Table Manners is a long-standing podcast that began in late 2017: a collaborative effort between (mother-daughter) Lennie and Jessie Ware—the funktastic, soulful chanteuse who just released her sixth studio album, Superbloom.

The podcast revolves around the idyllic domesticity of the Wares’ kitchen/inner sanctum, welcoming a parade of A-listers to their dining table for “food, family and conversation”. Early guests included Jessie’s friends from the entertainment industry—like Sam Smith, Alan Carr, Annie Mac, Benny Blanco, Ed Sheeran and Paloma Faith—but the operation quickly expanded towards public figures like Nigella Lawson, three/five Spice Girls (Mel B, Mel C and Geri Halliwell), Mark Ronson, Charlotte Tilbury, Jamie Oliver and Emilia Clarke, et al.

Today, the podcast has evolved into a successful enterprise that has no doubt liberated Jessie from the grinding pressures of the music biz. Each instalment contains around six minutes of advertisements (roughly 10% of an episode’s runtime) and functions as an effective mechanism for celebrities to promote their new products: e.g., Margot Robbie appeared on the show in February 2026 just as “Wuthering Heights” hit theatres in the US/UK.

Director Emerald Fennell featured in a rare 2021 episode (amidst the COVID-19 pandemic) during the opening of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella (2021) on the West End: Fennell wrote the book, with lyrics by Disney alum David Zippel and music by Lloyd Webber.

The original production was applauded by mainstream English critics, many of whom noted that the theatre-going public had been starved of such campy pleasures during the pandemic; for The Guardian, Chris Weigand declared,

“[Cinderella] arrives late but in high fashion with outré gowns, bare-chested swordplay, brutal high heels and whip-smart humour. It’s worth the wait.”

Quentin Letts’s headline for The Sunday Times reads, “Cinderella is a triumph of catchy songs and fabulous wigs—it shouldn’t be denied to a joy-starved public,” and—for The Telegraph—Marianka Swain concurred,

“[It’s] easily one of Lloyd Webber’s most entertaining musicals—a family-friendly extravaganza with larger-than-life characters that make up for our lost pantomime season in 2020.”

The theatre community was less sycophantic, however; for The Stage, Tim Bano conceded,

“It’s fine[…] Those who held tenaciously to their tickets for a year won’t regret it; those who gave them up won’t be hammering at the door of the Gillian Lynne.”

Particularly on the subject of Fennell’s libretto, Suzy Evans opined for London Theatre that “[her] script wanders on and off course a bit at the end”; for The Arts Desk, Gary Naylor was more resolute:

“[Her] book cracks open the mythos of the familiar story, though she never quite puts all the pieces back together again—the tone lurches, now-redundant plot devices hang in the air, characters change their minds back and forth [...] In that sense at least, the shoe doesn’t fit.”

When the show transferred to Broadway in 2023 (now styled as Bad Cinderella, with negligible edits by screenwriter Alexis Scheer), it was ripped apart by American critics, sidelined by the Tonys and closed within just four months; Naveen Kumar’s Variety headline reads, “Andrew Lloyd Webber’s muddled, sexed-up, Broadway spin on the fairytale is true to its name,” surmising that Fennell’s adaptation was entirely superficial:

“It’s easy to wonder who this new fable is for and what revised moral it aims to impart [...] Maybe the villain, in this case, is us [...] For so often rewarding creators for rehashing old stories while vainly expecting the unexpected.”

Jesse Green (chief theatre critic at The New York Times from 2020-25) somewhat reveals his own calcified biases in a scathing review:

“Bring earplugs. Not just because the songs [...] are so crushingly loud. The dialogue, too, would benefit from inaudibility [...] Bad Cinderella is not the clever, high-spirited revamp you might have expected, casting contemporary fairy dust on the classic story of love and slippers.

It has none of the grit of the Grimm tale, the sweetness of the Disney movie or the grace (let alone the melodic delight) of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Instead, it’s surprisingly vulgar, sexed up and dumbed down: a parade of hustling women in bustiers and shirtless pec-rippling hunks.

Finally, a Cinderella for streetwalkers and gym rats!”

Emerald Fennell is a confounding figure within the entertainment industry, skilfully pivoting from a period actress—appearing in Channel 4’s 2010 adaptation of William Boyd’s Any Human Heart (2002); Rodrigo Garcia’s Albert Nobbs (2011), starring Glen Close; Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina (2012), starring Keira Knightley; the BBC’s long-standing Call The Midwife, as Nurse Patsy Mount (between 2013-17); Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl (2015), starring Eddie Redmayne; and Seasons 3/4 of The Crown (2019-20) as Camilla Parker Bowles—to producing an eclectic range of visual media.

