"Wuthering Heights" Film is a Triumph

With all the buzz and negative reactions to the latest "Wuthering Heights" film, it seemed like a good time to offer this gentle reminder:

Movies and books are not the same thing.

Art in its many forms is creative, subjective, and designed to provoke emotion and thought. Emerald Fennell's film is art, as is Emily Bronte's novel of the same name. One art form is no better than another, nor can they truly be compared to each other. So what we are really talking about is preferences.

Imagine I hand you a beautifully ripe apple from my backyard orchard (I don't actually have an apple orchard, but stay with me). I encourage you to take a bite, enjoy the sweet and juicy fruit, but upon biting into it you immediately spit it out, start to gag, and shout, "Yuck! What on earth is this?! It doesn't taste anything like an orange!" Logically, I would agree with you. "No, sweet friend. It does not." That's because while apples and oranges are both fruit, they are not the same thing.

Perhaps you would now like to argue that if a creator wants to take some essence from another creator (whose work is now public domain), they should remain true to that original artistic expression, to which I say, "Why?!"

Art is quite literally about creation. It's about taking raw materials and building something new. But there's something to be said about the echo of familiarity. That beautiful sense of, "Hey - I know this!" that dawns on us when we recognize the art of another.

When a creator has consent to use parts of another artists work to mold their own masterpiece, we get Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice, Baby", Mr. (Mark) Darcy in Bridget Jones' Diary, and Shakespeare's - oh wait - Disney's "The Lion King". Some of my favourite art has borrowed or been massively inspired by another piece of art.

Okay. This brings us to Wuthering Heights.

If you have not read the book, I would highly recommend it. It's been one of my all-time favourite classics for two decades due to it's absolutely captivating and unsettling love story, not to mention the star of the show: the Yorkshire Moors.

One of the most interesting things about this novel is that it's a frame story, meaning it's a story within a story. In the opening of the story, Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, meets Nelly, the housemaid, who has been involved in the affairs at the Heights since she was a child. She becomes our main narrator, proceeding to tell him the story we all know as Wuthering Heights - the story of the tragically fated love between Cathy and Heathcliff.

Why is this important, you might ask?

Because Nelly can only tell Lockwood what she has seen, what she knows, what she assumes. She isn't physically there when the two lovers run off together on the moors or into the stables, which means we, the readers, never actually get to see these moments.

I actually love this aspect of Bronte's storytelling because it keeps the romance shrouded in mystery. The love between Cathy and Heathcliff is incredibly destructive and intense. I wondered how on earth you find yourself in a love like this and what was it really like for these two youngsters as they fell in love.

Bronte never answered my questions.

But Fennell does.

"Wuthering Heights" - the film adaptation - lets us peek behind the misty curtain of the most tortured love story of all time. It shows us one artists' vision of what it could have been like for Cathy and Heathcliff as they navigated their traumatic childhood hand-in-hand and came to find refuge in each other.

It is, in essence, fan fiction. And what's so wrong with that?

You're entitled to dislike her artistic choices, but to shame the movie for not being the book is nonsensical. Emerald Fennell even went so far as to put the movie title in quotations, having said from the beginning that this was a product of her imagination running wild on the narrative. Never once was it touted as a faithful re-telling in movie format.

So, if you prefer apples to oranges, great. I personally enjoy a little bit of both, but I would never berate my fruit for not tasting like another.

I say, enjoy the movie for what it is - one artist's homage and re-imagination of another artist's work.

• The movie has people talking about a book that, IMO, has never had the credit it deserves.

• The movie has put the novel on backorder with multiple publishers and on long library waitlists.

• The movie has people rushing to celebrate a female author who only published one book before her life was taken from her.

For these things alone, the movie is a triumph.

There are enough critics in the world. Instead, let's see if we can explore with a curious and open mind; engage in critical thought without mindlessly destroying artists and their work.

Alas, I suppose it is rather fitting that a story filled with so much angst has caused such discord in the world. Perhaps everyone is just having their own Cathy/Heathcliff moment.

I, for one, will be over here enjoying my fruit salad.