A first look at a stormy romance
A 19th-century novel still has the power to rattle modern audiences, and the new trailer proves it. The first footage from Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights arrived on September 3, 2025, and it wastes no time plunging viewers into the book’s brutal heart: desire, cruelty, and a love that tears through everything in its way.
Fennell, who wrote and directed, leans hard into the story’s elemental force. The moors aren’t just scenery; they howl. Wind slams doors. Mud stains hemlines. The images move from candlelit interiors to bleak horizons in a heartbeat, suggesting a film that shifts between intimacy and fury. The score is spare and unsettling, letting silences bite. It feels built to haunt.
Margot Robbie steps into Catherine Earnshaw with a ferocity that suggests both yearning and self-destruction. After blockbuster turns and sharp character work, she looks ready to play a woman who dares love and dares ruin in the same breath. Opposite her, Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff arrives like a storm cloud—still, heavy, unreadable until he isn’t. The trailer gives only flashes of their exchanges—glances that cut, a hand that lingers too long, a slammed gate—but those flashes carry the weight of a feud with fate.
Hong Chau and Shazad Latif appear in supporting roles, hinting at the surrounding world that shapes Catherine and Heathcliff’s spiral: houses divided by class, rooms crowded with watchers and whisperers, inheritance doing what it always does in Brontë—wound and weaponize. No roles are spelled out in the preview, but the ensemble feels built to carry the story’s tension beyond the central pair.
The film is produced by Lie Still, LuckyChap, and MRC Film, and it’s now in post-production. The U.S. release is set for February 13, 2026—Valentine’s weekend, which is a sly choice for a romance that hurts more than it heals. This isn’t a date-night comfort watch. It’s a bruiser dressed in period silk.
A modern gaze on a 178-year-old obsession
Emerald Fennell has a knack for framing desire as danger. Her previous films have taken polished settings and peeled them back to expose the power games underneath. That sensibility fits Wuthering Heights. Brontë’s novel has always been less about swoons and more about scorched earth: who has power, who is denied it, and what love becomes when it’s forced to live inside that cage.
The trailer hints at a faithful period setting but a contemporary emotional pitch. The palette swings between bone-cold grays and warm lamplight, with faces often pushed close to the lens. That intimacy suggests we’ll feel every crack in Catherine’s resolve and every collision between Heathcliff’s pride and pain. Costumes and production design look worn-in rather than fussy—no museum glass between us and the characters.
Robbie’s casting also tweaks expectations. She’s been America’s sweetheart, a ruthless striver, and a comic dynamo; here she reads volatile, with a core of flint. Elordi’s recent work has leaned into quiet menace and wounded charm, which tracks for a Heathcliff who is both victim and perpetrator. Together, they suggest a version of the story that doesn’t soften the edges. Catherine is not a tragic waif. Heathcliff is not a misunderstood prince. They are each other’s mirror and their ruin.
That approach places this film in direct conversation with earlier adaptations. The 1992 version mastered big, romantic sweep. Andrea Arnold’s 2011 take brought rawness and mud under the nails. From the trailer, Fennell seems to blend the atmospheric dread of the former with the physical immediacy of the latter, then pushes the psychology forward. It looks less like a museum piece and more like a pressure cooker.
The Yorkshire moors again function as a character—the original third lead. The camera rides the wind, follows footsteps into bog and bramble, and lets weather reflect temperament. It’s an old trick, but when used well, it makes the landscape feel like the story’s conscience. If the house is where rules are made, the moor is where they break.
On the business side, LuckyChap’s presence points to a production invested in star-led but risk-friendly storytelling, while MRC Film and Lie Still suggest a budget and infrastructure to match the ambition. Post-production timing lines up with a long runway for marketing, with room for a possible fall festival showing in 2025 if the team chooses to unveil extended footage. No festival plans or ratings are confirmed in the trailer materials.
The February 13, 2026 date is notable. It positions the film for mainstream curiosity around Valentine’s Day while distinguishing it from lighter fare. Gothic romance has a niche, but when cast and craft align, it crosses over. Think of the appeal: a love story that refuses to behave. The timing also gives the film space after the crowded holiday slate, letting word-of-mouth grow if the movie strikes a nerve.
What does the trailer tell us about the adaptation’s focus? A few clues stand out. It centers the adult relationship—no extended childhood prologue in the teaser. It respects the period but never gets lost in costume-pageant gloss. And it underscores class as a live wire, not background wallpaper. Those choices suggest Fennell is aiming for momentum and sting.
For readers who hold the book close, the big questions linger. How far will the film go into the novel’s second-generation storyline? Will it lean into the supernatural whispers (ghosts at windows, voices on the wind) or keep things grounded in grief and obsession? The trailer keeps its powder dry on those fronts, smartly. Better to leave us arguing about it until the next drop.
Key details at a glance:
- Title: Wuthering Heights (2026)
- Writer-Director: Emerald Fennell
- Cast: Margot Robbie (Catherine Earnshaw), Jacob Elordi (Heathcliff), with Hong Chau and Shazad Latif in supporting roles
- Producers: Lie Still, LuckyChap, MRC Film
- Trailer release: September 3, 2025
- U.S. theatrical release: February 13, 2026
- Status: Post-production
What’s next? Expect character-focused featurettes and a second trailer that shows more of the fallout—marriage, revenge, and the price paid by the people orbiting Catherine and Heathcliff. If the first look is any guide, this adaptation won’t beg for sympathy. It will demand we face the damage love can do, and then ask the uncomfortable follow-up: was the storm worth it?