A Look Inside the Set Design of Wuthering Heights

 

A Look Inside the Set Design of Wuthering Heights

Fennell’s recent adaptation of Wuthering Heights has caused quite the controversy among old and new Brontë fans alike, and for good reason. The whole film feels like a fever dream, constantly blurring the line between reality and fantasy. This is especially clear in the eerie, atmospheric landscape of the Yorkshire moors, which sits in sharp contrast to the modern, Y2K influences in Cathy’s costume and make-up - particularly her sparkly star face paint and cartoon-like red sunglasses. Together, these details create a surreal, almost euphoric aesthetic that steps away from the traditional 1700s wardrobe we’re used to seeing.

This dreamlike quality doesn’t stop at costume. When watching the film, it quickly becomes clear that the set design isn’t exactly faithful to the novel or its late 18th-century setting either. However, once you look into the creative choices behind production designer Suzie Davies, the visual world starts to make more sense, and you get a clearer peek behind the curtain.

 

 

Designing from a personal lens

At the start of production, Suzie’s initial design ideas were much more traditional, similar to most period dramas and classic interpretations. However, Emerald Fennell was clear that this adaptation was coming from a much more personal place, which is even reflected in the quotation marks around the title. This wasn’t going to be a copy-and-paste of the book. Instead, Emerald explained that she wanted the crew to ‘zoom through the lens of her reading that book when she was 14’. Keeping this in mind helps to frame the interpretation, with many fans accepting the film almost as a piece of fan fiction between Cathy and Heathcliff - more of a heart-wrenching tragic love story than a tragedy rooted in selfishness and generational trauma, which are aspects a 14-year-old reader might not fully pick up on.

With that perspective shaping the project, Suzie and her team began to incorporate elements and references that a teenage girl growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s might have been inspired by. This is where the visual contrast between Wuthering Heights and Cathy’s later home, Thrushcross Grange, becomes especially interesting. The two spaces almost feel like a villain’s lair and a princess’s castle in a twisted fairytale. As Suzie put it, the goal was ‘more about an accuracy of feeling’ than an accuracy of period, which is something you can feel in every room.

 

 

Building a world from the ground up

From Cathy’s entirely pink bedroom, covered in wallpaper that mimics her exact skin tone, to the moody and oddly romantic hallway at Thrushcross Grange with its wet-look red vinyl floor, contrasted with the hauntingly gothic farmhouse of Wuthering Heights, Fennell’s adaptation has sparked intense debate. At the same time, it’s opened the door to a brand new wave of ‘moody romantic décor’, proving how influential set design can be beyond the screen.

The scale of the production also adds to this immersive world. There were four weeks of drawings from Davies before they were transformed into full architectural plans, followed by ten weeks of construction, complete with livestock and working fires - making the set function like a real early 19th-century farm. Alongside this, Davies and her team spent two weeks in Wreath Valley, Yorkshire, scouting the moors in November, searching for the perfect cliffs and ruins, all while keeping in mind the feeling of nature taking over and having such a powerful influence on the characters.

 

 

Wuthering Heights

We first step into the Earnshaw home, known as Wuthering Heights, where the layout immediately sets the tone. You move from the low-ceilinged kitchen into the parlour, which suddenly soars to triple height, with no second floor interrupting the space. This dramatic shift in scale was designed to showcase the wealth Wuthering Heights once possessed, even as the house itself feels heavy and oppressive.

The gothic, hacked fireplace frames a painting of the seven deadly sins, which feels not only period-appropriate but also like deliberate foreshadowing of the themes of obsession, revenge and greed. Even though both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange were built on a sound stage, Davies took on the challenge of making Wuthering Heights feel raw and real. The entire set was built on a water tank, with rain rigs in the ceiling, and every fireplace was fully practical, complete with a functioning flue system. All of this was done to create a setting that sits somewhere between reality and surrealism, making the house feel alive.

As the film progresses, the setting of Wuthering Heights subtly evolves. Davies intentionally added a crack to the exterior of the house to create the illusion of nature slowly taking power over it. Over time, the façade develops tumorous, gnarly growths, mirroring the home ironically ‘wuthering’ away as the story unfolds.

 

 

Thrushcross Grange

If Wuthering Heights feels dark and decaying, Thrushcross Grange is its complete opposite on the surface. The famously juxtaposing neighbour, and the home Cathy moves into after marrying Edgar Linton, is bold, eccentric and unapologetically luxurious. Metallic finishes sit alongside latex and velvet materials, creating a space that feels indulgent and otherworldly, where Fennell’s modern influences are allowed to fully take over.

The baby-blue pastel exterior couldn’t be more different from Cathy’s childhood home, acting as an immediate visual temptation. Yet this initial luxury slowly begins to unravel. As the story progresses, a more sinister underlayer becomes visible beneath the beauty, with the red vinyl floor of the library reflecting anger and conflict, paired with the eeriness of ceramic hands reaching from the fireplace towards the roof - almost like the house itself is trying to escape.

Inside Cathy’s skin room

The materials throughout Thrushcross Grange are intentionally tactile and sensual, perfectly capturing Fennell’s overarching vision. One of the most disturbing choices within this space is Cathy’s ‘skin bedroom’. The room is purposely sparse, containing only a bed, a dressing table and a mirror, which heightens the discomfort. As Davies explained, ‘it brings more unease because there’s something not right about the room’. With no visual distractions, you’re left to sit with the unsettling feeling of being enclosed by something that seems almost alive.

To create this effect, Fennell asked Margot Robbie, who plays Cathy, to photograph her arms in high resolution, capturing veins, freckles and texture. Davies’ team then manipulated these images, intensified the veins and printed the skin onto stretched, padded panels that form the walls of the room. It’s disturbing, but also an incredibly clever design choice, visually reflecting Cathy feeling trapped within herself - physically in the skin room, and emotionally in a life away from Heathcliff.

 

 

The mood that ties it all together

The colour story across the film operates with clear emotional meaning. At Wuthering Heights, everything sits within black, white and neutral tones, whereas Thrushcross Grange is an explosion of colour and metallics, especially red, the only colour Cathy wears there. Threaded throughout the film, red becomes a symbol of both passion and violence, mirroring her inner conflict.

Overall, the sets feel less like traditional sets and more like dreamscapes, or nightmares, depending on how you read the film. This was intentional. Davies wanted the entire film to feel like a kind of 4D experience, where Cathy and Heathcliff are never able to truly belong together, trapped in cycles of longing and revenge until it’s far too late.

 

 

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