If you were to tell me that you watched Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights and found it to be overwrought, obvious, and absurdly heavy-handed, I would have no choice but to agree you. Also, I kinda loved it.

Fennell is the kind of director who takes big swings; she risks embarrassment—of herself and her actors (who could forget Barry Keoghan masturbating on a grave in Saltburn?)—and yields big emotions.

You could watch Wuthering Heights and laugh at how over-the-top it is, bordering on camp. Or you could give in to those big emotions and gorgeous, extravagant backdrops.

It’s safe to say that Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is a novel that lives in our collective imaginations. Even if you haven’t read it, you’ve probably seen one of the adaptations. And even if you’ve done neither, you understand the archetype of Heathcliff—powerful, masculine, smoldering, and untamed. What’s more, the book’s depiction of all-consuming love has created countless imitators (mostly to the detriment of young women, but I digress). Of course, there was much more to the novel than the love story—Brontë was making trenchant points about racism, classism, misogyny, and generational trauma. But that’s not what we all conjure when we think about Wuthering Heights. We see fog and rocks and fields of moorland grass; we see Cathy in tightly corseted dresses; we see Heathcliff atop a horse, with a billowing black cape. (Another thing we don’t see? The second half of the book, which has been all but ignored by the film and television adaptations.)

So Emerald Fennell has made it clear that is the Wuthering Heights of her imagination, the way she felt about the book when she first read it at the age of 14. That’s why she puts the title in quotes—it’s an interpretation, a sense-memory, a vibe. Her movie is much dirtier than the book—I don’t remember Healthcliff sucking on Cathy’s fingers after she masturbated in the novel—but not as dirty as some hoped/feared. Even if Fennell is too smart not to recognize that there’s something toxic and destructive about Cathy and Healthcliff’s all-consuming love, she is still trying to create a timeless romance, something 14-year-old Emerald would’ve swooned over. (The picture above is Cathy and Heathcliff after a funeral. He raises her black veil to kiss her, like she is some sort of cursed bride.)

A plot recap, if it’s been a while: Cathy (played by Charlotte Mellington as a girl) is a motherless child being raised in the moors by her alcoholic, gambling addict father (Martin Clunes, excellent). One night, he impulsively brings home an illiterate boy (Owen Cooper) who was being beaten on the street by his caregiver. The maids and cooks in the modest home are irritated by the foundling’s presence—one more mouth to feed—but Cathy is delighted. She immediately dubs him “Heathcliff”—she has essentially named and claimed him. “I’ll never leave you!” she says. They run in the moors, play on the rocks, and Heathcliff endures beatings to shield Cathy from her father’s rage. They grow into hot young adults, now played by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, and soon their preternatural connection becomes an all-consuming sexual and romantic passion. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same,” says Cathy. Then the obscenely wealthy Mr. Linton (Shazad Latif) moves in next door and Cathy, understanding that her father is destitute and there’s no future with Heathcliff, agrees to marry him. Heathcliff, taking this as a personal rebuke, rides away on horseback and returns five years later, a wealthy man. Their five years apart have only intensified their love.

Fennell directs Linton’s home with what can only be called Baz Luhrmann-esque fury. It’s a garish and grotesque display of wealth and Cathy is stuffed into bright red dresses, dripping with heavy jewels. The contrast between the gilded mansion and the wild, natural world of the moors is, well, one of those slightly embarrassing things I was talking about. It’s like, girl, we get it. Nonetheless, Fennell knows how to the direct the hell out of a shot, whether Cathy is standing next to the wallpaper Linton made to eerily emulate her flesh or sitting on the edge of a cliff, waiting for her beloved to return.

Let’s address the controversy over the casting. It’s quite clear, in my mind at least, that the Heathcliff of the novel is a POC. He’s literally described as a “dark-skinned gypsy” and a “little Lascar” (slang for sailors from the Indian subcontinent). And yet, in film and television he has been depicted by no less than Laurence Olivier, Ralph Fiennes, and Tom Hardy. Only director Andrea Arnold chose to cast a Black man as Heathcliff in her 2011 adaptation, and good for her, but it didn’t stick.

Fennell maintains that Elordi looks the Heathcliff from the cover of her worn paperback—and I can believe it. It says a lot about whose stories get told and passed on in our culture that most of us assumed Heathcliff was a dark-haired white man.

