Yes, Emerald Fennell's film adaptation of Wuthering Heights does actually open with the sight of a hanging man's erect penis carving an all-too-distinct outline in his trousers. Pearl-clutching leaks from an early test screening had suggested as much, and damn, yep, there it very much is. Actually, in that version, there was an ejaculation too, which has been removed from the final cut. This small tweak might be an example of what the filmmaker behind Saltburn considers restraint. Still, seeing some poor fucker's final boner in the first two minutes of "Wuthering Heights" had me feeling like the "Aw shit, here we go again" Grand Theft Auto meme. Historically - at least, in my opinion - Fennell's largely good work has been tainted by empty provocation, from Carey Mulligan getting smothered to death in rape revenge film Promising Young Woman to Barry Keoghan's grave shagging in Saltburn. I have enjoyed her movies, but left them feeling frustrated by the spectre of an itchy finger tapping away on an "outrage" button when it really didn't need to.

"Wuthering Heights" - the quotation marks intentional, apparently to convey the book's liberal adaptation - is different, though. That opener is kind of a feint, almost like Fennell is toying with the squeamish members of her audience. The rest of the film is a lot more of a straight down-the-line period romance than those early reports suggested - there is no nudity at all, way less sex than anyone expected, and the allegations of BDSM-heavy scenes from those initial test screenings were greatly exaggerated, though there is a hint of that in there, sure. With this stuff stripped away, it becomes all the more obvious that Fennell is an excellent filmmaker, and one capable of creating the kind of striking imagery that imprints itself upon your brain. In "Wuthering Heights", that imagery is both disgusting (fingers penetrating jellied fish mouths and egg yolks) and beautiful (a wide shot of Jacob Elordi and his horse bolting across the Yorkshire moors; Margot Robbie looking forlorn in a ridiculous mansion with blood-red floors). It's easily her best film.

Robbie (also a producer) plays Cathy and Elordi is Heathcliff. She's the daughter of an alcoholic gambler (played deliciously by the Martin Clunes); he is an orphan who gets brought into their household as a pre-teen. As teenagers, Cathy and Heathcliff (played in their younger years by newcomer Charlotte Mellington and Adolescence prodigy Owen Cooper) fall in love, and profess deep devotion to one another. Many years later, living in something close to squalor in the titular estate, they have yet to consummate their relationship, in part because Cathy - and everyone else in the household - knows that she must marry rich in order to dig the family out of poverty. When the wealthy Mr Linton (Shazad Latif) moves in across the road, Cathy goes out of her way to draw his attention, and soon receives a proposal, which kicks off a devastating sequence of events (and a lot of this movie really is devastating - a warning for anyone going into this thinking it's going to be more Pride and Prejudice than Romeo and Juliet).

Controversy has shadowed "Wuthering Heights" from very early on in its production. There was a lot of hand-wringing from the literary nerds when set imagery (of Cathy's extremely anachronistic wedding dress, for example) leaked, and the trailer didn't exactly reassure them either. Critics think Fennell has completely disregarded the core of the text by turning a straight-up sadomasochistic tragedy into what the trailer calls "the greatest love story of all time". They're offended that Elordi is playing Heathcliff, whose race in the book is ambiguous, though he is described as a "dark-skinned gypsy". The final cut probably won't win over the purists - it's pretty heavily removed from Emily Brontë's novel, though the story's dark heart is intact. Most of the major tweaks sand down the edges of Cathy and Heathcliff so you can root for them to make it even when you really shouldn't.

Fennell's movie may not be a faithful-to-the-letter adaptation, but it's good enough that it doesn't matter. Elordi and Robbie are great together. The dialled-all-the-way-up sexual tension is crazy (probably helps that they're two of the hottest people alive), especially in the first half of the movie, when they nearly yearn themselves into an embolism. But they play the romance even better; it's impossible not to be affected by the purity of Cathy and Heathcliff's devotion to each other even in the face of what they perceive to be their own damnation. Fennell's tactile filmmaking - regularly focusing in on their fingers interlocking, grazing each other's palms, or penetrating each other's mouths - makes you feel like you're observing intimate moments you shouldn't be privy to. Charli XCX's jittery electronic score also helps amp up the romantic tension, and the needle drop of her new song "Chains of Love" hits hard.

This may well be Elordi's best performance yet. He is at times corrosive and appears capable of awful violence, but he's also got real vulnerability to him. And yet, the real MVP of the movie, for my money, is Alison Oliver (who previously starred alongside Elordi in Saltburn), who plays Linton's sister - a rich young woman with a dollhouse obsession who appears to have been driven half mad through social isolation - with a perfect Made In Chelsea-esque lilt.

At two hours and 14 minutes, it does stray into overlong territory - I probably could have done with maybe 20 minutes less yearning in the middle somewhere. But for the most part, the pearl-clutchers are wrong - Fennell has used her powers for good here. And whether they like it or not, "Wuthering Heights" is likely to be the defining movie of the first half of 2026.

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