This is got to be one of the most psychologically traumatic movies I have ever seen, right up there with Panic in Needle Park. The first time I watched it, I started blubbering about halfway through, and never stopped; the second time I watched it with some other people, and one of them left in the middle because it was "too f**ed up". I read the novel some years back, and as much as I can remember, this movie pretty much nails it. We also get the benefits of excellent actors Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, and a really super supporting cast whose names I have never seen again. This isn't a perfect movie at all; it moves through a very long story very quickly, and you have to be paying very close attention at all times to follow the plot. It is indeed very much a cliff notes of the novel. Sometimes the directing decisions seem a little weird, for example the placement of the "young Heathcliff" and "young Cathy" actors. However, I recommend this film highly.
While I was watching this with company I kept asking them questions about Heathcliff's actions and behavior. Each person had a different explanation for why he did the things he did from, "he's twisted and sick inside," to "he was treated like an animal all his life", to "he was devastated because Cathy never wrote to him". None of these people had ever read the novel, and yet these are the same mysteries my classmates and I were trying to unravel in eleventh grade english.
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| Ralph Fiennes (Heathcliff) and Juliette Binoche (Cathy) looking tortured. |
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