Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is a love-it-or-hate-it type of movie—and for probably the most half, critics are falling within the “hate it” camp.
The brand new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s traditional novel is catching flak as critics say it oversimplifies a posh story of generational trauma and racial pressure into a simple romance laced with Fennell’s signature shock worth (she’s additionally the director behind Promising Younger Lady and Saltburn—notorious bathtub scene and all). However a current remark from star and producer Margot Robbie takes criticism out of the equation, as a substitute saying that as an artist, critics’ opinions by no means cross her thoughts.
At a recent panel for Vogue Australia, Robbie—given her twin function as producer and main actress—was requested how a lot she thinks about her viewers whereas making a film, versus immersing herself within the story.
“I contemplate viewers at all times. I’ve by no means, ever been on set and thought, ‘What are the critics going to consider this?’” Robbie replied. “I’m like, ‘What’s an viewers going to really feel proper now? What’s their emotional response going to be?’
“I simply imagine you must make films for the people who find themselves going to purchase tickets to see the films,” Robbie added. “It’s type of so simple as that.”
Robbie has produced all three of Fennell’s movies, however Wuthering Heights is the primary she seems in. “I really like working with Emerald [Fennell] as a result of she at all times prioritizes an emotional expertise over a heady thought,” Robbie mentioned. “She’ll let a cool thought fall by the wayside to supply the choice that’s going to be most fun for an viewers.”
Robbie’s take was instantly divisive on-line. Some fellow filmmakers, together with Cobra Kai author and director Jon Hurwitz, echoed Robbie’s sentiment. “That is the best way. Viewers first. All the time,” Hurwitz wrote in a post on X.
However others took situation with Robbie’s studying, noting that it frames movies extra as industrial merchandise than as artworks—to not point out that critics are viewers members themselves.
Critic and editor-in-chief of AwardsWatch Erik Anderson identified that “actors and administrators by no means say this when their movies get good evaluations” in his own response to Robbie’s assertion.
On Rotten Tomatoes, Wuthering Heights is at the moment labeled “rotten,” with a critic rating of 59%. In his overview, The New Yorker’s Justin Chang deemed the variation “extravagantly superficial.” For The Guardian, Adrian Horton dubbed it a “huge film with a really small thoughts.” And in a take that went viral, Vulture’s Allison Willmore known as the movie “Fennell’s dumbest film,” whereas additionally praising it as “her finest to this point.”
That enchantment to the bottom frequent denominator is working for Wuthering Heights, at the least on a industrial degree. The movie made $83 million globally over the Presidents’ Day vacation weekend, debuting because the number-one film in North America. Robbie’s audience-first philosophy clearly will get butts in seats—but when each artistic ditches their “heady concepts” in favor of broad enchantment, the way forward for movie as an artwork kind doesn’t look fairly as promising.
