Wuthering Heights Ending Explained: The Truth Behind the Original Finale

Warner Bros. just dropped a new trailer for Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights, and it is not here to make your Valentine feel warm and fuzzy. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are Catherine and Heathcliff, all obsession and fallout, with the teaser cut to Charli XCX's new track 'Chains of Love' from a companion album arriving with the film. Consider this your heads-up: this is the messy, feral version.

• Who: Margot Robbie (Catherine), Jacob Elordi (Heathcliff), written and directed by Emerald Fennell (Saltburn)
• What: A hypersexualized take on Emily Bronte's classic, focused on the first half of the novel
• When: US theaters February 13, 2026 — the Friday before Valentine's Day
• Where: Warner Bros. is releasing it
• Music: Trailer features Charli XCX's 'Chains of Love' from a tie-in album of the same name dropping alongside the movie
• Tone: Not a feel-good romance; think lust, spite, and wreckage
• Casting chatter: Some fans say Robbie and Elordi don't match the book's physical descriptions; Fennell openly stands by both choices

What this adaptation actually covers

Light spoilers for a 19th-century classic: Fennell's film stops at the end of Catherine and Heathcliff's doomed first-act saga. The story starts with them as inseparable kids, then splinters when Catherine decides society matters more than scandal and marries the wealthy Edgar Linton. Heathcliff vanishes, returns rich and furious, and their reunion sets off a chain reaction of cruelty, jealousy, and general psychological napalm. Catherine eventually dies in childbirth, and that's where the movie fades out. The book's second half — centered on her daughter — is not part of this film.

Fennell's angle (and why Robbie)

Fennell is going unapologetically sensual and combustible with this material, by design. She is also very upfront about why Robbie is her Catherine — the star wattage matters to the character's power over everyone around her.

'I have been obsessed. I have been driven mad by this book. I know that if somebody else made it, I would be furious. It is very personal material for everyone. It is very illicit. The way we relate to the characters is very private... It needed somebody like Margot... somebody who has a power, an otherworldly power, a godlike power, that means people lose their minds.' (via The Guardian)

The casting conversation (and yes, the sideburns)

Some readers have already called out that Robbie and Elordi do not line up with the page. Heathcliff is described in the novel as having dark hair, dark eyes, and dark skin; Elordi, obviously, is not that. Fennell has her reasons: she reportedly clocked Elordi's sideburns on the Saltburn set and decided he was her Heathcliff. Is that a delightfully specific detail? Absolutely. But it tells you how precise (and personal) her read on this story is.

About that Charli XCX needle drop

The trailer rides on Charli XCX's 'Chains of Love,' and there is an entire album with the same title slated to release alongside the movie. If the teaser is any indication, the music is going to lean into the fever and fixation rather than sand off the edges.

Bottom line

Fennell is making the volcanic Wuthering Heights, not the cozy one. Robbie and Elordi are set up for a bruising, beautiful disaster, and Warner Bros. is timing it for February 13, 2026 — basically Valentine's Day eve — because of course they are. Bring chocolate if you want, but maybe also bring emotional armor.