I have next to zero interest in that Wuthering Heights movie. So why did I read this long piece that takes it as a jumping-off point?

Because I have plenty of interest in Heather Parry, particularly when she is irked:

Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”, is, perhaps, exactly what we deserve. An all-vibes, no-substance culture gets precisely that. Nothing has to follow through on the promises it makes because no one thinks deeply enough to notice. No need to actually be transgressive as long as there are enough transgressive-looking two second clips for social media. We all took the bait, me included. We all suckle at the teat of this idiocy.

That paragraph might have ended a decent essay on the film by a lesser writer. For Parry, it’s the pivot-pause at the end of the first third of the piece, which takes us way beyond the film, through the book, and into the politics—sexual, racial, and class—of the period in which the book was written, and of the moment in which the movie is a thing.

There are many ways to define a great writer, but “can easily compel you to read thousands of words on a topic you had heretofore deemed irrelevant” is pretty inarguable, if you ask me.