I am a confessed middle aged Wuthering Heights tragic- have studied the book at at University level, read it many times and seen all of the major movie and TV versions- I consider this film version to be the best I have seen. Though it departs from the plot a number of times it still comes closest to the the themes and tone of Emily Bronte's work. The cast was excellent - especially Tom Hardy who was brilliant and really "nailed" Heathcliff , for me at least. The only reason for not giving it 9 or 10 stars is the curious omission of most of the powerful dialog from Cathy's death scene. They seem to have taken all of the angst out and just left the tender aspects. That being said - they have retained much of Emily Brontes brilliant language. I am in fact, bemused by some commentary that very little dialog from the book was included - I even read the book again straight after watching the movie and can confirm that this is just not a valid criticism. Much of the books dialog was included unchanged - though in some instances spoken by Cathy or Heathcliff instead of Nelly - and a good deal of the narration was reworked very effectively as dialog.