Unlike her sweet sister Charlotte, Emily Brontë was never good at social gatherings. In fact, she really has never been good at people, truth be told. When Charlotte acquired a teaching position and they both went away to school, Emily found herself so overwhelmed that she walled herself up in her room. Soon after, she returned to the reclusiveness of her parent’s home.
So Charlotte found it something of a surprise when Emily began writing insightful and poignant poetry sometime later. And then she wrote a book—published under a male pseudonym—called Wuthering Heights. A fairly controversial book about morality and the human condition.
How did that come from dour little Emily?
What Charlotte and other family members never realized, however, was that Emily was not some static thing sitting in a corner. She could and can grow. She can change. She may not enjoy swarms of people, with their empty discussions and dissembling faces, but she isn’t empty herself.
She feels things. Desires things.
One of those things is William Weightman, a handsome young curate from the local church. When he first arrived, Emily could barely endure him and his flitting butterfly flirtations with every young woman in his public sphere. His beautiful eyes. His smile.
But that changed one intemperate night when she and he were caught in the pelting rain and took shelter in an empty, dilapidated cottage.
Disdain, on both their parts, began to shift that night. Feelings emerged. Godly instruction was pushed aside. A touch became a caress. A caress became … so much more.
But love is more than simply sweet ecstasies. Love is also pain.
And loss.
And agony.
All those dark sides of love can bring more change than one might ever imagine. Imagined or not, however, one can write of that change. One can put pen to paper and express that darkness.
And that is something Emily Brontë is very good at.
As Emily’s story unfolds, we see that she is much more imaginative than many give her credit for. She talks through her made up stories when she’s alone, playing each of the characters in turn. We hear that this is something that she and her younger sister, Anne, loved doing. But Anne pulls away from the practice when she’s told that it’s childish.
Emily and her siblings clearly love one another. But their poor choices (and sometimes unhealthy interactions) end up hurting nearly all of them. The youngest Brontë sister, Anne, is seemingly the only exception.
Looked at from a certain perspective, the portrayal of Emily Brontë’s life in this film could be seen as a cautionary tale decrying lies and the selfish mistreatment of others.
William gives a brief sermon at church, speaking about how he feels connected to others who, like him, pause to listen to the rain hit their roof. “God is in the rain,” he notes poetically. Emily, however, reacts negatively to Williams attempt at eloquence. “How does God squeeze Himself into all that rain,” she asks.
During a party game at a dinner play, Emily dons the proffered mask and begins talking as her dead mother. The portrayal is so eerily believable that Emily’s sisters and brother begin weeping and emotionally expressing their love to their lost mother. William, on the other hand, finds the ghostly performance to be shameful. We learn that the mask used during the game was a gift to Emily’s mother on her wedding day. Further, the family’s children had long used it to portray biblical characters and characters from Shakespeare.
Emily debates blind obedience to God’s word with William. “If God intended us not to think, he would not have given us a brain,” she declares. Later, as their affair comes to light among family members, William selfishly uses his “faith” as a reason to cover up their sin and lie about everything they were doing and feeling. Among other things, he tells Emily, “We have committed a mortal sin.” He also blames Emily for their lusty relationship, saying, “I think there is something ungodly in you.”
A pastor’s sermon warns parishioners to be careful of the things they read, lest those descriptions push them toward sin. And ironically someone leaves a note in a hymnal to do just that.
Emily’s brother, Branwell, is forced to tutor a family’s children as punishment for a misdeed. But while tutoring, he seduces the kids’ pretty mother. We see him kissing her neck during a musical performance in a darkened room.
As Emily and William develop feelings for one another, their attraction begins to push boundaries of propriety. Soon, the two begin kissing passionately at any spare moment—including while working on Emily’s French lessons at church. We see them in brief scenes making love—sometimes while dressed, another time while covered by a blanket and one time while mostly undressed. In the latter scene, we see William, shirtless, and glimpse Emily’s bare chest in a scene that includes other intimate kissing and caressing.
Elsewhere, Emily puts William’s hand on her clothed chest, in public, to have him feel her rapid heartbeat.
After being caught peeping into a neighbor’s windows, Branwell is struck with a strap. Dogs chase both Branwell and Emily.
[Spoiler Warning] Emily’s eventual death is described as being a result of “consumption” (as tuberculosis was then called) and heartbreak.
Single uses of “h—” and “da–it.”
Branwell smokes cigarettes regularly. We also see him drink at a pub repeatedly, getting quite drunk with his friends. He pulls Emily in to drink some ale, too. But she finds it gag-worthy and settles for a sherry. Branwell also carries a flask that he sips from on occasion. Emily smokes a cigarette once.
Emily finds some opium extract that Branwell has been using and she experiments repeatedly with it, particularly at her saddest emotional points. (The drug use is painted as a somewhat euphoric, positive experience.) Emily is caught under the effects of the drug while in a church service.
Emily lies at times to her domineering father. And that is especially true when it comes to William Weightman, who’s hired to tutor her in French. (Her French does, however, improve markedly.)
Emily and Charlotte quarrel sometimes, generally over how others perceive Emily. “They call you the fool,” Charlotte cries. “I won’t let you drag me down. I won’t.” Emily mentions at one point that she repeatedly makes choices that she hopes will earn her father’s love. But he is a stern man who only speaks positively of her when her book finally reaches a modicum of fame and profit. (But by then, however, she is calloused to him and ignores his belated attention.)
Emily’s brother, Branwell, wants to be a writer as well. And he asks Emily to evaluate his writing. But in her anger over something completely unrelated, she selfishly savages him. In return, he later purposely hides something from her that upends her life and leaves her devastated. His own ill choices drive him further into a drunkard’s life. He begs Emily’s forgiveness from his deathbed.
Branwell coaxes Emily to join him and peep in a nearby family’s windows.
At the beginning of this well-staged period piece, Emily Brontë’s sister Charlotte wonders how her sheltered, antisocial sibling could possibly have written a book such as Wuthering Heights—the 1847-published novel filled with emotional and physical abuse and challenges to Victorian morality.
“It’s base and ugly and full of ugly people who only care for themselves,” Charlotte says harshly.
The film Emily then goes on to speculate how that controversial tale may have been given life through a torrid love affair Emily had with a young and handsome church curate.
The resulting tragic biopic is at times something quite beautiful to see and hear thanks to first time-director Frances O’Connor’s reverent efforts. But O’Connor also creates a film that many will find unpleasantly embellished by drug use and fleshy sensuality.
Those R-rated wutherings ultimately lessen this biopic’s heights.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
