Crowds have rolled their eyes, and yet bought their tickets, to the eternal rollout of Disney’s live-action remakes of their timeless fairytales. Whether or not they’re good remakes is up for debate, but they fail desperately at being adaptations because that isn’t what they were made for. There is little intention to do anything new; rather, they want to milk their own IP for all its worth. So, then, what makes an adaptation? And what makes it good?
What qualifies as an adaptation is, technically speaking, for a story to be adapted from one medium to another, ie. from a book to a movie. In practice, it’s taking a story from a medium and recreating it in some way that differs from the original (other than simply the notion of being new).
For example, Disney’s recent onslaught of live-action remakes doesn’t typically count as adaptations, as nothing changes but the notion that the film isn’t animated. However, the original films did, as they took classic folktales and brought them to a medium that was not only different from their origin, but also revolutionary for the time. The adaptations that ushered in the Golden Age of Disney, such as The Little Mermaid (1989) or The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), found which parts of the original stories could be effectively translated and maintained to make the story as effective as possible in the new medium and refine the messaging.
An extremely popular show, but underrated as an adaptation, is Shondaland’s Bridgerton series. Season 1 released in the perfect storm of 2020, as, in the wake of the pandemic, more people were in their homes than ever before, and it provided much-needed escapism. It was already the center of conversation for its casting of several people of color, including the season’s male lead, Duke Simon Basset (Regé-Jean Page), and scandal for featuring pearl-clutching moments of regency smut. It was a goldmine for the emerging #BookTok community and a blessing of empire waistlines and British accents. Its success has produced four seasons and a spin off, but more notable is how effectively it was able to translate Julia Quinn’s books to the screen.
Before the books were adapted, however, the series was niche and beloved by several readers. While not perfect, they were staples in any Barnes and Noble romance section — guilty pleasures that transported readers to a world of glamour and family politics, with more smut than made the show so scandalous.
What makes Bridgerton a good adaptation isn’t that it’s 1:1 with the source material, because it is not. If it were, the show would probably be poorly received. The original books are rife with issues of rape, abuse and many other scenarios that audiences don’t want to see their male leads engage in and then be rewarded with happily ever after. While themes from the original books can be explored in productive ways, attaching them to the romantic leads and expecting the audience to go along with it isn’t something that translates well on screen.
The Bridgerton series works because its purpose is the same: to create an escapist romantic fantasy with Regency aesthetics without dealing with the troublesome history of the time. The importance of portraying the functions of period-accurate patriarchy is trumped by the need to keep the audience getting what they want: sexism as a plot point that can be overcome, although it does change the story. Even though the last season touched on themes of class disparities, this aesthetic romanticism has, by-and-large, stayed central for the show. Its sometimes controversial casting of racially diverse leads, in my opinion, expands on that very purpose by making the story, aesthetics and fun of a period drama accessible to a broader audience that hasn’t seen itself in these kinds of stories in the past.
None of the changes functionally compromise what the story is about, what the author wanted to do with the books or what the audience is supposed to take away from the story: that love conquers all and all that jazz (or, in this case, classical rendition of pop music).
It’s this focus on messaging, takeaway and feel that defines a good adaptation, because the title clearly isn’t reliant on aesthetics. Romeo and Juliet (1996) is campy, modern and very clearly not what was happening during Shakespeare’s time. ‘Fair Verona’ is replaced with colorful, violent, LA-like ‘Verona Beach,’ and characters are clearly using 90s fashion, technology and vehicles, despite also employing Early Modern English. But, all things considered, it’s actually an accurate translation of what happens on the page.
By translating one of the most classic tragedies in history and keeping most lines close to verbatim, Romeo and Juliet (1996) created an effective adaptation that was changed significantly to appeal to and connect with a modern audience. The actors look in their teens, and their tragedy plays out as intended: as a cautionary tale against rushing into love at a young age. The violence their union affects can hit closer to home for a modern audience because gun violence is more common than rapier duels. These choices don’t detract from the play’s message, and Harold Perrineau’s performance as Mercutio is sometimes considered the best performance of any actor in a role that’s been around for almost 430 years, drag and all.
