The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Based
on Emily Brontë’s classic, the film revolves around Cathy and Heathcliff’s
doomed love. Cathy’s father found a young gypsy Heathcliff, took him in and
raised him as his own – much to the chagrin of his son Hindley (Shaw) who
believed that by the virtue of his dark skin, Heathcliff was no more than a
savage. Cathy and Heathcliff become friends and life is generally peachy, at
least until Cathy’s father, and Heathcliff’s one source of protection, dies.

Findley
becomes the man of the house, making Heathcliff do all the dirty work and sleep
with the animals. Heathcliff puts up with this maltreatment just to be
close to Cathy. However Findley, who’s determined to turn Cathy into a lady,
does his best to keep the two apart. Cathy then grows close to one of their
rich neighbours and eventually agrees to marry him. It’s at this point that
Heathcliff splits and only returns years later; fully grown and rich. Their
years apart have brought their mutual obsession to a climax where it proceeds
to destroy their lives and the lives of those around them. 

Cathy
and Heathcliff’s romance is quite sadistic and their relationship as a whole is
more about obsession than love; their vile behaviour is not easy to stomach. Cathy
spits in Heathcliff’s face when she first lays eyes on him. Later on in the film
she stamps on his face and slaps him multiple times.

He isn’t much better
either; he marries a girl just to piss off Cathy then attempts to suffocate his
bride. Not to mention his necrophilia in the end, which is beyond creepy. But
that isn’t even the worst of it. If they want to abuse each other, fine, but
it’s the frequent, appalling treatment of animals that pushes the film into
very-hard-to-stomach territory.

Most
of the above though, can’t be filed under flaws. The source material is
unsavoury and to alter that, making the protagonists more palatable, would have
probably veered wildly from the book’s tone. But despite that, the film still
has some pretty fatal flaws.

The
leads are played by two sets of actors; Glave and Beer portray the duo as kids
while Howson and Scodelario play them as adults. To put it mildly, the younger
and older versions look nothing alike even though the difference in age isn’t
that big. Also none of them are particularly good actors with the exception of
Scodelario who nails Cathy’s combination of obsession and hatred.

Howson, who
is the film’s lead, seems completely out of place and has a lot of trouble with
dialogue that goes beyond a grunt. Luckily for him though, the film is
incredibly light on dialogue. The rain and landscape get more screen time than
the actors and the score is almost nonexistent; adding to the film’s bleak
tone.

It’s
a difficult film to sit through. It’s over two hours long, is about a bunch of
awful people doing awful things to each other while running around a desolate
stretch of England, cursed with the dreariest weather possible. The cherry on
top is that it’s supposed to be a romance. Yeah, right. Only watch it if you’re
down with being majorly depressed.