Sunday, December 1, 2013

Wuthering Heights - Movie Review

I never read the book by Emily Bronte but the names Cathy and Heathcliff have somehow made their way into my mind - mostly from television shows I guess. But watching the 2011 adaptation of the great love story was a first full blown experience for me. Strong characters, great love, nice story.

Cathy's father Earnshaw, a do gooder Christian by nature brings home Heathcliff, a vagrant boy he finds on the street. In this version the boy is black which makes it even more interesting. At home are his wife and son Hindley (who hates the black boy and detest treating him like an equal). But the young girl Cathy likes him and so does the father. When the father dies, the brother Hindley becomes head of the home and immediately sends Heathcliff to live with the animals. Heathcliff it appears endures much, mainly to be close to the exuberant and vibrant Cathy and it is only when she confesses to her help that the rich neighbor Linton has proposed marriage and that she has agreed. (Heathcliff will degrade me, she opines.) Heathcliff overhears the conversation, leaves the house despite Cathy's pleas to return.

He returns after a few years with much money and fine clothes. Wuthering Heights, the house where the Earnshaws live is in ruin, Cathy's brother into gambling and bad health, and Heathcliff takes up residence there, paying up rent. He meets Cathy, finds that they still feel strongly about one another even though she is married to another man, marries Isabella, Cathy's sister-in-law to spite Cathy, buys Wuthering Heights from the bankrupt brother.

In the original story there is a ghost - that of Cathy that a traveler and guest in Wuthering Heights sees - and upon which Heathcliff, an old man now, rushes out into the moor to find and help his Cathy. In the original he dies as the doctor indicates and one assumes that the two souls lived happily in heaven.

One down though. I now have this one by the short hairs. Always was an enigma, never could retain the plot but now I know - the story of Heathcliff and Catherine that survives all that happens to pull them apart. Of a deep, strong and insane love. I like these kind of love stories.

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