Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1992, Juliette Binoche, Ralph Fiennes, Janet McTeer, Sophie Ward, Simon Shepherd, Jeremy Northam, Simon Ward) – Classic Movie Review 13,859

The 1992 film travesty of the great Emily Brontë novel Wuthering Heights plumbs the withering depths. Juliette Binoche appears lost as Cathy and Ralph Fiennes appears in his film debut as Heathcliff.

Director Peter Kosminsky’s 1992 film travesty of the great 1847 Emily Brontë novel Wuthering Heights plumbs the withering depths with a banal script and the risible casting of Juliette Binoche as the free-spirited Cathy (and as Catherine). She puts up no struggle at all against her French accent, producing a performance that is laughably absurd.

Dubbing her voice with an English accent would help, and so would replacing the Ryuichi Sakamoto score that thumps away tediously and endlessly at the same few notes throughout the picture.

As the tortured, brooding Heathcliff, Ralph Fiennes might just have stood a chance in another movie, though it is a performance entirely on one note, all staring, glowering and boring – and his actor brother Joseph Fiennes would have been perfect casting.

Anne Devlin’s screenplay includes the usually omitted second generation story of the children of Cathy, Hindley and Heathcliff from the second volume of the novel, which only conspires to make the film longer and even more tedious. And Sinéad O’Connor as Emily Brontë?

It is Ralph Fiennes’s film debut. He teamed up with Binoche again in 1996 for The English Patient.

Supposedly Paramount Pictures had to call it Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights as Samuel Goldwyn Productions had copyrighted the novel’s title for their 1939 film Wuthering Heights, but, if so, why is the 1970 film called just Wuthering Heights. The answer is the copyrighting‑the‑title story is a myth. In the UK and US a title cannot be protected by copyright. Copyright protects the text of a novel, not its name. A commercial brand name trademark can be protected but the 1939 Hollywood version never registered Wuthering Heights as a trademark, and even if it had, a trademark can be challenged if it is deemed generic, such as the name of a public‑domain literary work. Nevertheless, the film was marketed and screened in UK and US cinemas as Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. The original 1992 movie‑poster images display the full title of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and DVD and Blu‑ray releases in both the UK and the US have that on their covers.

Cast: Juliette Binoche as Cathy and Catherine, Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff, Jeremy Northam as Hindley Earnshaw, Simon Shepherd as Edgar Linton, Sophie Ward as Isabella Linton, Janet McTeer as Nelly Dean, Jason Riddington as Hareton Earnshaw, Simon Ward as Mr Linton, Jennifer Daniel as Mrs Linton, Paul Geoffrey as Mr Lockwood, John Woodvine as Thomas Earnshaw, Jonathan Firth as Linton Heathcliff, Dick Sullivan, Robert Demeger, Janine Wood, and Sinéad O’Connor as Emily Brontë.

Wuthering Heights [Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights] is directed by Peter Kosminsky, runs 106 minutes, is made by Paramount Pictures, is released by United International Pictures (UK) and Paramount Pictures (US), is written by Anne Devlin, is shot by Mike Southon, is produced by Mary Selway, Simon Bosanquet and Chris Thompson, and is scored by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Release date: October 16, 1992.

© Derek Winnert 2026 – Classic Movie Review 13,859

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