Under the tutelage of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fennell assumed the mantle of showrunner for the second season of Killing Eve (2019) before her directorial debut (Promising Young Woman, 2020) won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Since then, she’s released Saltburn (2023) and “Wuthering Heights” (2026) which have not garnered the same awards attention/critical fervour, despite their commercial success; in fact, Fennell has become somewhat maligned within the popular consciousness.

In a now-viral clip (1:27:35) from Las Culturistas, Tina Fey delivers an electrifying monologue for the podcast’s ‘I don’t think so, honey’ segment: 

“You have a problem with Saltburn? Quiet luxury, keep it to yourself: because what are you going to do when Emerald Fennell calls you about her next project where you play Carey Mulligan’s coworker in the bridal section of Harrods, and then act three takes a sexually violent turn—and you have to pretend to be surprised by [it]?”

Referencing—of course—Fennell’s propensity for ‘shock jocking’: e.g., Cassie’s violent demise at the climax of Promising Young Woman (whilst dressed as a stripogram), Oliver’s consumption of bodily fluids in Saltburn and the baffling inclusion of sadomasochism in “Wuthering Heights”.

The British Film Institute (BFI) gave largely negative reviews to both Saltburn and “Wuthering Heights”, and there was even a hint of scepticism in Kate Stables’ glowing portrait of Promising Young Woman:

“Less nimbly managed are the script’s crunchy shifts in tone [...] It’s Fennell’s first feature, laudably full of daring and darkness, but its ambition makes for an occasionally bumpy ride [...]

Though the thriller dips into the same pitch-black playfulness as [Killing Eve], Mulligan’s extraordinary, chameleon performance gives the film way more emotional range and weight [...] Mulligan is the film’s motor, powering it through its surprising turns. Her talents are essential to the shock tactics of the last act, with its risky twist-on-twist unravelling.”

Discussing Saltburn, Sophie Monks Kaufman picks up from Stables’ review,

“Promising Young Woman came out during the peak of a post-MeToo hunger for avenging angels—and Carey Mulligan was right there to claim her hot-pink halo.

By contrast, Fennell’s follow-up, Saltburn presents an eat-the-rich shtick so tired, showy and hollow that even a game Barry Keoghan cannot save it. Where Promising Young Woman had a clear-eyed vision, Saltburn feels like it was melted down from a mood board dotted with images from better films [...]

The central relationship between a beautiful, rich, golden boy and a homoerotically yearning nobody calls to mind The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and the comparison does Saltburn no favours. While Anthony Minghella’s film thrums with shifting psychological currents that build an overpowering tension, Fennell undercuts every suggestion of genuine drama with pop-culture-savvy punchlines to the point of diminishing returns [...]

An ostentatious visual language strives to make something out of nothing, shooting conversations in intense close-ups and contriving flashy compositions that are disconnected from meaning[...] The rug-pull, when it comes, is predictable.”

Promising Young Woman was rounded out by a truly inspired cast (of which Lindsay Graham-Ahanonu/Mary Vernieu were nominated for a BAFTA); at dinner with the Wares, Jessie notes that they “used these kinda familiar, warm” and Fennell interjects, 

“Funny, men you would actually want to sleep with [...] It’s endemic, the stuff in this film; there’s nothing [here] that wasn’t in a comedy—to be laughed at—like five years ago.”

Bo Burnham (“the most dreamy/lovely/perfect kind of person” who plays Cassie’s would-be boyfriend, Ryan) and Adam Brody (“you welcome him with open arms, and he’s a wrong’un”) are two such examples of ‘anti-type casting’, “Most of these actors are known for comedic, boy-next-door types,” but the women who enable sexual violence in this film are likewise portrayed by beloved actresses: Alison Brie as Madison—Cassie’s friend from medical school who disregarded the allegations—and Connie Britton as Dean Elizabeth Walker—who actively buried the investigation into rapist Al Monroe, played by teen heartthrob Chris Lowell.

The Director of Photography for Promising Young Woman (Benjamin Kračun) would later collaborate with Coralie Fargeat on The Substance (2024), for which he earned the European Film Award for Best Cinematographer.

Linus Sandgreen worked on Saltburn in the same capacity, having previously led the camerawork on Storm (2006, for which he won the Guldbagge Award for Best Cinematography); La La Land (2016); No Time To Die (2021); Don’t Look Up (2021); Babylon (2022); and he’s since been attached to “Wuthering Heights”, as well as the upcoming Dune: Part Three (2026).

