this as a fascinating story of like subaltern vengeance. And at the same time, if you do read it that way, you have to ask what's going on with Kathy and what the intensity of attraction. Not only do they love each other, but each thinks they are the other. What an interesting comment for Emily Bronte to make about this non white character. I am Heathcliff, he is my soul. But I can't marry him because if I do, I would be degraded. And to me, the word degraded is the heart of this whole book. It comes up more than once. Kathy is trying to elevate her position. She's trying to understand what a finer, better life could be like. She can't degrade herself by association with Heathcliff. And actually, very late in her life, it's not a conventional 19th century novel. Her own husband says to her, do you want to be with him? Like, just tell me. Like, it's not. We're not getting an Anna Karenina, you know, I will drive you to the ends of the earth and I will ruin your life and the life of everyone associated with you. Because I'm so angry. It's a kind of like, oh, okay, he can win. And she really doesn't go for it. She herself is totally torn and tortured.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah, I mean, I think she fully says, I love Edgar. You know, in the book, when Edgar proposes to her and she tells Nellie about it, she says, yes, of course I said yes. Yeah, of course I love him. He's rich, he's handsome, he's elevated. I would be a fool not to have him as my husband. But what she feels for Heathcliff is something else.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, it's a different order. It's the superficial versus the spiritual. That's kind of what it is.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

We have a slide up here about some of the initial reactions, the contemporary reviews to the novel Wuthering Heights. Here. All the faults of Jane Eyre. All the faults of Jane Eyre. Can you list them? Are magnified a thousand fold. And the only consolation which we have in reflecting upon it is that, get this. This is why you don't listen to critics. Except for here, it will never, never be generally read. James Lorimer, you're a wild boy. It does strike me that, you know, Lorimer, of course, is wrong, but I like that he acknowledges how strange the book is. You know, it's.

[Alex Schwartz]

So.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I was thinking about this. 1847, the book comes out. The Communist Manifesto is issued. 1848. You know, so Bronte is not old enough. Never will she, unfortunately, grow old enough for this book or her later work to be a response to that work. And yet it does seem to be, to me, it seems like a proto Christian criticism of Marx. It's like, no, no, no. Everybody can be evil.

[Nomi Fry]

Oh, interesting.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah. There's class rage and everything, but the emphasis from the very beginning on how bad Cathy is and how bad Heathcliff are on some level. They are each other. They are a mirror across class divides. It's like, not a novel of class struggle to me. It's a novel that says you don't have to be rich to be bad. Let me tell you about the lower Classes, too. When we're back. How other adaptations have approached this completely unadaptable novel. This is Critics at Large, live from the New Yorker.

[Alex Schwartz]

Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex trafficked children are being sacrificed by satanic, satanic liberals.

[Vincent Cunningham]

But it's all okay.

[Alex Schwartz]

The great awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspirituality Podcast, we explore

[Vincent Cunningham]

the fever dreams that suck friends, family and wellness gurus down the right wing

[Alex Schwartz]

cult spiral in a search for salvation.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Nomi, I have a great question from the audience and I would love for you to take it first.

[Nomi Fry]

Oh, my goodness. Okay.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Kind of in this area of sort of the text of this book in the novel, this astute observer says the older generation, Kathy and Heathcliff, are redeemed through their children. The younger generation in the movie, that there is no second generation. Did Emerald Fennell sanitize the characters of Kathy and Heathcliff because she did not have the space perhaps, to complete the arc and address this issue of the next generation?

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's very complicated. It's a very complicated book to adapt. I think most adaptations haven't even attempted to deal with the second generation because just even the fact that all the names are the same names, when I read it, I'm just like, wait, who's Linton? Edgar Linton?

[Alex Schwartz]

Who?

