All the Ways Margot Robbie's Wuthering Heights Deviates From the Book

Young Cathy's First Exposure to Sex Is a Dead Man's Erection

Suffice it to say, Emily Brontë's 1847 novel Wuthering Heights does not begin with young Catherine Earnshaw witnessing a public hanging and being both freaked out and fascinated by the dead man's erection.

That, however, is how Emerald Fennell's 2026 movie "Wuthering Heights" begins, with Charlotte Mellington playing Cathy as a child.

There is no such scene anywhere in the book, which begins with Cathy dead and Heathcliff on the old side (like, in his late 30s) and then unfolds mainly in the form of a story recounted by the Earnshaws' longtime housekeeper Nelly Dean.

Cathy's Brother Is Dead and Her Father Is Ruined by Drinking and Gambling

Cathy's father, known only as Mr. Earnshaw, brings young Heathcliff, a foundling of indeterminate origin and race (Brontë ambiguously describes him as "dark-skinned"), home to live with their family at Wuthering Heights.

In the film, the boy (Owen Cooper) arrives, and Cathy declares that she's going to name him Heathcliff after her dead brother. Later, her father (Martin Clunes) is ruined by alcoholism and gambling, and Cathy seeks a way out of her dire straits by tipping her cap at wealthy Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif).

But in the book, Cathy's 14-year-old brother Hindley is alive and envious of Heathcliff. He goes to university, marries Frances and has a son, Hareton.

After Earnshaw dies, it's Hindley's gambling problem that allows Heathcliff to manipulate the heir into making him manager of the estate. And when Hindley dies of alcoholism, Hareton is still very young and Heathcliff assumes control of Wuthering Heights. 

All the Sex Between Cathy and Heathcliff

There's no nudity in Fennell's Wuthering Heights, the writer-director explaining to USA Today, "Things that are sexy often take us by surprise. Maybe some people would argue otherwise, but I'm not interested in anything being explicit. I'm interested in making people feel."

But Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) and Cathy (Margot Robbie) have a bunch of sex all the same—unlike in the book, consumers of which can only read between the lines about kisses, caresses and embraces.

Meanwhile, Elordi insisted the movie's sex quotient was "entirely in the spirit of the novel."

“Any image that comes from Emerald's head is inspired by that depravity and love and obsession," the Australian actor said. "They’re all in the language of what Brontë was driving at with this book, so it was never really a shock or a reach.”

Nelly Acts Out of Spite

In the book, Nelly tells the story of Heathcliff and Cathy,  including the part where Cathy admitted her reservations about marrying Heathcliff to her, and he overhears them. Heathcliff then fled Wuthering Heights and returned a few years later a wealthy man, but Cathy married Edgar while he was gone.

Fennell's Nelly (Hong Chau)—stung by Cathy's comment that she couldn't understand her predicament because Nelly had never loved anyone that way, and vice versa—purposely ensures that Heathcliff overhears their conversation.

Nelly later burns love letters Heathcliff sends to Cathy after he's married to Isabella Linton (Alison Oliver), who's Edgar's sister in the book and referred to as his "ward" in the movie.

But in the book, Nelly reluctantly helps Heathcliff visit the ailing Cathy, who dies after prematurely giving birth to a daughter (also named Catherine).

Servants Joseph and Zillah Enjoy BDSM Time in the Barn

In the movie, grown Cathy comes across servants Joseph (Ewan Mitchell) and Zillah (Amy Morgan) engaging in some bondage play in the barn. Inspired, Cathy goes out to the moors to pleasure herself, where she is spied by Heathcliff, who doesn't let the moment go unacknowledged.

In the book, Zillah tells a visitor to Wuthering Heights—long after Cathy's death, when Heathcliff is the lone lord of the manor—that she has "only lived there a year or two."

And by then, "vinegar-faced" Joseph is "an old man," even "very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy." 

Isabella Plays Heathcliff's Game

Heathcliff marries Isabella to torture both Edgar and Cathy—and by all accounts he tortures Isabella, too.

In the book, she's quickly disabused of any notion that Heathcliff will be a good husband. She eventually flees her violent spouse and gives birth to their son, Linton, in London. She only returns to her family's home to entrust her then 12-year-old child to Edgar's care before she dies.

But in the film, when Heathcliff decides that their sex life should include a dog collar, she obliges. She also sticks around and is still in the picture when he races to a dying Cathy's bedside.

Isabella Stabs Her Cathy-Hair Doll

Before her marriage in the film, Isabella has a grand dollhouse and a doll collection that includes two fashioned after herself and Cathy, using real human hair.

Pining for Heathcliff and enraged at Cathy, Isabella poses the Cathy doll in a bloody death scene, stabbed through the back. 

No such thing occurs in the book.

Cathy Dies, The End

Fennell's movie ends with Cathy's death from miscarriage complications and forgoes the second half of the book, which delves into the fate of the next generation.

The classic 1939 film starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, also stops short, ending with a grief-stricken Heathcliff dropping dead on the moors after insisting to a dying Cathy that she haunt him till the day he follows her into the ground.

A more faithful adaptation is the 2009 ITV miniseries Wuthering Heights, starring Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley, who met on set and have now been married since 2014.