SpuffyWeb
Sadly Over-hyped
Mjeteconer
Just perfect...
Allison Davies
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Armand
it has the gift to be a precise adaptation of the novel. to use the ideal cast , to reflect the real traits of characters and remind the atmosphere chapter by chapter. but, in few scenes, this perfection becomes the profound error. to present everything has the price to ignore details and that fact transforms in artificial parts of film. so, the escape is Ralph Fiennes as the real Heathcliff, not a surprise but real useful for rediscover a character in its profound complexity and Juliette Binoche in a Cathy who represents more than a victim of love. a splendid example of adaptation. only sin - the ambition of perfection of director who gives , in the second part, especially, an impressive work but without soul. but, in fact, that could be only a small detail.
hahnell
Emily Bronte's only novel, Wuthering Heights, was declared difficult and scandalous by the few critics who read it. And shortly after it was published, she died at age thirty, in 1848. If she only knew how her novel would live on in the hearts of so many readers; she was far ahead of her time when it came to fiction dealing with human emotion and passion. It is one of my favourite novels of all time, probably what inspired me to become a novelist myself.So I was a bit sceptical about how this film version would work for me. The Olivier / Oberon version from 1939 was a mess. The story was almost unrecognizable. But this version is very faithful to Bronte's novel. Cathy and Heathcliff come to us in all their wild, pagan glory here. I highly recommend it.
MissSimonetta
While Ralph Fiennes is one of the best Heathcliffs I've ever seen and I was elated that the second generation was kept intact, this 1992 adaptation of Wuthering Heights left me indifferent. Accurate to the book it may be (for the most part), but as a film on its own merits, it isn't nearly as entertaining as other versions are.Juliette Binoche is miscast as the passionate Catherine, proving much too cold for the part (a problem shared with the 1939 version, which cast the equally icy Merle Oberon). It was also a mistake to have her play her own daughter, Cathy: the character is supposed to resemble her father Edgar, not her mother. Sticking a blonde wig on her is not good enough.While I'm glad the second generation is there, they rush through it much too quickly, to the point where it felt tacked on. A shame, but I'll give the filmmakers points for trying at least. It's more than the other feature length versions of the book have done.The look of the film is good, capturing the wild beauty of the moors and the genteel life of the 18th century upper class. The mood is appropriately Gothic. The music composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto is beautiful, capturing the raw emotion and darkness of the story just as well as Michel Legrand's score for the 1970 version captured the longing and otherworldly aspects. I enjoyed the framing device with Emily Bronte herself wandering the wilderness, going through an abandoned house as she begins to tell the story in voice over.Overall, not a bad film and one of the better versions in terms of faithfulness to the original text, but Binoche's miscasting bogs down the central relationship and the rushed ending takes away much enjoyment.
drarthurwells
The original 1939 classic movie of Wuthering Heights, with Olivier and Oberon, is excellent for its time. However, this version only depicts the basic plot.This story centers on Heathcliff and is about deep love between Heathcliff and Cathy, love lost, Heathcliff's bitter and deep anger over this, Heathcliff's blame for the love loss on the Cathy as well as on class exclusion, and revenge toward all those involved in the lost love. An essential element is for the movie to depict Heathcliff's bitterness and immense vengeful anger. Now in order for the immense anger to be explained, the prior deep love between Heathcliff and Cathy must be fully depicted. I think the 1992 and 2009 movie versions are the best. Both are excellent but both are flawed.The 1992 version with Ralph Fiennes is better organized and time-sequenced. This version emphasizes the bitterness, anger and vengefulness of the main character, Heathcliff, as superbly depicted by Fiennes. The flaw is that the early love between Cathy and Heathcliff is shown in a skimpy and summary manner. This is a flaw since this deep love needs a full and detailed portrayal in order to explain Heathcliff's later deep bitterness. As a result Fiennes' Heathcliff is a terrible fellow whose behavior is somewhat inexcusable. The 2009 version with Tom Hardy is slightly convoluted, and lightens Heathcliff's vengefulness (making Heathcliff more of sympathetic character to the viewer), which is a flaw compared to the 1992 Fiennes version that properly displays Heathcliff's revenge. However, the 2009 Hardy version does portray the early love between Heathcliff and Cathy with due elaboration (which is lacking in the 1992 version). As a result Heathcliff is more of a tragic figure than a villain.An ideal version would be the 1992 Fiennes version, with the deep vengeful anger as Fiennes displayed, but that also fully depicted the love as did the 2009 Hardy version.Both the Hardy 2009 version and the Fiennes 1992 version are excellent but I prefer the 1992 version as the best available.
