Romance

Wuthering Heights review: Promising Stung Woman

Jeremy BeckReviews
Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights

In the opening scene of Emily, Charlotte Brontë disparages Wuthering Heights as “an ugly book, base and ugly.” Emerald Fennell must have missed that memo. To be sure, this umpteenth screen adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel is suffused with crude, primal emotions: lust, hatred, anguish, cruelty, more lust. But because Fennell fancies herself one of modern cinema’s most flamboyant stylists, her version clothes this vulgarity in beauty and extravagance. This is not your literature professor’s Wuthering Heights; this is more of the music-video edition.

Does that make it sacrilegious or sensible? Maybe a bit of both. I am not sure we needed another update of Brontë’s classic, much less one so high-strung and turgid. At the same time, if you are going to reimagine an article of the literary canon, you may as well do so with some flair. Fennell’s first two movies, Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, were original conceits, (arguably) teeming with provocative ideas and piercing insights into contemporary class and gender. Now pivoting from the freedoms of invention to the constraints of adaptation, she has redirected her inflammatory instincts away from theme and toward feverish form. The results may not be great, but at least they’re distinctive. Read More

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In Jay Kelly and 100 Nights of Hero, Storytelling Is the Story

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Maika Monroe in 100 Nights of Hero; George Clooney in Jay Kelly

Movies aren’t folktales. They don’t change over time, like myths relayed around a campfire. But they are nevertheless ideal vehicles for telling stories, and their unique form allows them to explore the process of how we perpetuate fiction. Last weekend featured the arrival of two films that are very different in structure and style, but which both wrestle with the metatextual relationship between artist and audience. It’s a subject that sounds academic but proves, at least in these two instances, to be awfully entertaining.

Jay Kelly is named for its main character, a man who is less a famous actor than a megawatt celebrity. Entering his 60s, he’s been captivating ticket-buyers for decades, working in a variety of genres—action flicks, mature dramas, romantic comedies—yet always brandishing his singular screen presence. He is handsome, eloquent, charming. I should probably mention that he’s played by George Clooney. Read More

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A Big Bold Beautiful Journey: Trip or Flop

Jeremy BeckReviews
Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

He doesn’t want the GPS. Who the hell needs a GPS? He can just use his phone. Aha, the saleswoman points out, but what if his phone craps out on him? A few feeble protests later (“I don’t think it will.” “But what if it does??”), he relents and agrees to the upsell, at which point the woman exclaims in triumph, “Fuck yeah!”

There is no small degree of metaphor in this early exchange in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, when a lonely single man named David (Colin Farrell) rents—“has foisted upon him” is probably more accurate—a 1994 Saturn from a strangely persistent agent in a pinstriped suit and pencil haircut (Phoebe Waller-Bridge, presumably improvising her thick German accent on the day of shooting). After all, a GPS is designed to guide you to a preplanned destination, allowing you to surrender your agency and simply obey the device’s rhythmic commands. So when this particular model, which speaks in the soothing voice of Jodie Turner-Smith, suddenly asks David, “Would you like to go on a big, bold, beautiful journey?” he hardly has any choice in the matter, and neither do you. Read More

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Splitsville, Twinless, and the Offbeat Romantic Comedy

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Dakota Johnson in Splitsville; Dylan O'Brien and James Sweeney in Twinless

It’s been a rough two decades for the romantic comedy. Twenty years ago, the summer box office was already showing signs of intellectual-property creep, but nestled amid the Star Wars prequel and the Batman origin story and the Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton remakes were two smash-hit original rom-coms: Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. (You could also throw in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, depending on your level of genre pedantry.) In 2025, you need to scroll all the way down to #18 before finding a single romantic comedy, Materialists (and calling that one a rom-com is a bit of a stretch); at a modest $37M, it’s the only rom-com of the year to scrape its way past $3M domestic.

Were studios just waiting to unleash their laugh riots until after Labor Day? Whatever the reason, last weekend saw the release of two new comedies that, while not strictly adhering to rom-com conventions, nevertheless serve as a welcome change of pace for anyone exhausted by all of the comic-book adaptations and animated sequels. Neither exactly set the box office afire, which is a shame, given that one of the pleasures of a well-made romantic comedy is the joy of experiencing collective laughter and heartbreak with fellow patrons. That, and both of these happen to be pretty good. Read More

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Materialists, The Life of Chuck, and the Pleasure of Brute Force

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in Materialists; Annalise Basso and Tom Hiddleston in The Life of Chuck

Movie critics are supposed to crave subtlety. We like to complain about obviousness, whether it appears in the form of voiceover, backstory, or exposition. Bluntness is axiomatically amateurish; true artistry lies in the oblique, the implied, the invisible.

I’m mostly joking, even if I acknowledge that I’m not immune to this sort of rhetoric. But directness in cinema can be satisfying, provided the story is told well. Last weekend saw the release of two new movies, Materialists and The Life of Chuck, which exhibit a plainspoken quality that’s more appealing than insulting. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and get yours pumping in the process. Read More

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