Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I know two things for certain: 1) In the novel, people actually talk, and 2) This movie has robbed every morsel of passion from the novel and replaced it with shots of wind and birds. Don't get me wrong, I love wind and birds. The moors are gorgeously wild and they play a significant role in the novel, both symbolically and overtly. But the moors are not the main character, folks. The main character is Heathcliff. In case this film is your only reference for WH, Heathcliff is that guy who walks around outside with Cathy a lot and utters about five intelligible words throughout the entire film. He's also one of the most interesting antiheroes in Western literature, not that you could tell from this movie, since all he does is kill rabbits and call people expletives (that's one of the few times he speaks). I'm usually a pretty easygoing gal when people take artistic liberties with classics, but I have a lot of problems with those taken for this film. My biggest problem was the fact that Heathcliff arrives at WH as a teenager, not a young boy (in the novel he's six years old), which pretty much negates the entire tumultuous relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy. (In the novel, the two of them grow up together, side by side; they're not introduced as hormone-fueled teenagers, as the film suggests). Furthermore, the film completely neglects the pivotal scene in the novel where Cathy tells Nelly Dean that she's decided to marry Edgar. The scenery is absolutely breath-taking. If this were a film about birds flying around the moors and wind blowing through people's hair, I would totally give it five stars. But as an adaptation of Wuthering Heights, it fails miserably. The film has taken everything that is passionate about the novel and turned it into a nature film. People barely even speak! How are we supposed to sympathize and understand our characters when all they do is flop around in the mud? Basically, this is a movie about looking at birds and letting your hair fly around in your face. It's also about getting muddy. All of this artistic rustiness would be perfectly fine, except there's just one problem: THE STORY IS MISSING.