Women want money and men want sex, claims conventional wisdom. In Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Catherine spurns Heathcliff to marry Edgar for his money. In the BBC miniseries Sparkhouse, Robin Shepperd and Sally Wainwright’s loose modern adaptation of Wuthering Heights, the “Heathcliff” is a girl and the “Catherine” is a guy. So, you can see where this is going.
Sparkhouse is not as bad as it may sound, and is probably the best of the three contemporary Wuthering Heights-inspired soap operas made within this decade. The other two, MTV’s Wuthering Heights, CA and The Promise, were about hip fashionistas persecuting each other from one sunny beach party to the next – which may work for the satire of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, but not as much for the dark atmosphere of Wuthering Heights. Sparkhouse actually retains the northern English moors (specifically, West Yorkshire) of the original setting and a sense of real hardship.
In the original novel, Catherine and Heathcliff have a primarily psychological connection, so film and television adaptations have traditionally made the point to not show the protagonists having sex – if they do, it is off screen and up to interpretation (e.g. the 1970 version). Sparkhouse nods to this tradition quite noticeably; at the beginning, it is clear that Carol Bolton (Sarah Smart), the female Heathcliff, and Andrew Lawton (Joe McFadden), the male Catherine, are saving themselves for marriage to each other. They are neither socially awkward nor particularly religious, as the stereotype goes. Their own unique connection is what drives this commitment.
Carol is the feisty girl from the dysfunctional family at Sparkhouse Farm. Her father is an abusive alcoholic, her mother loses her job and runs off with a random guy with a BMW and James Bond soundtrack, and her little sister Lisa is the one who gives her a reason to stay. Traditional to the Heathcliff role, she wears dark colors. Andrew is the middle-class, college-bound guy who looks like he belongs in a boy band. His family is less dramatic, but troubled in their own way. His bitter, domineering mother is somewhat of a mirror image with Carol’s creepy father. He wears white and lighter colors, traditional to the Catherine role, with a modern business-casual look. Carol and Andrew are neither blood-related nor adoptive siblings here, so the miniseries effectively takes that little complication out of their relationship. They love to run around the moors and read passages from Wuthering Heights in their favorite spot.
Andrew’s parents try to coerce him to break up with the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Money and class do not sway him. He and Carol go to the courthouse to get their marriage license, to the chagrin of his parents. Frustrated, he says he has done everything else to please them: “I’m good, I’m polite, I’m nice,” mirroring Catherine’s “I’m an angel” quip in the original novel. Andrew tells them that without Carol, he would become like them – that is, shallow and unloving. “I’m nothing without her… She is me. You can’t change that. Nobody can.” (An interesting aside: Sarah Smart played Catherine Linton in a straight adaptation of Wuthering Heights in 1998. So, Heathcliff and Catherine are literally the same person.)
But they can and they do – when Andrew’s father digs up the medical records showing that rather than being a virgin, Carol gave birth at age twelve. Andrew confronts Carol, who tells him the obvious – her father raped her, her sister is also her daughter, and she didn’t want either Andrew or Lisa to know. When the time comes for the church wedding ceremony, Andrew’s revulsion runs ahead of his love for her, and he fails to show up.
Carol goes ax crazy on the Lawtons’ car and hangs their dog offscreen. But once she gets that disturbing behavior out of her system, she is a very tame and sympathetic Heathcliff who is more sinned against than sinning. The exception is when she plays with the heart of the handsome but socially awkward farmhand John Standring (Richard Armitage), who seems to be a conglomeration of Isabella and Hareton. On the other hand, the self-described “nice guy” Andrew wreaks the most havoc and ends up losing any kind of sympathy from the audience.
When Carol returns to the country seemingly well off, Andrew is married to his nice, conventional college girlfriend Becky – which doesn’t stop him and Carol from meeting and making out on the moors. Meanwhile, Carol proposes to John. Andrew is not bothered by the fact that she is marrying him for money (an arrangement which John enters with eyes wide open), but that they will – obviously – have sex. While Carol reluctantly chooses to move on, Andrew insists on having it both ways and engages in some nasty, violent, stalkerish behaviors. He becomes as whiny as Hayden Christiansen’s Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels. Meanwhile, John – while having some obvious self-esteem problems – seems to know a bit more about real love. “Never think you can’t tell me things [from your past],” he tells Carol, contrasting with Andrew’s volatile and conditional affections.
The final resolution of the love triangle puts a different spin on Wuthering Heights than most other film adaptations. While Carol/Heathcliff and Andrew/Catherine had a real and passionate love going on, they made some irreversible choices and needed to move on. While not going into the second half of the book for content (as usual), Sparkhouse ends with its spirit and resolution. The John/Carol/Andrew love triangle has many parallels to the Hareton/Catherine II/Linton love triangle, and the bittersweet ending draws similar conclusions.
This film has its share of flaws – the obsessive animosity of Andrew’s parents toward Carol from her childhood is never explained or explored. It is simply there to make the story work. Andrew, as mentioned before, starts as a believable boyfriend who derails into an obsessive stalker and an emo cliché without much to prompt such a drastic change. Yet this novel adaptation goes into territory that other adaptations have shied away from – and for the ladies, Richard Armitage may be reason enough to check it out.
Sources:
British Broadcasting Corporation (www.bbc.co.uk/drama/sparkhouse/)
Internet Movie Database
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