[Nomi Fry]

What? Kathy? Which Kathy? You know, it's like there's something that is, I think, intentionally confusing about it because there's a lot of kind of reflections and doublings between the first generation and the second generation. And I think that, yes, I think partly what the audience member called sanitizing probably happens as a way to kind of foreshorten, you know, the sort of like, okay, we don't have time for this. We need to kind of close it up. But I think, I feel like Emerald Fennell is also. She needs to sort of like, make it kind of into a fairy tale just to. Just to make it work, you know, I don't think there's any other way for her to build up the world that she does. And it's too complicated. It's too complicated plot wise, it's too complicated emotionally, it's too complicated spiritually. Like, how would it even work?

[Alex Schwartz]

Some have attempted it. I don't know if anyone. Has anyone in this audience seen the Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche version, which does have the second generation, some smatterings. So what you do in that case is you have Juliette Binoche Play both Kathys. Like Juliette Binoche is the last actress on earth who should pretend to be English, truly the last one. And you just feel for her in the struggle of pronunciation. And she really does a credible job, basically. But, yeah, that is one movie within the bounds of two hours. They get to the second generation. And the redemption that this audience member is speaking of, which is a whole complicated thing involving. I mean, guys, Heathcliff is a child trafficker. That's the other thing. And I know that we're all thinking a lot about that right now, but he arranges. He basically keeps his own son alive long enough to entrap Kathy Linton into marriage in order to ultimately revenge himself against her family. Like, he locks Kathy up to force her to get married while her dad is dying. Like, some really sick shit happens. And I think that's partly why it's hard to depict. Because I think it's.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah, it's hard to depict. Yeah, I think that's so true. I mean, Heathcliff is such a horrible person. Okay. Like, in book, Heathcliff, but also hot. Well, yes, he's hot, but I think just that the book. The proportion of the book in which he is, you know, kind of a bullied child and a lover of Kathy and a great feeler of, I guess, sort of positive feelings towards her in some way is. Pales or is minimized in comparison to the hundreds of pages in which he is just, like, pure rage and anger and vindictiveness and violence and some really rough stuff, you know?

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. I mean, I would love to hear from you guys if there have been adaptations that you have seen or enjoyed. I mean, I've now been, like, checking off some boxes here. Like Laurence Olivier, he's a very sweeping. This was a hugely popular movie, The William Wyler version. He's a very. I mean, he's Laurence Olivier. He's playing a Laurence Olivier, Heathcliff. He is a romantic, handsome man with a very deep chin cleft. And he's been misunderstood. But, like, Jacob Elordi is very tall and he, like, you get why someone would want him. But I will say I just watched Andrea Arnold, the English director Andrea Arnold's 2011 version. I found this to be a fascinating, very moving and emotional movie. Again, it isn't Wuthering Heights. There is no Nellie. There's no second Generation. But it does two things that I think are amazing. One is that as a film, it just works as a film. It's not just trying to, like, follow, like, behind the book and just, like, be like, yeah, I remember that part. The other element that's fascinating is this is the only non white Heathcliff, to my knowledge, who's been committed to film. And it really depicts. From his perspective.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah, I thought it was. I watched this adaptation as well and. And Andrea Arnold is a great director. If you haven't seen some of her other movies, Fish Tank is one and American Honey is another. Those are two very good movies. And this one I liked a lot as well. And I agree with you. You feel viscerally what you don't feel at all with the Emerald Fennel adaptation. The rejection that Heathcliff is experiencing both from the family, but also Kathy, and why he would feel this. Both this attraction to Kathy as well as the rage that her rejection of him brings up.

[Vincent Cunningham]

What do you guys think an adaptation owes to the text? What is the sort of. What are the necessary components of relationship between adaptation and the source of adaptation? For me, it's like all I want is a sincere grounding in the presence that acknowledges some kind of parentage or heritage from the former. Like, if you're a theater goer and, you know, off off Broadway or whatever, when a European theater company comes to town and they do Hamlet, you know, it's not gonna be Hamlet. It's gonna be some German guy walking into the audience being like, you know, I'm lost. You know, which is to say a contemporary emotion that has a history, the history of a certain feeling. And therefore that might fit into the clothes of a former thing. But I do think that a lot of our angst, not only over Emerald Fennell, who loves to stir up angst, it seems to me, but generally about our feelings about adaptation are this feeling of owing. Like, what does it owe?

