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Monday
It’s here, at last, the moment we’ve been waiting for: Wuthering Heights discourse! Officially released in the UK this Friday, Emerald Fennell’s movie adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel features the biggest female star in the world (Margot Robbie), the second-biggest male star (I’m putting Timothée Chalamet ahead of Jacob Elordi, don’t fight me), and Fennell’s unique writing and directing style that gave us so many memorable moments in Saltburn. On Monday the flag goes up and we’re off!
Let’s start with the nice stuff; it’ll take less time. Still cleaving to the counterintuitive, New York magazine gave the film a thumbs up for being “smooth-brained”, “incredibly moist” and Fennell’s “dumbest movie”, which, the writer assured us, also happens to be – wah-wah – “her best to date”. The Hollywood Reporter judged it “pulpy, provocative, drenched in blazing color … and resonantly tragic”, while the Atlantic went for “a heaving, rip-snortingly carnal good time at the cinema”. Fennell cannot, after all, be held responsible for bad writing from her reviewers so we’ll put down to coincidence the fact that every critic who liked the film was having an off day.
Unsurprisingly, the Brits were less generous than the Americans. The Independent’s one-star review called the film “an astonishingly hollow work” and “whimperingly tame”, while the Times went for “vapid” and “awful” and this newspaper deemed it “ersatz” and “quasi-erotic”. I can’t judge; I’ve only seen the trailer, in which Elordi looks like the comic Joe Wilkinson and the movie like bad Baz Luhrmann – which is saying something, given how bad the actual Baz Luhrmann is these days. But maybe it gets better as it goes on.
Back to the US for the final word, where “underneath her brazen streak” Fennell is accused by the New Yorker of showing “a certain wobbliness of conviction – a failure of nerve”, and the film of exhibiting a “curious redundancy” – a very New Yorkerish way of saying it sucked.
Tuesday
The Fargo-esque kidnap of Savannah Guthrie’s mother enters its second week in the news cycle and the number of fatuous experts continues to multiply. Guthrie, a prominent US newscaster who should have been anchoring NBC News during the Winter Olympics this week, is instead appealing nightly on US TV for whoever kidnapped her 84-year-old mother from her Arizona home on 1 February to please get in touch and return her.
The New York Post rustled up a retired FBI man who suggested the aggressor seen on Nancy Guthrie’s doorcam was likely “an amateur” based on how he’d holstered his gun. ABC News’s retired FBI guy said the ransom note may not have been authentic, while on CNN, a retired FBI agent encouraged viewers to study the doorcam footage in case they recognised the masked figure from his walk – “so-called ‘gait analysis’,” said the agent. Only the best and the brightest at the FBI.
On social media, meanwhile, a popular casting director used her experience with actors to offer insights into the family, in particular Guthrie’s two siblings, who appeared on camera in an appeal to the kidnapper (she thought their upset looked fake). As of Friday morning, Nancy Guthrie remained missing and all the armchair analysts took their place in the pantheon of ghouls going back to news around Joanne Lees, the McCanns and Lindy Chamberlain.
Wednesday
Princess Eugenie has been seen in the Middle East at Art Basel Qatar – an event she attended, according to Hello magazine, in her capacity as director of an art gallery. It must be hard, and I do sympathise; the sins of the father, etc. Still, the fact is that even the most innocent business undertakings emanating from that branch of the royal family trigger unfortunate echoes.
In the past year or so, Eugenie’s sister, Princess Beatrice, has attended an investment conference in Saudi Arabia, appeared in a promotional photo for a UAE bank, and addressed an energy conference in Abu Dhabi in which she referred to AI as “literally my favourite subject”. The princess was there in a private capacity, you understand, although possibly not one recommended by her extensive knowledge of AI.
All of which makes one look admiringly in the direction of the Phillips children. Zara on her horse, Peter doing whatever it is Peter does, neither of whom, at Princess Anne’s request, took on royal titles when they were born and who have rarely if ever felt moved to “promote British trade” abroad, officially or otherwise.
Thursday
It’s very Fleabag season 2, only instead of a whimsical hamster cafe promoting social health via Chatty Wednesdays, it’s an initiative by English Heritage to encourage social interaction via Bonding Benches. The benches will be introduced at some of the UK’s most famous landmarks, including Stonehenge and Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, where users will be able to slide a sign between “up for a chat” and “craving quiet”.
I love this idea, even if it mainly works only at the notional level. The initiative has been designed with parents of young children in mind, who are prone to isolation and might like a more structured opportunity to bond. The only improvement I can think of is to expand the range of the signs. As well as “quiet” and “chat”, how about: “Don’t even look at me”, “Stay at least three inches away from my body” and “Don’t come anywhere near me with anything that looks like a need”.
Friday
Friends visiting from out of town want to go on the tourist bus through London, so here we are in light rain on the open-top deck. My observation, never having done this before, is: so many bridges! Also: did you know that All Hallows by the Tower is the oldest church in London and was founded in AD675? Take that, New York – and sorry, in this instance, even Paris can do one. Turns out the bus tour brings on feelings of jingoism, for which I apologise but it’s all very stirring.
A couple of things: I’m not sure the Royal Palaces of Justice deserve to be summarised in the audio tour with: “Here are the steps where Johnny Depp stood recently”, and maybe there’s something about Southwark Bridge more notable than the fact it served as the backdrop for a scene from Harry Potter? Other than that: no notes, I loved it. Oh, look! St Paul’s!
