Wuthering Heights: Love Story or Obsession? New Film Reignites Centuries-Old Debate

• Emerald Fennell's 2026 film adaptation, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, sparks renewed debate on 'Wuthering Heights' as a love story or obsession.
• The novel's love is described as an elemental, inescapable force, a 'secular religion' where boundaries dissolve, making the 'love story' label both perfect and inadequate.
• Marketing often portrays it as the 'greatest love story,' but the original 1848 reception found it 'baffling' due to its dark characters and plot.
• Casting Elordi and Robbie risks sanitizing the characters, turning Heathcliff into a 'misunderstood hunk' and Catherine into a 'bored socialite,' stripping the book of its raw power.
• The story explores a love that transcends human boundaries, a 'beautiful, terrible haunting' that can both kill and save, resonating with those who embrace its bleak intensity.