Location: NJ
"Dwight-Wuthering Heights"
Directed by Joe Wright
Written by Jan Sardi
Based on the novel “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte
Music by John Williams
Main Cast
Emile Hirsch (Heathcliff)
Romola Garai (Catherine “Cathy” Earnshaw)
Mike Vogel (Edgar Linton)
Mamie Gummer (Isabella Linton)
Jesse Eisenberg (Hindley Earnshaw)
Zac Effron (Young Heathcliff)
Ellen Page (Young Cathy)
Tagline: "An impossible romance they couldn’t live without"
Synopsis: Posh Manhattan high school, “Dwight-Wuthering Heights,” is home to some of the richest kids in the world & certainly, the most privelaged. Catherine “Cathy” Earnshaw (Romola Garai) is President of the school’s student body and a member of the student chorale; her brother, Hindley, (Jess Eisenberg) is an all-state football player with excellent college prospects. Their best friends Edgar (Mike Vogel) and Isabella Linton, (Mamie Gummer) are siblings whose wealth exceeds all others in school & whose parents are members of the school’s prestigious Board of Trustees. When an unknown senior enrolls at Dwight on the first day of their senior year, the Earnshaws and Lintons are intrigued, but no one is more curious than Cathy, who admires the stranger’s chiseled features and apparent confidence. Heathcliff notices Cathy too. The two develop an intense, passionate, real relationship and spend the year together.
As graduation nears, however, Cathy must decide between staying with Heathcliff, and attending Harvard where she has been accepted to study education. Heathcliff is not interested in college or in any kind of substantial future. With nothing to offer her, Cathy chooses the latter. Heartbroken, and distraught, Heathcliff realizes what matters in the world is class, money & education. Edgar Linton, who has been accepted to virtually every school in the country, & always secretly longed for Cathy, follows her to Harvard, enrolling in her very program. Meanwhile, Isabella enrolls at New York University where she studies Poetry, while Heathcliff works days and studies nights at a local state school, which he pays for himself. During his senior year of college, Heathcliff visits NYU to hear a lecture. There, he bumps into Isabella Linton. Always a hopeless romantic, Isabella was always in love with Heathcliff, and he wasn’t oblivious to the fact. Both depressed, the two share a cup of coffee following the lecture, and embark on a lustful one-night stand. Much to Isabella’s dismay, the two do not speak for several months, until she calls Heathcliff a week before their respective graduations from college and informs him he is going to be a dad. Stunned, Heathcliff reacts hastily, ignoring her phone calls and emails, and pretending the whole thing never happened. But when he learns that Edgar and Cathy have similar news (they are expecting a baby girl), Heathcliff decides to ask for Isabella’s hand in marriage.
A year later (on year out of college), Heathcliff graciously accepts a position as professorship of history at Dwight-Wuthering Heights. Cathy becomes a guidance counselor at the school, and Edgar and Isabella follow in their parents’ footsteps and become honorary members of the Board of Trustees at Dwight. Heathcliff and Cathy rarely speak to one another in their first few years at the school.
Another 16 years pass, and Cathy and Heathcliff’s children (named Heathcliff and Cathy like their parents) are seniors at Dwight, engaging in a secret love affair that’s well hidden from their parents. Meanwhile, at family functions with Edgar and Isabella’s parents, Heathcliff and Cathy don’t address one another at all, though she secretly misses and love him. Several months later, Cathy becomes gravely ill and Heathcliff is told about her illness. A tormented Heathcliff then decides to leave Isabella, (who later finds kindness in Hindley and marries him). At Cathy’s bedside, Cathy confesses to being angry with him forever for having a child with Isabella and not with her. “It broke my heart,” she says to Heathcliff. “And you broke mine,” he confesses. Cathy dies. Meanwhile, the young Heathcliff and Cathy continue their romance and are married for several years until he is killed in a tragic car crash. More than 20 years pass and Heathcliff is aged. The two loves of his life, Cathy and his son have died tragic deaths. He is living with Catherine the younger whom he offered a home when she became widowed by his son’s death. One night, in his bedroom, Heathcliff peers out of his window, which overlooks the Hudson river, and sees Cathy’s ghost. He wants to be with her and dies that night near the river. Finally, what was impossible in a class conscious, complicated society becomes possible in the afterlife, and Heathcliff and Cathy are finally together.
What the Press would say:
“A work of style & substance. “Dwight-Wuthering Heights,” feels fun, and contemporary, but also holds many of the values which made Bronte’s novel a classic & a masterpiece,” Richard Roeper-Chicago Sun Times
“Hirsch and Garai share undeniable chemistry, and deliver convincing, wonderful performances,” Ebert, Sun-Times.
An early campaign is gunning for these nods:
Best Picture
Best Director: Joe Wright
Best Actor: Emile Hirsch
Best Actress: Romola Garai
Best Supporting Actor: Mike Vogel & Jesse Eisenberg & Zac Efron
Best Supporting Actress:Mamie Gummer & Ellen Page
Best Adapted Screenplay-Jan Sardi
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