Saltburn also benefited from a powerhouse cast, informed by casting director Kharmel Cochrane: Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant function as a good cop/bad cop pair of overbearing, aristocratic parents, whilst rising stars Jacob Elordi, Alison Oliver (who returned in “Wuthering Heights” as Isabella Linton) and Archie Medekwe rounded out the younger elements—to this end, Keoghan was perhaps a little over-the-hill to affect the youthful infatuation of an Oxbridge undergrad; on the other hand, he nails the predatory inclination of his tryst with Felix’s younger sister, Venetia (played by Oliver).

In hindsight, Fennell’s brilliance as a filmmaker may stem from her ability to assemble an effective collage of actors, crew members and audiovisual references: where she’s been applauded for her casting choices, providing the space for veterans to let loose or for oddballs (like Burnham) to flex their dramatic prowess, she’s been repeatedly dinged for the quality of her screenwriting.

She’s directed, written and produced (alongside Margot Robbie’s ‘LuckyChap Entertainment’) all three of her feature films; is it not worth considering that an external co-writer might elevate her work?

Catherine Wheatley’s headline for her BFI review of “Wuthering Heights” reads, “Emerald Fennell reimagines Brontë’s classic as a lurid teenage dream,” and she remarks on its “moderate” studio allowance: 

“Fennell has assembled a tremendous production team to bring her [adaptation] to life [...]

[Acclaimed] costume designer Jaqueline Durran dresses Robbie like a little loo-roll doll: her tiny, tightly bound torso protruding from hyperbolically swishy skirts made of latex and lace, chiffon and silk.

Art director Caroline Barclay crafts the film’s title from ropes of braided hair, a nod towards the mourning jewellery worn at the time [...]

Sandgren imbues the sweeping, sodden landscapes with a sense of the epic, at one point recreating a shot from Gone with the Wind (1939).

Most impressive of all are Charlotte Diryckx’s sets, which include a chessboard-tiled room over which two enormous towers of green gin bottles loom [...] 

There’s no doubt [that] Fennell has an eye for an arresting image.”

Her budget has increased tenfold since the scrappy aesthetics of Promising Young Woman, from the Grade I listed property (Drayton House, Northamptonshire) used in Saltburn to the impressive array of technicians employed on “Wuthering Heights”. As such, there is some credence to the assumption that she is more preoccupied with style over substance.

The stylisation of “Wuthering Heights” (with “quotation marks”) is said to demonstrate that it’s her interpretation of the novel:

“The thing for me is that you can't adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book. I can't say I'm making Wuthering Heights. It's not possible.”

As Wheatley notes, this is most evident in Fennell’s complete disinterest in Brontë’s themes:

“[She] has been frank about the liberties she’s taken with her source material, describing the film as an expression of her fourteen-year-old self’s first experience of the book. So, gone is the second complicated half of the text, along with about half of the characters. Gone, too, the internal obstacles that run through the central relationship, the hatred, resentment, racial and class tensions displaced on to Nelly, the inscrutable lady’s companion, played by Hong Chau.

In their place is a quivering version of tragic romance borne of misapprehensions and missed connections, all yearning and foreplay. Not adaptation, but fan fiction [...] If this film’s sex scenes are disappointingly tame—bodies banished to the offscreen space in favour of close-ups of slurpy, sloppy kissing—it’s because this is a virgin’s version of what the carnal act looks like.”

As in the film, Heathcliff is adopted into the Earnshaw family as a foundling; in the book, where he’s described as “dark-skinned” (p. 3) with “black eyes” (p. 1), the reason why Heathcliff and Cathy are unable to consummate their relationship is not simply because of his lower social standing (and Cathy’s aspirations to the landed gentry), but because the contemporary Georgian society—much like our own—frowned upon interracial relationships.

For The Guardian, Dave Schilling also notes that these themes—of heredity, racism and social class—are inseparable from the novel, extrapolating on his own experience of growing up biracial in America:

“Wuthering Heights [is] a powerful story of class resentment, prejudice and the way those terrible forces curdle the human soul. It seeks to nod to the way in which we other those we don’t understand [...]

If I had the ability to make Wuthering Heights [into] a movie [...] I’d probably emphasise the aspects of the story that spoke to me the most—the alienation, the othering and the feeling that basic respect is just outside of my reach.”

