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

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.

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)

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)

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]).

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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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 |

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.

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.

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

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.