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, I think that it owes less when so many other movies have been made. Like, I think that may also explain a certain kind of freedom that exists. It's amazing to me how often this, as you say, nomi, like, pretty unadaptable book has been adapted. You know, I have a real memory from years ago of there was an adaptation of the Robert Pen Warren novel All the King's Men, which I had like read and had a huge, huge experience reading and felt very in love with the book and connected to the book and an adaptation was coming and it's like, hooray. I get to see. You know, I also remember even going farther back, I'm of the Harry Potter generation, where Harry Potter was coming out as we were, like roughly the ages of the kids. And suddenly there was gonna be an adaptation and there was just a sense of like, oh, my God, you can't make cogwarts. Like, how do you. You don't know what it looks like. There is this ownership feeling, I think, very often. And I was really disappointed by the Robert Pen Warren adaptation. I don't think it was a great movie. I haven't seen it since it came out. But, you know, I think there's. I guess, paradoxically, I would say, like, the more freedom, the better, in a sense. You can see all these different attempts to tell this story because it should be a prismatic experience. Like, a little bit the more the merrier.

[Nomi Fry]

I mean, it's an audacious proposition to adapt a great novel. Like, I guess I admire the ambition of it, for sure. I don't think it needs to be faithful necessarily in any way. I just can't imagine being the person who does it, you know, I mean, more power to. But I just. I'm just like, wow. Okay, like, go ahead. Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

I legitimately think the Kate Bush song is a great adaptation of Wuthering Heights. It's a monologue in Kathy's voice that doesn't happen in the book. She's just, you know, and if you guys know the song and you know, the music video and just the imploring eyes. Imploring, imploring. Back from the grave. Good, great. You know, it's kind of like what you're saying, Vincent of the Hamlets, that I know too.

[Nomi Fry]

I think it's because. I think maybe it's because. And this is what's missing for me in this adaptation. The song is about haunting. And I don't think the movie is about haunting. The movie is about an affair.

[Alex Schwartz]

Right.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And it does seem to me, though, that this is part of the logic of. And the necessity for adaptation, which is that I like to think about it in terms of COVID songs. It's like, okay, I will always love you. And all of a sudden it's Whitney Houston and it's this. It's more of an assertion of power than sort of Dolly Parton's. More, it seems to me, like abject song. It's like putting a new attitude that's often about, okay, what are the different. What has feminism done since the song was written till now? What are the assertions of romance? And how would these words be delivered today?

[Nomi Fry]

That's such a good point. The adaptation itself becomes a portrait of the time in which it's made.

[Vincent Cunningham]

When Alex told us about this guy, the. It was so dope guy, I was thinking, okay, I mean, Maybe he's in Gen Z. Maybe he's in his 20s and, like, so perhaps he went to high school during the pandemic. And all I could think about was how, you know, the novel is so peopled with characters. And she's like, there's seven people here, nobody's around. And the most romantic stuff that happens looks like it's happening under the conditions of social distancing. You know, Maybe that's why this kid thinks it's so dope. He's like, nobody's there. But guess what? There's no zoom. And therefore we got. We have to fuck. It's like all of a sudden, it can't be about that anymore. It's gotta be a romance.

[Alex Schwartz]

I love that so much. It is the first great pandemic novel. It's like Katherine Linton, daughter of Katherine Earnshaw. Her father doesn't let her leave their property. Like, she doesn't go anywhere.

[Nomi Fry]

And for good reason, it turns out.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, exactly. Like the second she leaves, she falls into the snare of an evil maniac. So it was very smart.

[Nomi Fry]

Edgar knew what he was doing.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, Edgar knew what he was doing. I mean, I like your point, Nomi. About. And I think it's very well taken that these adaptations have so much to do with their time. I do think the emerald fennel, there's so much to me that does seem like tiktokified, for lack of a better word. Like, stuff that's gonna look amazing in short clips and short bursts, but at the expense of character. And I think that's one reason why this movie is really satisfying to people. And I love it too. I love, you know, I love being addicted to my reels. Whatever. I love it. But. Yeah, but we want more.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Final question. Well, we've all talked about the casting here. If you were casting your ideal. Wuthering Heights. Who's Kathy? Who's Heathcliff? Nomi seems legitimately distressed.

