Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is not Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. We all knew this going in, so it shouldn’t come as a huge shock that the Wuthering Heights ending is also… well… very different.
In Fennell’s bodice ripping, high gloss version of the famous tale, Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) are star-crossed lovers who just can’t quite be together because of money or something. It’s not the epic, tragic gothic you read in school. Nevertheless, Fennell tries to give her characters a suitably tragic ending.
What happens to Cathy in Wuthering Heights?
A quick little recap of Catherine and Heathcliff’s story in the film before getting into the Wuthering Heights ending. Cathy’s drunken father brings back a foundling, whom he gives to Cathy as a “pet.” She names him Heathcliff. The pair become inseparable, frolicking together on the moors and putting up with Cathy’s abusive dad. He says he’d do anything for her, and she promises never to leave him.
Warner Bros.
A few years later, the pair have grown up and are more into each other than ever. They have a few spicy encounters on the moor. Heathcliff sticks his fingers in a broken egg, Cathy watches her servants enjoying a BDSM moment in the stables while Heathcliff covers her mouth and eyes. All very sexy stuff, but it’s not enough for Cathy, who really needs some money to save their crumbling old farmhouse.
When rich Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif) and his ward, Isabella (Alison Oliver), move into town, she swans over to seduce him. They marry, Heathcliff overhears her saying it would be degrading to marry him, and instead, he storms off for a few years to make his fortune. When he returns, he and Cathy begin an affair, but they fight, and when Heathcliff says some kind of scary stuff about wanting to murder Edgar, she cools things off. He runs off with Isabella to make her feel bad—and, apparently, she feels so bad, she starts to waste away in her skin room.
Meanwhile, servant-slash-companion Nelly (Hong Chau) is burning all of Heathcliff’s letters to Cathy. At first, Nelly thinks Cathy is just being dramatic, but eventually realizes she really is sick. Cathy has a miscarriage (a very bloody, gory image from Fennell) and dies from sepsis. Edgar calls a doctor and Nelly calls Heathcliff, but both are too late.