Quite rightly, he poses the burning question that has underpinned the backlash to “Wuthering Heights”, the miscasting of Elordi (white; Australian) as Heathcliff and Fennell’s imprinting of “slurpy, sloppy kissing” onto Brontë’s gothic masterpiece:

“As a clearly intelligent and talented artist, why [are you] incapable of imagining a story with an interracial relationship?”

If we bear in mind that Promising Young Woman culminated in the presumption that carceral justice would prevail over an unrepentant rapist; that Saltburn blueballed itself on the promise of any realised homosexual lust; and that “Wuthering Heights” had no intention of engaging with racial/class politics, I think it’s safe to assume that Fennell is not the upstart, revolutionary filmmaker that she’s led us to believe.

Popular criticism of Fennell tends to abstract from any meaningful discourse on her films: this viral tweet (from “dr_kai_phd”) claims that she’s produced “the worst filmography ever” to the tune of >24,000 likes—and whilst some replies identify that Promising Young Woman had genuine merits, no one is willing to make an effective defence of her last two features.

A further series of tweets from “aedison” succinctly explains the vitriol:

“It is not impossible for rich people to make good art, but the reason Fennell is incapable of making good art is because she’s rich.”

They continue to argue,

“The whole UK arts scene is just a playground for the rich, but at least most of them are capable of making something of artistic value. Fennell’s oeuvre is uniquely awful; the work of a dismal imagination grinding through a list of taboos with the curiosity of a root vegetable.”

Nate Jones’ cover story for The New York Magazine (“How a Nepo Baby Is Born”, 2022) summarised the growing distaste that netizens have for the upper crust of creatives who dominate the entertainment industry: the front page pokes fun at a wide array of stars, superimposed onto freshly delivered newborns, from John David Washington (son of Denzel Washington) to Ben Platt (son of Marc Platt) and Lily-Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis).

Jones identifies that there is a spectrum of nepotism within the industry:

“At the top are the classic nepo babies, inheritors of famous names and famous features: Dakota Johnson [granddaughter of Tippi Hedren], Maya Hawke [daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke], Jack Quaid [son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan]. 

The next tier down are people who got a leg up from family connections even if they were not famous per se. These include figures like Lena Dunham, whose artist parents supplied the necessary cultural capital, as well as ‘industry babies’ like Billie Eilish, daughter of a voice actress, and Kristen Stewart, whose mother was the script supervisor on The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas..

The Hadid sisters are a tricky case: as with that other famous Palestinian, Jesus Christ, the benefits of the filial relationship clearly flowed both ways.

And we can probably draw a line when it comes to figures like Paris Hilton, for whom the term ‘rich people’ is already sufficient.”

Fennell is slightly anomalous within this system: her father (Theo Fennell, the “King of Bling”) is a renowned jewellery designer—who lists his non-bespoke creations at >£50,000—and her mother (Louise Fennell) is a photographer’s-assistant-turned-writer, whose screenplay The Bitter End (a biopic of Wallis Simpson’s final years, starring Joan Collins and Isabella Rossellini) is due to be released this year.

Mr Fennell has recently collaborated with Elton John on “turning his kneecaps into gold jewellery”, if that gives you any indication as to his wealth and influence. In an unattributed interview for The London Standard, the writer discloses that “Keith Richards is a family friend” and “William Boyd has known Theo Fennell since the 1970s, which may have helped a little with the casting [of his daughter in Any Human Heart on Channel 4].”

In another interview with The Times, between Fennell Snr and his youngest, Coco (a fashion designer who contributed to Cassie’s wardrobe in Promising Young Woman), he divulges that their in-laws described them as “half Waltons [the most affluent family in America/the owners of Walmart] [and] half Kardashians”, that is to say, filthy rich, well-connected and proudly tacky:

“In our family we take a terribly kitsch piece of china as seriously as a nice figurine.”

Likewise, Mr Fennell concludes an interview with Country & Town House (whose subsidiary School House maintains a catalogue “of hundreds of pre-prep, prep and senior [private] schools” for the discerning parents of ‘posh totties’) in a truly insensitive display of entitlement:

“Joy and fun are very underrated currencies. And I don’t think you need to be hugely serious, rich or successful to have fun.” 

