Emily Brontë’s classic tragic romance has enjoyed a mainstream renaissance lately, thanks to its shout-outs in the “Twilight” series. But this adaptation is as far from glossy teen melodrama as you can get.
Free of soundtrack and hair product, British director Andrea Arnold’s telling of the story of tormented lovers Cathy and Heathcliff will genuinely make you feel you’ve been transported to the wintry, Victorian-era English moors. Realistic and visceral it certainly is; you may even pick up a few pointers on slaughtering livestock. It is also — as life would have been there — challengingly slow.
The film earns its edgy stripes by envisioning hothead Heathcliff — who, in the book, comes to the Earnshaw family as a gypsy foundling — as black. It actually makes so much sense in the context of his ostracization by Cathy’s brother, and assorted others, that it’s hard to believe no one’s done it before. (Though I’m not going to take issue with previous casting choices, especially Tom Hardy and Ralph Fiennes, while Laurence Olivier’s 1939 performance remains the definitive Heathcliff for many.)
To underscore the character’s outsider status, Arnold (“Fish Tank”) cast non-actors Solomon Glave and James Howson to play young and adult Heathcliff, respectively. She may have gotten more inexperience than she bargained for — apparently Howson’s voice has been overdubbed, for reasons the studio would or could not explain when I asked.
But Heathcliff’s none too talkative, anyway, nor is anyone else. Paul Hilton and Lee Shaw, as Mr. and Hindley Earnshaw, grunt more than they speak, and when wealthy neighbors Edgar and Isabella Linton (initially Jonny Powell and Eve Coverley) show up, they mostly lob racist epithets at the family’s black sheep.
Any flowery pronouncements or dramatic clinches between the lovers have been stripped. Instead, we see their primal, sadistic connection develop early on, as young Cathy (Shannon Beer) licks the wounds on Heathcliff’s back after he’s been whipped for insolence. Later, she playfully steps on his face, pushing it into the mud.
Nature figures prominently here in a way that’s initially engaging — we’re all just bundles of animal instincts, see — then a bit repetitive. Up-close shot of an insect? Check. Windswept panorama? Check. Resume narration.
When Heathcliff (Howson) returns after a three-year absence, looking distractingly different from his younger self, the film begins to flag; the chemistry between Howson and Kaya Scodelario (the UK’s “Skins”), as adult Cathy, is lacking, and Arnold allows the characters no real moments of abandon.
But if you can handle the glacial pacing and lack of dialogue, there is a certain squirmy satisfaction to watching this well-worn story of love, cruelty and madness play out minus the long-winded speeches and romantic catharsis. There are no heroes, and discomfort reigns: Heathcliff is an angry time bomb, Cathy is a capricious bitch and everyone seems like they could use a good pair of mittens and a warm hat.