Rating: 
Summary: Good Companion to Novel; Fiennes Blazes as Heathcliff
Review: I discovered this film while helping my son understand Emily Bronte's passionate novel. Unlike the other more popular older classic with Merle Oberon and Lawrence Olivier in the roles of Cathy and Heathcliff, this adaptation does not end with Cathy's death by the open window in Heathcliff's arms. The Juliette Binoche-Ralph Fiennes collaboration faithfully follows the course of the novel through the two generations of Heathcliffs, Earnshaws and Lintons and for this reason is extrememly helpful to anyone needing supplementation while reading the novel.
Especially stirring is Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff, although I would have liked to have seen his character without the slick-backed pitch-black hair. As Wuthering Heights is a story of a sheltered community of few individuals where emotions run as wild as the ravaging weather and revenge and obsession are the confused results of a union mistakenly kept apart, I thought Fiennes' portrayal of the tortured antihero true to Bronte's vision.
Fiennes as Heathcliff concentrates on and never forgets his storeroom of inner pain. His inner scars sear through in his every word and deed especially in the hour following his Cathy's death. His anger smolders from within and one can quite believe that he is haunted by both inner and outer demons. Any tangible softness is noticeable only when thinking or speaking of his lost love and this one-track intensity more than adequately demonstrates the character's obsession with destruction and revenge. For all these reasons, Fiennes captures the literary Heathcliff magnificently.
On the otherhand, his performance is hindered by Juliette Binoche's less than satisfactory portrayal of Cathy Earnshaw and her daughter Catherine Linton. Binoche is certainly no Cathy, at least not the Cathy envisioned while reading Emily Bronte's novel. She is too reserved; there is a mischievious quality beneath the surface, but just barely beneath it, she doesn't blaze with the fire of soul like Bronte's heroine must in order to be Heathcliff's female equivalent. Her dual role as Catherine Linton is off-putting as the quieter daughter is in essence played no differently by Binoche except for a change of haircolor.
All in all the movie is entertaining. I would have liked to see more romantic interludes between the younger Heathcliff and Cathy to further support their tempestuous connection instead of the silly, unnecessary and wasteful opening scene of Bronte walking her beloved moors in order to introduce the story.
Best of all is the haunting score written by Ryuichi Sakamoto; he really captures Bronte's yearning and thirst for something that could never fully be.
Rating: 
Summary: Miscast and misbegotten
Review: There is very little about this unhappy farrago that is right - the music, Janet McTeer ... that's about it, really.Ralph Fiennes, monumentally miscast, tries hard, but is never equal to Heathcliff. He ends up coming across as just plain vicious and bad-tempered. Juliette Binoche, equally at sea, never stands a chance as either of the Catherines. It isn't her fault she has a French accent, and that isn't the main problem - it was just unrealistic to expect a young woman with an uncertain grasp of the language to get to grips with one of the most complex characters in world literature. Only Janet McTeer, as Ellen Dean comes out of this mess with any credit. The Wharfedale scenery is beautiful, but hopelessly wrong. They couldn't even build a convincing-looking "Wuthering Heights". It looks like the progeny of Walt Disney and Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria. The music, by Ryuichi Sakamoto is exquisite, but also sits a little uneasily in the film. The script is just - well - hopeless. Chunks of direct quotation cobbled together with utterly banal drivel. Stay away.
Rating: 
Summary: Withering Heights
Review: Forget this version of Bronte's tale of obsessive love. Even the Olivier version is soft. Check out the hard to find version starring young Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff, possibly 1964 (?). The cinematography is a major player in the drama, as is the haunting soundtrack. I don't understand why the version I praise is not available, for it has truly the best of all elements and it successfully and comfortably balances the demands of the novel's complex plot and the cinematic arts at their most vivid and austere!
Rating:
Summary: An Ideal Compliment to the Book
Review: Although I would not suggest this film to anyone who has not read the book first (you would be thoroughly confused and missing out on major details of the plot!) I found Wuthering Heights (1992) to be the ideal visual aid to compliment the tragedy and passion of Heathcliff and Catherine's story. If Emily Bronte were alive, she herself would have cast Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff (he was born for this role!) and Juliette Binoche was perfect particularly when she showed the more playful and childish sides of Catherine (her laughter was exactly as I had imagined - bright and bold...and just irritating enough that it really would drive Heathcliff - and later, Hareton - to suffer from wounded pride when it was directed at their egos). The beauty of this story is that you never really can decide who is the villain and who is the victim....
Rating:
Summary: Hitting the occasional HEIGHTS
Review: Sure, there's a lot wrong with Peter Kosminky's 1992 take on the Emily Bronte classic. For starters, Binoche and Fiennes are both too old for their teenage parts in the first half of the film, and then Fiennes and Janet McTeer(as longtime and long suffering Earnshaw servant Nelly Dean) don't age nearly enough in the second. Even more of a problem is the stunt casting of Binoche - her occasional slight French accent is a trifle inexelicable here, as others have noted - as both Cathy and her honey blonde daughter, Catherine Linton, neither of whom ever left Yorkshire. The script makes some wacky changes, also - instead of Cathy and Heathcliff spying on a lavish ball at the Linton's, they watch Edgar and Isabella play a game of indoor badminton. (O-kaaaaaay....Linton, badminton...well, it sort of rhymes...)