[Alex Schwartz]

She's gonna.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Which makes me want to ask her.

[Alex Schwartz]

She's freaking out.

[Nomi Fry]

No, because I'm so bad at this. It's like whenever, like, you know, people are like, oh, who would you cast as? Like, whatever. You know, just. It's just fun. Just like. And I'm like. The only actress I can remember is, like, Julia Roberts or something. You know what I mean?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Okay, so that's one.

[Nomi Fry]

It's like. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. Robert Redford, you know? Suddenly I, like. I, like, forget.

[Alex Schwartz]

Go to his grave and exalt me.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah, I Like, forget every single actor I've ever seen in any adaptation. I'm like, okay, think young, Think young. I'm like Gracie Abrams. Like, I'm like, I don't know. That's the only name of a young person that randomly came to mind. So I don't know. But I feel like Alex has a Cheshire grin.

[Alex Schwartz]

No, I'm just grinning because I have no frickin idea. Like, what am I gonna say? I truly don't. Vincent, do you know?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I sure do.

[Nomi Fry]

Wow.

[Alex Schwartz]

Drop it.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I was thinking, how could we make it even more young, Yassified, TikTok generation?

[Nomi Fry]

Sabrina Carpenter.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I mean, she'd be great. Trust me. I want to see. But have you guys seen I love la? It's kind of like about the worst people in the world. Just like Wuthering Heights. I see cloud. I'm like Rachel Sennett.

[Alex Schwartz]

As who?

[Vincent Cunningham]

As Kathy.

[Alex Schwartz]

No, that's good. Yeah, yeah, she has energy.

[Vincent Cunningham]

She's got this thing of like, as a real person, you can tell she's got like a lot of heart or whatever, but she can, like, access, you know, awful young person. She can. She can make nothing be in her eyes. In a way.

[Nomi Fry]

I mean, as a contemporary or like as a period adaptation.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's contemporary.

[Nomi Fry]

I mean, I could see it as

[Vincent Cunningham]

a contemporary, as an actor, as Heathcliff. I want to cast a guy who seems to want to play black in a movie. Timothee Chalamet. He'll finally get his chance.

[Alex Schwartz]

Brilliant. I think that's it. I think I'll predict he did it.

[Nomi Fry]

I mean, Vincent did it.

[Alex Schwartz]

Vincent did it. But we only need one. We only need one.

[Vincent Cunningham]

This has been Critics at Large, live at the 92nd street wide. Nomi, Alex, thank you. Thank you all for coming. This has been great.

[Nomi Fry]

Thanks, you guys.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Huge thanks to everyone at the 92nd Street Y& at the New Yorker who worked to get this show off the ground. We had a great time. Critics At Large's consulting editor is Alex Barish. Rhiannon Corby is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Our show is mixed by Mike Kutschman and Alexis Quadrado composed our theme music. You can find every episode of our [e-mail] critics and we'll be back in the studio with you all next week.

[Alex Schwartz]

Hi, I'm Nicole Phelps, global director of Vogue Runway and Vogue Business and host of the Run through podcast. Every Tuesday, join me for the latest fashion news, like the shakeups of Balenciaga and Dior and what's trending in Paris and Milan. You'll also hear interviews with top designers from Marc Jacobs and Rick Owens to Daniel Roseberry, Sarah Burton and many more. On Thursdays, Chloe Maul, editor of Vogue.com and Choma Nadi, head of Editorial Content at British Vogue, take you behind the scenes at Vogue and share their thoughts on fashion through the lens of culture. You'll hear interviews with some of your favorite stars like Julianne Moore, Pharrell Williams and celebrity stylist Law Roach. Join us to get your fashion and culture news twice a week. Listen to the Run through with Vogue every Tuesday and Thursday. Wherever you get your podcast

[Nomi Fry]

from PRX.