'Wuthering Heights' author has a fiery new biopic coming

Earlier this month, cast announcements for the biopic Emily were released. Leading the film is Emma Mackey, known for her role in Sex Education, will play the Brontë sister of the Gothic Victorian novel, Wuthering Heights. Joe Alwyn (The Favourite), is to play Emily's lover, while her brother Branwell is to be played by Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk) and her older sister Charlotte is set to be played by Emily Beecham (upcoming in Cruella). No word yet on who will play the youngest sister, Anne.

You may have had to read Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre in high school, or perhaps even college, but who are these sisters, really? And why are they so well-known in the literary world? They pushed the envelope in Victorian society, essentially, which wasn't hard to do, but was rather difficult to actually get away with. They weren't the first female writers, for instance, to publish under pseudonyms (I'm looking at you, George Eliot). Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë were known among contemporaries only as Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.

But what makes their lives worth portraying? Past biopic projects on the Brontë sisters include the 1979 French drama entitled The Brontë Sisters, as well as the 2006 In Search of the Brontës, and the recent BBC One and PBS Masterpiece Theater special in 2016, To Walk Invisible: The Brontë Sisters, directed by Sally Wainwright.

To capture the brilliance of these sisters, including their brother Branwell (for a time), begins with those pseudonyms and the reason they were necessary: the need to speak in a world that wouldn't let them. Raised in Yorkshire by a clergyman father, they read constantly and channeled creativity early on, creating imaginary worlds and histories like Gondal island (Emily and Anne's) and Angria (Charlotte and Branwell's) in the Glasstown Confederacy. These worlds came as a means of escape, as their mother and oldest siblings, Maria and Elizabeth, all died.

Their living conditions were harsh (Maria and Elizabeth died attending a girl's school from which Charlotte was the only to escape relatively healthy--echoes of Cowan Bridge can be found in Jane Eyre's tortuous school, Lowood School). Writing gave them solace, even though thoughts of publication did not come until later. Branwell lost tutoring positions due to drinking, and the sisters had to rely on themselves for financial support. Charlotte pushed them to publish when she discovered Emily's poetry and realized its potential. So began the fake names and earnest attempts.

In 1846 the sisters released their poetry together in a collection entitled Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. In 1847 they each published novels: Jane Eyre for Charlotte, Wuthering Heights for Emily, and Agnes Grey for Anne. Emily and Anne were close, often spending time on the moors in Haworth Village, and it is reflected in the Gothic wilderness of her novel and poems.

While Charlotte focused on the freedom of women (consider the famous line from Jane Eyre: "I am no bird and no net ensnares me"), Anne focused on exposing the dangers of marriage abuse and patriarchal power in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Emily meanwhile focused on spiritual freedom and wildness. Heathcliff's name is taken from the heath itself, the wild and dangerous moors that were both limitless in view and confining in emptiness. This dichotomy lived in Emily, the most reclusive and solitary of the sisters who produced words that shouted for release.

While one of her most famous poems is "No Coward Soul is Mine," there are many others that show the violent love of nature and the way it both heals and wounds. Consider the tone in "The night is darkening round me":

The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me,

And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow;

The storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me;

I will not, cannot go.

It is my hope that this new biopic focuses on Emily's poetry and the way she differed from her sisters in both her hesitancy to publish and the nature of her writing itself. However different they were, the sisters needed each other to encourage and motivate and publish. Their tenacity gave us the great literature we have today. While more has been done with Charlotte, it is high time Emily gets her turn (though I sincerely hope Anne is given fair representation in this new film and eventually her own focus).

The film is a directional debut for Frances O'Connor, and will be produced by David Barron (Harry Potter), Piers Tempest and Jo Bamford’s Tempo Productions, and with Robert Connolly and Robert Patterson of Arenamedia. Shooting is set to begin next year in Yorkshire. O'Connor has described the project so far with due respect and that is more than enough for me:

“Emily Brontë’s work and words are full of passion, feeling, violence, and fierce intelligence. In creating an imagined life for Emily, she will live again for our audience. Her story is about a young woman daring to form herself, to embrace her true nature, despite the consequences. Emily is, in fact, a love letter to women today, especially young women, a calling to them to challenge themselves to connect with their authentic voice and potential.”