Intimate Scenes from "Wuthering Heights" Spark Controversy, Margot Robbie Accused of "Going Too Far"
A new clip featuring intimate scenes from the new adaptation of "Wuthering Heights" starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi has drawn criticism for being overly explicit and frequent. The film has been labeled "spicy and wild" since its release.
Some viewers have described the film as "like a 14-year-old quickly reading the original work and hastily filming their own interpretation," criticizing how the profound "soul love" of the original novel has been reduced to a cliché "passion farm" in the movie.
Director Emerald Fennell admitted that she didn't aim to replicate the original work, but rather to recreate the "raw, unsettling, and sexy" feeling she experienced when first reading it at age 14. Therefore, the film made bold visual breakthroughs, using lavish costumes, tactile art design, and pulsating electronic music by Charli XCX to create a gothic world full of sensory tension.
Robbie also revealed during promotion that filming the intimate scenes was actually "quite technical," requiring extensive choreography and being far less passionate than depicted on the page, while the argument scenes were more likely to get people emotionally charged.
The film has currently grossed over $246 million worldwide (approximately 1.7 billion RMB), ranking fifth in the global box office for 2026, but has only earned 9.38 million RMB in mainland China after three days of release.
The Irish Film Classification Office has rated the film as "Adult," explicitly labeling it as containing "intense sexual scenes."