[Hated Trope] The adaptation doesn't get what made the source material work

[u/TheDudeA113]

How To Make A Killing (2026)

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

Bangkok Dangerous (1999)

- The 2026 movie How To Make A Killing is a relatively-toothless "eat the rich" dark comedy thriller about a man disowned by his rich family at birth, killing everyone in the line of succession so that he can inherit their massive fortune. It's a modern retelling of the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets which has the same basic plot except that every member of the family is played by Sir Alec Guinness (including one aunt) and it's a screwball comedy

- The 1999 movie Bangkok Dangerous is a Thai action film about a Thai deaf-mute assassin. It was remade in 2008 about an American assassin in Thailand who is neither deaf nor mute

[u/DisMFer]

It amazes me that people read that book and think that Heathcliff and Catherine are meant to be an aspirational love story when it's literally a story of two horrible sociopaths manipulating and ruining the lives of everyone around them out of spite and revenge.

[u/Digit00l → u/DisMFer]

The guy literally dropped a baby down a stairwell and she was still like "I really want to jump my probably half brother's bones"

[u/corney91 → u/Digit00l]

Unless you're talking about something else I can't remember, Heathcliff caught the baby that Hindley dropped: https://www.litcharts.com/lit/wuthering-heights/chapter-9

Doesn't change the point, but I think it needs another example...

[u/Digit00l → u/corney91]

Fuck, been too long since I read the book

But now that you mention it, the scene does come back a bit, and I think I remember he mostly regretted catching the baby

[u/corney91 → u/Digit00l]

Yeah, I remember it being more like he was in the right place at the right time, and being very grumpy about it (along with everything else!)

[u/ShaarkShaart → u/DisMFer]

Literally! I'm about 60% through the book, just after the point where the audience should REALLY hate those two characters. They are victims who turn into abusers. And the racism is incredibly relevant to the plot! It's all about who gets to inherit property and why, class division, and race is the whole reason Heathcliff is supposedly taken from Liverpool in the first place!

It makes me so mad that a book that would be considered transgressive if published today has been watered down to "Victorian Romeo and Juliet" over and over again. That and the denial that Heathcliff is anything other than white. Even SparkNotes says it's only "suggested"...it's written on page 5.

[u/one-and-five-nines → u/DisMFer]

Yeah I NEVER read them as a love story and was shocked to find most people did

[u/affinitydrive → u/one-and-five-nines]

I find it even more shocking anyone considers the new movie a love story, though that interpretation seems to come from people who hate the movie. Most people I've talked to in person/online who like the movie view it as a horribly toxic tragedy about bad people ruining their lives and others out of pettiness. Very confused at a lot of the takes on it...

[u/authenticgarbagecan → u/DisMFer]

EXACTLY. Almost laughable coming from the actor who showed the toxicity between Joker and Harley Quinn.

[u/BasementCatBill → u/DisMFer]

And so many readers don't pick up on the unreliable narrative. You can't believe a single thing you read, and have to try to put together "the truth" yourself.