As the Zoomer entertainment editor, my world is all pop culture all the time, but back in university it was all Victorian fiction all the time. And since becoming a journalist instead of an English prof, I’m never happier than when these two worlds collide – like with Emerald Fennell’s new film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights. Over three decades, I’ve tried to read the book at least four times, but always give up due to its frustrating framing device and characters who are more petulant than passionate. For me, there is one Brontë book to rule them all – and that is Jane Eyre.

So I thought I’d agree with the critics who are opposed to yet another kick at the Cathy and Heathcliff can – there are over 35 film and TV versions already – but writer/director Fennell actually makes the story enjoyable and streamlined. The film is a feast for the eyes and the kind of movie you just let wash all over you – leaving your literary proclivities behind. The preview screening I attended in Toronto was a riotous affair: at one point in the film, the perpetually unkempt Heathcliff returns from a long, unexplained absence with a gentleman’s glow-up – eliciting a loud, collective gasp from the mostly female audience. This was followed immediately by delighted laughter over our unintended communal catcall for actor Jacob Elordi. And it was one of those magical movie theatre moments we don’t get often enough.

I could chalk it up to the fact that Heated Rivalry has given us an unabashed yearning for more thwarted lusty lovers. But it’s also a pretty good indication that in pivoting from Frankenstein’s romantic monster to Brontë’s monstrous romantic of the moors, Elordi is a throwback to the leading men of the Golden Age of Hollywood – in fact, the movie’s poster suggests just that as he and co-star Margot Robbie gaze at each other in the exact same manner as Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh do in the poster for Gone with the Wind. Robbie, too, puts in a star-cementing performance, transitioning from a perky, asexual Barbie to a luxuriously sensual Catherine. If I had my wish, we’d get a whole series of Elordi and Robbie-ified Masterpiece Theatre classics: Antony and Cleopatra; Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester; and bring on their uncensored interpretation of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.