Finally, on the occasion of Emerald Fennell’s eighteenth birthday, her parents threw a party at their Chelsea flat, which was photographed by the high society-obsessed Tatler, with guests including Louise Mary Elizabeth Dillon-Malone (wife of the Hon. Erskine Stuart Richard Guinness, descendant of the titular Arthur Guinness) and her daughter Molly Guinness; Alice Rugge-Price (descendant of Sir Charles Price; wife of Aidan Crawley, descendant of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia); Mickey Sumner (daughter of Gordon ‘Sting’ Sumner); James von Simson (descendant of Eduard von Simson); Lady Alexandra Gordon-Lennox (descendant of the Duke of Richmond); Alex R. Q. Hoare (descendant of Sir Richard Hoare); and Poppy Delevingne (descendant of Viscount Hamar Greenwood); of course, before you ask, Fennell was educated at Oxford—where she was scouted by Lindy King from United Agents.

On the subject of Paris Hilton, an inspiration of Fennell’s (“I went over and thanked her for letting me use [‘Stars Are Blind’], and she was just as amazingly beautiful and charismatic and ‘Paris’ as I could've imagined”), her career as a celebutante is indebted to her family’s considerable wealth but equally to the media attention she engendered at such a young age; although her predetermined social standing served as a catalyst for her celebrity, it’s the public that created “Paris Hilton”, much like the Kardashians—who (admittedly) grew up in Beverly Hills before the media turned them into superstars.

Fennell is undoubtedly posh—and this has preceded a quality of life which is insurmountable to the rest of us—but (unlike Hilton; in fact, more like the Kardashians) she has in no doubt benefited from a filial proximity to the entertainment industry: the “King of Bling”, his celebrity clients and their aristocratic mates.

Table Manners isn’t innocuous within this class warfare either; as discussed, the platform is increasingly bogged down with advertisements for Onken’s Natural Set Yogurt, La Roche-Posay Mela B3 Serum, Anthelios UVMune 400 Invisible Fluid Non-Perfumed Suncream (SPF50+), Francisco de Zurbarán at The National Gallery, American Express credit cards and whatever else the guest wishes to promote.

Whilst the Wares are comfortable with chirpsing small-town heroes like Slowthai, Jade Thirlwall or Sam Fender, or sharing a zoot with Big Zuu, they’ve also welcomed a large cast of establishment figures into their home: fashion designer Sir Paul Smith; political disappointments David Lammy and Sir Keir Starmer; Princess Eugenie (currently twelfth in line to the English throne); Tim Cook (CEO of Apple); and Tom Parker Bowles (Queen Camilla’s son from her first marriage and King Charles III’s godson).

It’s interesting to note how Fennell presents herself within this context, as it pertains to the assumption that she’s an out-of-touch snob with a “dismal imagination”.

She appears on the Wares’ doorstep with “the most beautiful, brilliant energy, goddess-like” and “ready to pop” with her second baby: “I’m always starving [...] It smells so delicious; is it spaghetti bolognese?” As it happens, spag bol was the key to inducing both Wares’ pregnancies—although, by legal necessity, neither of them are qualified midwives.

Food is essential to the Table Manners experience, and Fennell is refreshingly honest about her appetite:

“The worst thing that happened with my first pregnancy: I had a very wonderful and very chilled doctor, and she was like, ‘The great thing is, you can eat anything, the baby will just take the nutrients away from you’, so I was on a diet of like solid milkshakes [...]

I’m bad at that stuff: food at the best of times is just so wonderful and as a woman I still think—certainly for me—there’s always quite a complicated relationship with the kind of food you want to eat [...] and so being pregnant is [a] slightly naughty get-out-of-jail-free card.”

She makes a small concession to her lifestyle, hiring staff and relying on takeaways:

“I don’t look at the Deliveroo money that has been spent in the last two months [...] We’re lucky we have help with our toddler, a lovely nanny. At weekends and stuff, we try and cook, and I love cooking. I’ve just completely lapsed; I just can't. I’ll just crawl into bed basically and just eat whatever’s nearby.”

On the subject of her childhood, she’s more elusive (“Dad’s a jewellery designer,” without specifying exactly who he is and his connections within the industry):

“Mum’s probably one of those seventies girls; she ran away from her home in rural Wales at sixteen to go and work in a clothes shop on King’s Road, like, ‘Get me to where those snakeskin boots are. Get me to where the rock n’ roll is.’

Her cookery style was pierced film lid [...] When we were little, it was absolutely chicken kiev; M&S did a really great carbonara [...] it was all of that stuff [...]

We lived in Fulham, Earl’s Court, but half the time we were in Herefordshire, which is where I think of mostly when I think of growing up [...] On the way in on Friday, we’d stop at the fish and chip shop [...] and on the way back on Sunday, if we were lucky, we’d hit the McDonald’s.”