Instead of focusing on the minuses, I prefer to admire this adaptation's stong points. Unlike the mushy tho' oddly revered 1939 version (and the 1970 one with Timothy Dalton), it tells the entire story, which despite everyone's fond memories, isn't a romance so much as it is a revenge tale and one of the first complex psychological portaits of an abused boy becoming a brutal, abusive man. To that end, Ralph Fiennes is a note-perfect Heathcliff; the scene of his humilitation of Isabella is right on the money. (One feels that he'd eat Olivier's wimp of a Heathcliff for tea, after making him clean the stables three times over.) Despite her miscasting, Binoche makes a lovely, haunting Cathy in the first half and a sympathetic pawn in Heathcliff's twisted plan in the second. Add to that fine support from McTeer, Simon Shepherd (Edgar Linton), Sophie Ward (Isabella) and a young Jeremy Northam (Hindley); heck, even Sinead O'Connor, with her eyes as wide as saucers, catches the right Bronte groove as narrator Emily herself. (What would O'Connor have been like as Cathy, one wonders...) Again, unlike the 1939 flick, Kosminsky sets the story in its proper time period (1770s - very early 1800s), with superb costumes and production values. Authentic Yorkshire moors and other locations add to the tragedy's flavour. The frosting on the cake, though, is Ryuichi Sakamoto's shattering score, which conveys the story's haunting wildness in one swelling phrase almost better than the entire film does itself. (Pity that - like the movie - it was never released in the U.S.; there's a suite arrangement on Sakamoto's CINEMAGE album that merely leaves you wanting the whole score, available only as a rare and pricey import from Japan.) Perhaps a DVD edition, if ever produced, will contain the score, as well as scenes chopped from the truncated print run on Bravo. Until a better version comes along (the 1998 MASTERPIECE THEATRE one with Orla Brady and Robert Cavanah had a few great gothic bits - Heathcliff digging up and sobbingly embracing Cathy's bones really hit the core of the tale), the Fiennes and Binoche take will remain my favourite visit to WUTHERING HEIGHTS. It's a bumpy ride all right, but well worth the trip.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not great.
Review: This presentation of Wuthering Heights has so many excellent elements, but just misses. It could have been fantastic, if the director took a little more care to be more faithful to the novel.
This movie is a must-see for the cinematography and cinematic music fans, however. The music is the perfect marraige of haunting celtic with neo-romantic. Ryuichi Sakamoto did a fantastic job creating passionate and heart-rendering melodies that have been richly orchestrated and timed perfectly to augment the viewers sympathies at the right moments. The sweeping views of the moors show the landscape at its most barren and dramatic, beautifully underscoring the doomed love of Heathcliff and Cathy.
Ralph Fiennes makes a wonderful Heathcliff, but just misses by not showing Heathcliff's human side. This is too bad, because just a little more warmth on his part would have made him the perfect Heathcliff.
Juliette Binoche's performance as Cathy lacked the neurotic, petulant aspects of Cathy's personality so vividly described in the novel. Again I blame this on the director, as he left out her bad display of temper and hysteria scenes.
Also, the director should have hired younger people to portray Heathcliff and Cathy in their teenage years--Fiennes and Binoche were not believable as 15 year-olds. Same applies for young Catherine Linton.
With the fabulous scenery, music and casting of Fiennes as Heathcliff, along with an excellent supporting cast, this film could have been really great.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Rendition of Wuthering Heights
Review: Having just read the book, I enjoyed this film version particularly Ralph Fienne's portrayal of Heathcliff, the fantastic cinematography and the gut-wretching music. The movie almost stays faithful to the book, but leaves out substantial components of Cathy's personality: Her capacity for destructive fury and neurotic/psychotic self-inflicted illnesses when faced with loosing Heathcliff. Her capacity for vindictiveness is equal to Heathcliff's, and leaving this out undermines the credibility of their narcisistic obsession with each other.
The scenery is stunning and coupled with the passionate and mornful neo-romantic music it pulls you in, helping you envision the power of obsession, and pull towards the eternal that Bronte so hauntingly invokes in the novel.
Rating:
Summary: Very few flaws
Review: I thought Fiennes portrayal of Healthcliff was excellent. Physically, he wasn't quite as he should have been, however, he is excellent as the dark, brooding hero that you love and hate at the same time. Binoche, however, I thought left something lacking. While she does a fair job in her portrayal of Cathy, I always pictured her as a little more cruel than Binoche seems able to portray. In the novel, she revels in her power over Heathcliff and even seems to enjoy seeing his desperate pain for her. She doesn't quite achieve it in the movie. Sinead O'Conner was actually a pleasant surprise as well--- She has the perfect voice to be the author and doesn't actually have to do much acting, so she adds alot to the presentation. In terms of faithfulness to the book, I thought it was excellent. I loved the dark passion of the book and I thought it carried over very well to the movie. All in all, I think it is definitely worth buying.
Rating:
Summary: Collector Item
Review: Those who have seen The English Patient in 1996 must have wondered whether Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes have acted together in another film before. Wuthering Heights is the classic sample to pave the way for Juliette to get the Oscar. I do wish that the DVD manufacturers out there could consider to to turn this VHS into DVD for collector's items, at least we could enjoy a better picture and sound.
Rating: 
Summary: Wuthering Heights-Juliette Binoche/Ralph Fiennes
Review: This version differs from other movie versions of this book by actually following the complete story. Very few liberties are taken in changing the storyline and the changes do not adversely affect the story. Both lead actors are strong and convincing. This is one of the most powerful movies I have ever seen in any genre. Parts actually brought me to tears and I am a person who is rarely moved by any drama. If you want a version that more accurately follows the book and really brings out the essence of this great novel, this is the version to watch.
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