A gritty, earthy version filmed on the North Yorkshire moors, which are a star in their own right, the wet and the wind make you feel like you're there. The use of mostly non professional local actors, worked for me, adding to that realistic feel, other assets were the use of a hand held camera and the use of natural light indoors. Kaya Scodelario makes a fiery, troublesome Kathy and maybe the pick of the cast. James Howson is fine as the brooding, mono syllabic Heathcliff. Andrea Arnold has directed an excellent different take on a classic novel.

Yes I know the Emily Bronte novel deals with a dark subject of a man driven to virtual madness by boyhood mistreatment and his perceived betrayal by a woman whom he loved but for me this film was a terrible interpretation. It was woodenly acted and given the wonderful language of the novel the script here was a joke. Disturbingly there was gratuitous killing of animals seen on film and this is simply unacceptable. Technically the film was very often annoyingly jerky (imagine the film from a hand-held camera on horseback) and essentially all night time scenes far too dark to see. Yes the reality of the era was that in poor stone farm houses it would have been very dark and dingy but with modern digital cameras such 'natural light' scenes can be enhanced so that the audience can see -as was well shown in the recent excellent BBC Wolf Hall series. I was excited at the thought of a major role in a classic of English literature going to a non-white actor and that was the one good thing I can say but everything else was dreadful. Don't bother is my advice.

come on this is just ridiculous we know perfectly well that Heathcliff was not black. don't go against accurately portraying a timeless classic and a period in history just to appease people this is absurdly disrespectful to the novel. just do it right. i think the constant cursing in the movie was equally absurd and didn't help with the authenticity of the time period. when people watch a period piece they probably are expecting to be taken back to another time period, so when a movie strays so far from that it's honestly just insulting. i think the acting in addition wasn't very sophisticated. there are much better adaptations of this novel don't waste your time on it.

One, I've never read the book, so I could not follow it. When one is watching a film, one ought not to guess. I need to be told the story. Two, it was too dark for me. As in, there was not enough illumination. Three, use a tripod! At the very least, use a steady cam. Four, watching out of focus images does nothing for me. Five, close ups of insects and other unimportant stuff does not drive the story forward. And what's with the 4:3 aspect ratio?!! All else is forgiven. Nice countryside. Good accents. I closed my eyes at the animal slaughter because I am squeamish.. Unnecessary. Now I shall read the book. And maybe look at other versions.