Jessie enquires as to why Fennell was asked to write the book for Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella: “You were at a dinner party at his house (because you’re family friends)?” To which Fennell quips,

“It makes my life sound much more highfalutin than it is.”

It’s not uncommon to have conservative family members and friends, but Fennell’s sat in the House of Lords for two decades—particularly drawing controversy in 2015 when he voted to cut tax credits/’benefits’ for low-income families.

There is a strange dissonance in the way that truly wealthy people discuss themselves, likely informed by a lifetime of receiving strange looks for divulging that your family just so happens to dine with Elton John, Keith Richards and/or Andrew Lloyd Webber.

On the one hand, when asked about her last supper, Fennell proclaims,

“To be [a] really posh arsehole, I would have oysters, Maldon Oyster Co.: they’re just amazing, with lots of shallots and red wine vinegar, as many as I could cram in.”

Then, almost in an act of self-censorship, she proceeds to describe a more homely meal:

“I’d have a coke: full-fat coke, a pint with lots of ice [...] My mum’s macaroni cheese; just the mum-factor, she adds bacon and tomatoes [...] It’s sort of like a pizza [...] Ice-cream sundae with a variety of toppings: it’s basically a child’s dinner.”

Through it all, she has good chat; Jessie asks if she’s ever received a free coffee at Pret A Manger, and Fennell commiserates that her friend (Jessica Knappett, “an amazing comedian”) always manages to charm the barista:

“She’s gorgeous, she’s charismatic, there are a million reasons why I would give her a free coffee, but it’s like a magic trick [...] I’m pulling my top down, really leaning in to get some action, and nothing: they’re repulsed by my sheer, naked need to be given a free coffee; they can smell it on me.”

The criticism of Fennell tends to overshoot the mark in either direction: apologists claim that one’s birthright is irrelevant (despite the endless slew of stars in the industry whose parents stuck a Prada boot in the door for them) whilst critics lambast the nouveau riche for their gaudy, tasteless sensibilities.

As Fennell reminisces on her “gap year in Paris” where she met her husband: “At the time, we didn’t like each other; it was like a bad rom-com; we argued a lot in quite an unpleasant way,” it’s difficult not to roll your eyes and dismiss her for being a spoilt brat.

Except when Jessie asks if there’s an autobiography in the works, Fennell has the self-effacing decency to openly laugh at the idea:

“No, there are no stakes; [we’re] too unlikeable.”

Aside from the more substantive criticisms of her filmmaking, Fennell has simply become a lightning rod for the referendum on nepotism; her placidity on the subject of her own privilege is both a blessing and a curse.

In a 2010 profile for The Guardian, Killian Fox asks, “What do you do when you're not working?” To which, you would imagine, she shrugs, yawns and says,

“I'm writing a novel—to keep my mind working and make sure I don't lounge in bed eating chocolates until three in the afternoon. My dad is very supportive.”

Nicholas Barber penned an article for the BBC on the controversies surrounding “Wuthering Heights”, largely dismissing any criticism on the basis that the public is “[too] fixated” on the novel, quoting casting director Kharmel Cochrane, who was likely in a foul mood after being menaced by the film’s detractors:

 "But you really don't need to be accurate. It's just a book. That is not based on real life. It's all art."

Barber concludes with the prophetic addendum:

“The old saying about there being no such thing as bad publicity has never been more true.”

“Wuthering Heights” grossed more than Saltburn and Promising Young Woman combined, despite—arguably—being Fennell’s worst feature; for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw decries,

“[The film is] an emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire that misuses Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.”

Whereas in Promising Young Woman, which benefited from a lower budget in its tackling of such an intimate topic, and unlike Saltburn, which was carried by its cast and crew, there was no synergy in any of the disparate elements in “Wuthering Heights”: neither Robbie nor Elordi are the spit of their literary equivalents; the Charli XCX-tinged soundtrack is anachronistic and distracting, as are the tawdry clothes and set pieces which dilute the haunting isolation of the Yorkshire Moors; and the assumption that audiences would be enamoured by the slamming of your lead actors together like plastic dolls is desperately infantile, moronic and dull.

I take issue with Cochrane’s nihilism on the basis that racism/class politics can’t merely be reduced to “art”, and if the last few years have taught us anything, socioeconomic issues are more than a reality for some: they’re a waking nightmare, and like Cathy, a spectral vision of one’s own mortality.

Fennell butchers a classic English novel in the service of making money, and the general public wonders why: is she not already wealthy enough?