Now that Wuthering Heights is streaming, there’s something I was wondering about: Just how long does it take for Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s characters to kiss? It takes an hour and 23 minutes in a movie that is just over two hours, and that feels like a very long time. But that was “of course” intentional by writer/director Emerald Fennell.
It’s called “yearning,” honey, and Wuthering Heights has all the ingredients to get audiences all hot and bothered about Cathy and Heathcliff’s slow burn romance-turned-tragedy. When CinemaBlend spoke to Fennell about making us wait so long to see these two smooch, here’s what she said:
I mean, we had to. You have to. You have to wait. The thing that was really important to communicate was at this time, the kind of feelings that they had for each other, you know, out of wedlock and out of the class system were impossible.
While it’s easy to yell at the screen, “just kiss already!” it’s not that simple for these characters who are living in 18th century England, which was a time when their love story defies what’s appropriate for the two of them in society. As Fennell added in our interview:
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It was really important that we understood how troubling the feelings are for Cathy and how dangerous stepping over those boundaries was. And I felt that it was completely right that she wouldn’t, she couldn’t just yield. But, no, of course. I mean it’s very frustrating. But that’s the fun, isn’t it? The wait is the fun.
If these two just kissed and had a happily ever after from the jump, it wouldn’t be quite as entertaining and as enjoyably “frustrating” as it is. I know when I watched this initially with a packed theater full of women, it felt like everyone was on the edge of their seats over Cathy and Heathcliff’s “will they/won’t they” storyline.
The Wuthering Heights movie is based on Emily Brontë’s book of the same name, though Emerald Fennell decided to take some creative liberties with the material, which led to some polarizing opinions from viewers. (You can check out our own Wuthering Heights review yourself.)
Cathy and Heathcliff grew up together in the same estate in the Yorkshire Moors, but Heathcliff was picked up off the streets. While they have an undeniable chemistry with one another and Heathcliff makes his attraction to her known, Cathy denies him, and he runs away.
Complications grow when Cathy meets a new arrival to her neighborhood, a wealthy textile merchant named Edgar, and she earns his affections. I don’t know about you, but I can’t stop thinking about the ending of Wuthering Heights, and in our interview with Robbie, she gave us insights into what she thinks her last words to Heathcliff would’ve been.
When Emerald Fennell was making Wuthering Heights, she cited wanting to make it this generation’s Titanic – even though she ultimately told us she chose to make it R-rated because she wanted to make that movie that “feels right” and not worry much about the MPA rating. It turns out, part of making that happen involved forcing us to wait a while for the two main characters to kiss.
You can stream Wuthering Heights on HBO Max (or rent/buy on digital) now.