But adaptations can be controversial, and if all of them were a success, we wouldn’t need to have these conversations. Critics in 1996 were divided on Romeo and Juliet. That is one of the few things that it has in common with Wuthering Heights (2026).
Wuthering Heights is, possibly, a good movie. To some, I believe it can be an enjoyable movie. It was not for me. Still, the costuming is avant-garde and fun, the cinematography is breathtaking, and the performances are captivating—none of these things can be taken away from the film because some bits made the audience squirm. However, Wuthering Heights, as directed by Emerald Fennell, fails to be an effective adaptation.
Before much promotion was released about the film, it drew considerable controversy when Jacob Elordi was cast as Heathcliff, a main character. This drew significant criticism, largely from those familiar with the original book, as Heathcliff is a person of color in Brontë’s book. No character ever says, point blank, “Heathcliff, I hate you because you are a person of color.” It’s demanded by the plot and by Brontë for the reader to be aware that the young ward’s dubious birth and lack of capital aren’t helped by him being described as “dark-skinned” or “as dark almost as if it came from the devil.” The prejudice he faces becomes the catalyst for the abuse inflicted on him. It’s why he becomes monstrous in character: he has had otherness forced upon him.
It begs repeating because of the ongoing debate, but casting a white actor in the role of a character who isn’t white is harmful. Casting actors of color where possible is generally good in most cases because it works to change a film industry that has systematically excluded non-white actors, but there are several cases in which race is central to how a plot unfolds.
Casting Heathcliff as white doesn’t adapt the story in a way that makes its original themes more powerful for the modern viewer. Fennell purposefully weakens them to make the story more agreeable to a wider audience—not to make its literary core more accessible.
The movie also ends before themes addressing the cycle of violence can be resolved at all, which is central to what Brontë had been trying to communicate. In the book, Heathcliff retaliates against the brutality he faced in his youth by systematically abusing the next generation, including his son, Linton, and nephew, Hareton. Hareton, who Heathcliff subjects to abuse similar to what he faced in his own childhood, breaks free of the cycle of abuse through his capacity for love, education and his relationship with Cathy, Catherine’s daughter. This omission is forgivable, considering that the novel is extremely dense and impossible to reasonably adapt into movie format, but all things considered, it’s the cherry on top.
In the interest of giving grace, Wuthering Heights (2026) is an effective interpretation of its alleged source material and may have been better off as an independent story heavily inspired by the novel. Fennell herself has admitted to styling and directing the movie based on what she imagined and felt when she first read the book at fourteen. She called the film a “personal response,” which gives a lot of context and weight to the controversial casting. Of course, race isn’t an element in fourteen-year-old Fennell’s fantasy; it’s not something that occurs to her. And, years later, surely aware of the themes of the classic that she intends to adapt, she chooses with her casting director to cast a white Australian man. High school students by the hundreds surely lost interest in the book as soon as its marketed dynamic left the pages and Cathy died—Fennell just draws the curtains.
Wuthering Heights (2026) explores themes of desire, obsession, self-destruction and love—no one will deny that. But even with CharliXCX on the soundtrack, it’s a hollow figurine of the original novel. Brontë’s work has inspired dozens of adaptations and will surely inspire dozens more, but there is a reason why audience members continue to gravitate to that story. Emerald Fennell’s work will not go down in history as worthless; the costuming and overt sexuality will likely delegate it to the realm of camp. But it will not be considered an accurate reflection of the 1847 novel.
But does any of this really matter? It can, because the reason these stories are still being discussed is because they are still relevant to how we experience the world. In the words of author James Baldwin, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
People have always related to Romeo’s lovesickness, and many have experienced Heathcliff’s abuse. Good literature is a mirror to society and humanity that doesn’t tarnish, and a good adaptation’s job is to hoist it up in a way that allows more people to take a hard look at themselves.
