To stand even a chance at enjoying Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights,” you must let it wash over you. Every split egg yolk, every inch of snail mucus, every glistening raindrop on screen — it’s all designed to sit slickly on the surface, never going more than skin deep.
The British writer and director’s third film, to be released Friday, has polarized audiences since the first trailer. Like most of the directors who have attempted to bring author Emily Brontë’s wild English moors to screen, Fennell decided to adapt only the first half of the gothic novel: cutting it off at the knees before the romance sours into a study of generational trauma. Fennell’s version has probably 50% less plot line and characters,…