I went to “WUTHERING HEIGHTS” so you don’t have to.

Hello Fleas.

Under oath to the Boss Flea (BF) to attend a Valentine’s Day screening of “Wuthering Heights”, the new blockbuster from Emerald Fennell so you don’t have to.

Why? Well… my fellow Fleas, we lived in the forest for a time. It was like Lost. The eyes burn from when I first found another across that pond: my unadulterated eyes fixed on his *ahem*. Him throwing me water crackers – from the box which he had placed over his -redacted- to permit the inevitable dual wieldry required in that place – so I could justify expending some energy, swimming over. A lifetime contract. We were able to survive just off that piss dripped packet for the 3 hours until we were able to find our way back to the Big Banana and to our hysterical families, home.

So, when the letter by my trained pigeon “What” was delivered to my stoop I was too aghast at the sight of that name that I am indebted wholly to, caught in such a stupor, that I was unable to wave bye the mailperson by the curb.

Inside, the terms of our agreement which I for obvious reasons accepted:

1.     I submit a report for most of the year's blockbusters.

2.     I submit my HONEST opinion.

3.     I submit it on time: by pigeon & mail.

For no compensation, it seems a fair price to pay for my life!

I was able to convince the GF (Girlfriend), of whom I love, and she loves me and we get along quite well thank you very much to instead of dinner, attend a V-Day screening of this movie. Now admittedly, I shirked at the thought of watching another film by this green-eyed minx, especially with another partner(!) as I deem Fennell responsible partly for my last relationships’ decomposition. So, with a week to spare, I gathered a shield. I purchased the novel, second-hand, out of pocket. A fair price to pay! I’ve made 2026 the year of being kinder to myself, so after each chapter, I would reward myself 6 hours of YouTube shorts. I got through 7 chapters. By God! The nerves I had to settle with liquor! I was waging war with the posits of feminism! Walking into the packed 40-seater theatre of astute woo girls and great white knights, I found my seat behind a boulder of a man with claw marks for hair and a shirt:

I was really really really really scared my Fleas.

Like what if I hate it and I can’t bear it and I freak out and am assaulted by this clearly devoted crowd? What if I’m beaten green by this militia? What if I am never able to repay what’s owed?!

The lights turn off. Silence.

A croak. A moan. It was someone moaning. She’s done it again. A good ratio of the audience was electrified. Their cackling as gunfire within an enemy trench. The screen juts the image of a person publicly hanging from a gallow. Oh, maybe she’s changed. Cut to two children watching in a crowd below, talking about how the moans tell you the neck hasn’t broken. Wow. Edgy. Me likey. Then after a struggle, the death: the image of a hard cock imprinted on the burlap gown of the punished. She hasn’t changed one fucking bit.

I gave up there. I must be honest with you Fleas! I began to shrink inside myself, seeing only proper ratios of maltesers:popcorn over the actual content of the film.

Still, I could not believe that everything I read in those first chapters… useless. Yes, Fennell choosing to rebuff the text in usual auteur fashion, casting a Catherine closer to her age, making her a single (blood) child, turning Heathcliff into a Bushwick werewolf, making Joseph hot and actually coherent, replacing the second-hand perspective of Nelly, just to throw out all the delicacy of personal experience in place for the grifting Pop-Feminism of 2010’s Pop Stars. Charli’s greater contribution to the film would have been to suggest to Fennell to host IG Live screenwriting sessions, where a think tank of 14-year-old girls would thrive over her.

I felt like I was in orbit above a dead moon. I thought I was watching Jacob Elordi, alumni of the Margot Robbie How-To-Cry-on-Camera-Acting-School. But he became only a part of that thing where you focus in the screen, and it can meld to any shape and perspective. Transforming into your iPhone held up to your face in bed, or the TV in your childhood living room at night. I began considering the times as a child I faced lust and the evil it brings to a relationship. A reflection of, through the absence of being and purpose. I thought maybe I had been so desensitised to this kind of passion throughout my life, whether it was through porn addiction as a young boy, or through involuntary eavesdropping at night, that I simply am unable to see it for what it is: a raw signal of feelings. These characters feel for each other and they yearn for each other. Even if it is shuttered through Botox and wigs, a more open person can understand and relate to these feelings. Maybe it should be the kind of film that requires focus on the perils of these two fated. It was now when Catherine learns the news that Mrs. Earnshaw has run to live with Heathcliff. She begins to cry, again, but this time I feel it! I can see in her all she has sacrificed to be what she thought she was supposed to. “Suck Shit!”, someone in the front row shouts. The whole audience bursts into apathetic laughter and applause. Wait what?

No. It was fucked, because from then on it was a heckling frenzy from the audience. The kink-fest between Heathcliff and his wife was taken the way it should have, with collectives of groans and cackles. It now seemed there was a collective understanding of the lack of self-awareness and lackadaisical themes of heartbreak and money can’t buy happiness. Instance and instance of lame and aesthetic choices over the compellent and subtle directions of something like Pride and Prejudice hit harder to me, and more. Leaving no compassion to the finale of Catherine’s stillborn and sepsis. The end credits seeming to play like a punchline, the room filled with a roar of laughter. I turned to my GF (Girlfriend) and said “Thank God I’m so hungry let’s go grab something to eat. Can we watch Cars later? I hope the BF will forgive me.”

So, all in all, you don’t have to watch this. But if you are, charge your phone and bring some friends. And bring some wine, you’re going to need an empty head. There’s nothing to gain here.