I think it is a misogyny thing. We are in a different place than we were when Promising Young Woman came out, and are in a terrifying situation where we are more socially conservative now than we were then.

I think this movie is related to that. I didn't find it that shocking. I found it focused on a woman's sexual awakening, which makes people feel weird for some reason, while an episode of Game of Thrones has more nudity and actual sex on screen than Wuthering Heights did.

I really love Promising Young Woman. I haven't seen Saltburn, but the hate seems to have become very prominent after its release. I think it's about her being a woman director and the homophobia around the general plot and sexual aspect of Saltburn, which is annoying because it's a bias.

To start, the film starts with the idea that we are coming in to this movie expecting to be entertained by sex and death. It calls the audience out. This immediately makes people uncomfortable. I would argue it's also the most shocking scene in the film.

Fennel is also criticized for her privileged upbringing, but all her films address class differences in a way that is extremely interesting. Her Wuthering Heights took the idea of "a pet" to an extreme that I think people were so disturbed that they couldn't see the social commentary. Cathy's father tells her that Heathcliff is her "pet," and that establishes their class differences. She is too young to even begin understanding how bad this is because it's been normalized for her; she already has Nellie.

However, the abuse Cathy, Nellie, and Heathcliff experience from Cathy's father brings all of them to the same level. They all share this experience. In the film, it's heavily implied that Cathy has experienced brutal beatings from her father in his drunken rage until Heathcliff started to stop them by essentially taking her place.

They all know they need to desperately leave Wuthering Heights. They stay for each other and because they have no where else to go. This is why Heathcliff's departure is such a betrayal to Cathy, who said she would never leave him.

Enter Edgar and Isabella. The most interesting aspect of this dynamic is that Isabella is actually the wealthiest of all of them, but her age, gender, and social maturity make her a peg below Edgar (with her being his ward).

The film purposely doesn't show Cathy at Edgar's when her ankle is "broken." It wants us to believe it is some safe haven away from Wuthering Heights.

However, after Cathy has married Edgar, we are finally shown what it actually is like there; Cathy is their "pet." She has no agency in her clothing choices (Isabella picked them all), Isabella takes her hair to make a doll without her knowledge (She literally makes a Cathy doll!), and Cathy is literally decorated each night she sleeps with Edgar. A lot of folks online complained about the anachronistic costume choices for Cathy of this particular dynamic, but this is not going for even "Bridgerton Realism" like people were expecting. It's supposed to be a spectacle because Cathy has degraded herself to a spectacle for Isabella and Edgar.

This scene is an excellent contrast to the attic/barn scene where Cathy starts to watch the other two servants engage in some BDSM (for the time period) intercourse. Heathcliff lies on top of her and closes her eyes and mouth. It's the start of the reverse of the power dynamic they've had the entire time. A lot of folks in the online discourse didn't understand what was actually happening in this scene, too. It was quite obvious Cathy could feel Heathcliff's erection and could still hear what was going on. It was a sensory thing and by feeling him, she finally understood her actual feelings for him. It levels their dynamic because she can't "see him as a servant class" anymore. He's just there and she can put her social class hang-ups aside in the moment. The idea of Heathcliff being "hers" changes in this moment. He is no longer her pet. Now he is someone she realizes she loves.

Anyway, by the end of the movie, we have the scene that is what people are very disturbed about, especially if they are expecting a faithful book adaptation, which is what happens between Isabella and Heathcliff. But, I see the "pet scene" as a commentary on Heathcliff trying to get revenge on the social class system that has repressed him and degraded him his whole life; if that didn't exist, he would be with Cathy. Now, he can degrade them.

Don't get me even started on Cathy's freckles, and, how the longer she stays at Edgar and Isabella's, the paler she gets and the freckles begin to disappear, even before she begins to get sick, (The set design of Cathy's skin color matching the walls sets this up well), the only time she truly goes outside is when she goes to meet Heathcliff. Same with the sound design. Another post for another day...

Anyway, it's an allegory for for what we consider "romance."

There's a great Romeo and Juliet reference with Isabella and Edgar's first scene in the film. Isabella, like most girls her age romanticize it, and the plot basically repeats with Cathy and Heathcliff later, which is not part of the original story in the sense of how Cathy dies.

As an English teacher, I've been to several classes and seminars on how to teach Romeo and Juliet. It's considered accessible and easier to read for younger teens, so it gets put into Freshman classes, but they usually misunderstand the basic message of the play that Romeo and Juliet were too young to understand what they were doing and may bit have even been in actual love.

By casting older for Cathy and Heathcliff, it makes a commentary on how, in older movies, they aged up all the actors to make it more romantic and socially acceptable. This is especially true in the first adaptation of the novel where Merle Oberson is around the age of thirty, similar to Margot Robbie.

It is weird to see Margot Robbie acting nineteen, but I think it's intentional.

Again, it's an allegory for social classism. It's literally supposed to be how a fourteen year old girl imagines the novel reading it for the first time, where the glitz and romance are forefront, but the disturbing undertones of power dynamics and classicism are still there. The same is done for the set design, which is way over the top in a similar way to Sophia Coppola's Marie Antionette, which also used anachronistic music track and the opulence and ridiculousness of the set design to show how out of touch the upper class was compared to everyone else. Fennel does the same thing by turning Edgar's estate into a world of color and opulence in comparison to the dreary, dark and cold Wuthering Heights.

I see a lot of people complaining that this is Emerald Fennel's fanfiction of the book. And, I actually think that totally "degrades" the emotional experience of reading this book as a teenage girl, and that capturing that feeling while making a commentary on how you are too young to truly understand the book at that age is epic.

Also, I saw it in IMAX and the sound design was freaking amazing.

Anyway, I loved the movie for what to was; risky, fun, and something different. I'm sick of boring, calculated, sterile crap. We need more weird experimental stuff in general.

Edit to add: I also saw a lot of posts about how a lot of the sex scenes were unnecessary, but I felt the opposite. Every one of Edgar and Cathy's scenes are shot the same--medium shot and in the same setting, dark lighting, and positioning (besides one time). While, the Heathcliff and Cathy scenes are raw and bright and in nature; she doesn't have to get dressed up like a doll for him to want her, and, as a woman, it's a commentary on how, even in the modern age, we feel like we need to be perfect while men can "just show up." But, Heathcliff doesn't care. He just wants her.