What has Emerald Fennell done to Wuthering Heights?

Drive me mad. “Wuthering Heights” comes to theaters Valentine’s Day. pic.twitter.com/n4UNA1nKmh

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Fennell’s butchery is part of a wider trend. The last decade has seen numerous directors shamelessly adopt period novels in title alone. There was Netflix’s Persuasion, which read more like a Sex and the City remake than anything Jane Austen penned. Then there was Steven Knight’s BDSM-infused take on Great Expectations, which was almost unrecognizable as an adaptation of Dickens.

Why do directors claim that they are “adapting” novels that they clearly loathe? Clearly, Fennell came to Wuthering Heights with her own ideas for a story. Casting the 35-year-old blonde Margot Robbie to play the teenage Cathy seems to prove this. Has Hollywood become so unimaginative that production companies don’t trust themselves to sell an original film? Do they need to hang their marketing efforts on Emily Brontë’s good name to flog tickets? Audiences have been quite clear: they like original period dramas. Look at the success Bridgerton received. And no genre-defining authors or classic novel were harmed making it.

If Fennell wants to tell a story of wild sex and falling in love that will make readers “come undone,” then I’m sure there are thousands of screenplay writers who would have sold her one. But as Madeline Grant has already begged Hollywood: please leave our period dramas alone!