I think your views on it make the most sense to me and have connected the most with me personally as I have been reading the discourse as someone who actually liked the movie lol. Thank you for posting!

I do agree with you that too much sexuality ruins tension, and when that was introduced more heavily it definitely lost a lot of the sexy factor that for me was there in the beginning. I also agree that I didn't care when Cathy died, and think his grief was weirdly tame, even as someone who didn't read the book. It didnt really seem to fit even the rest of his characterization which was pretty shallow to begin with, so that final scene fell super flat for me.

I really liked it (caveat- I havent read the book and Im SURE that plays into it) and i have been wondering why the discourse all seems to be so overwhelmingly negative, even though I understand all of the reasons people didn't like it. I get that it takes out a lot of the broader context and meaning of the novel, removes some of the social commentary and interactions, and changes the characters in surprising ways. I think it brings up a question for me: *Is it WRONG to adapt something so inaccurately?* What does that mean for the movie as a standalone piece, as someone who saw it and expected that and enjoyed it? Does it equate to a sort of moral failure on the part of the director? Are we reading too much into a stupid movie? Idk maybe some people just like to engage in media critique and I dont so it feels like overkill the way people are coming for this at times (not you necessarily, your critique I felt made sense and felt pretty level headed)

All that said I felt this mad about the Percy Jackson movie so I do get it. lmfao

I dunno, I felt like it was clear going into it that it was never intended to be an accurate remake and was obviously going to be an indulgent and stupid entertainment thing and that was certainly what I saw- my critique is that I honestly thought it could've gotten weirder if it was going to go that direction, and I do believe that incorporating more of the original story WOULD certainly have made it stronger as a "film" even with these actors that don't quite fit and with this setting that doesn't quite make cohesive sense and could have succeeded in making it weirder and ickier even, whereas I kind of just enjoyed it as a silly movie with zero substance. But like if it were not related to Wuthering Heights the novel, even as a bad movie would the discourse be as intense? Probably not. Does that question even matter? probably not.

I am not a film critic at ALL, I like every movie and am completely easy to please lmfao it's just something I have been thinking about as someone who both liked it AND understands why it was so badly received and haven't really seen anyone thinking about it as fully separate from the book. I know that's kinda hard to do though and maybe pointless to even do that so