Wuthering Heights

In order to stay true to the Emily Bronte novel upon which her film is based, director Andrea Arnold (Red Road, Fish Tank) went to a remote location in North Yorkshire where she started filming during a particularly harsh autumn that brought lots of rain and flooding – certainly appropriate for the storyline. And yet, the setting is the best thing this ponderous film has going for it. There are long stretches with no dialogue as we see the young Heathcliff (Solomon Glave) befriend Cathy (Shannon Beer) and then suffer because class (and, in this adaptation, racial) differences drive them apart despite their apparent love for each other. Beautifully filmed, the movie becomes more coherent after Heathcliff and Cathy meet again when they older, but this adaptation still loses something in the translation.