A Sensitive Movie About a Literary Oddity

Of the Brontë sisters, Emily has long been considered the most vexing. She was reportedly jovial around her siblings but disagreeable and timid around anyone else. Her equally tempestuous and aloof reputation left her friendless, and the novel Wuthering Heights—her bold, brutal masterpiece—incensed some readers while enthralling others. She’s a literary oddity, a creature whose reserved disposition seemed to belie a wildly inventive imagination.

In , a new film about her life in theaters Friday, her difficult personality manifests as a near-paranormal force. Take an early scene, during which Emily (played’s Emma Mackey) puts on a mask for a role-playing guessing game. She’s supposed to choose someone fun to perform as—say, Marie Antoinette—but instead, she channels her late mother. She speaks softly, spooking her siblings, Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling), Anne (Amelia Gething), and Branwell (Fionn Whitehead). By coincidence or some inexplicable power, the winds outside pick up, the windows fling open, and the candles blow out. Her sisters cry hysterically, and Emily seems possessed, unable to remove the mask. The evening, which started in merriment, devolves into terror.