Putting the racial blunder aside, Elordi is, indeed, a magnificent Heathcliff. He’s a physical specimen—otherworldly handsome and brutish, even (or perhaps especially) with Heathcliff’s long hair and straggly beard. When he comes back from his self-imposed exile, his hair is short and his beard is shaved; he’s wearing fancy clothing (including a hoop earring and an anachronistic gold tooth), but he’s still something of a gorgeous brute. (Why do you think Guillermo Del Toro cast him as a hot Frankenstein’s monster?)

Some have suggested Margot Robbie, in her mid-30s, is too old to play Cathy, who is supposed to be a teenager. They downplay her age in the film, at one point calling her “nearly a spinster” (although, I imagine that would be, like, 21 in 1847) but it doesn’t really matter. Robbie, in fact, does have the kind of beauty men fight over, and she’s a great actress, expressive and keen. Crucially, Cathy and Heathcliff are both kind of dicks, so it’s important that they are played by charismatic movie stars, otherwise their love affair would be unwatchable. And the chemistry between them is, as the kids would say, straight fire.

So there you have it. Wuthering Heights is not faithful to the book, but it is faithful to what the film aroused in young Emerald Fennell’s imagination. It’s a remarkable thing to be able to evoke the passions of a young female bibliophile. The resulting film is a bit silly, very sexy, visually decadent, and, yes, wonderful.

Two days from now, Joaquin Phoenix will likely win an Oscar for his depiction of the Joker in Todd Phillips’ lugubrious take on the super villain’s origin story. So, for your consideration, I give you Margot Robbie in Birds of Prey, a performance that is no less inventive and committed, but way more fun.

Robbie plays the notorious Harley Quinn. Her origin story goes like this: At one point a respected psychiatrist, she falls for her patient, the Joker, then falls (literally) into a vat of radioactive goo, and emerges a punkish anarchist with pigtails, hot pants, and zero you-know-whats to give. Does she have any actual super powers? Nothing notable, although she seemingly has more strength and speed than the average person (at least in one scene, that speed is fueled by the giant pile of cocaine she collides with). But her greatest superpower, I suppose, is her absolute embrace of chaos. The crazier things get, the happier she seems.

In the past, Harley has largely been defined by her love of Joker, so Birds of Prey has a pretty fun concept: What happens when Harley and Joker break up? Well, for one, she’s even more manic than usual. But also, the protection he provided her evaporates. She suddenly has several targets on her back. Each new character is introduced by the “grievance” they have with Harley. Suffice it to say she has a knack for pissing people off.

Robbie is having an absolute blast playing this character, an unholy combination of Alex from A Clockwork Orange and Cindy Brady. One minute she’s wreaking havoc on a nightclub—breaking a sexist creep’s legs, puking into a stranger’s purse—the next minute she’s giggling in front of cartoons and kissing her pet hyena. And, occasionally, as she’s glitter bombing a police station or blowing up a chemical plant, she’ll stop to dispense some long-dormant, dimly accessed bit of psychological wisdom. (“Psychologically speaking, vengeance rarely brings the catharsis we hope for.”)

But she’s not the only ass-kicking female in this movie. Harley will eventually end up with a squad, of sorts. There’s detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), fast on the heels of the evil smoothie, Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), but never getting credit for her work (that always goes to her male partner). Then there’s deadpan super assassin Helena Bertinelli (Mary Elizabeth Winstead)—she prefers “the Huntress”—who wields a crossbow like a champ and whose ninja-like ways impress the livewire Harley. There’s the tweenage pickpocket Cassandra (Ella Jay Basco). Finally, there’s Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell, in a star-making performance), a beauty with a killer set of lungs who more-or-less operates a resistance from within Sionis’ deadly organization.

Birds of Prey is directed by a woman—Cathy Yan—and it shows. Before you jump to conclusions, it has nothing to do with the amount of action or violence—both are eye-popping and plentiful. But each of its female anti-heroines has her own agency. Although they are all sexy, their sexuality is never exploited. They are not defined by the men in their lives. And although they are technically criminals (Montoya notwithstanding), they ultimately have a shared humanity that makes them natural, if reluctant, allies.

Kinetic, silly, candy-colored, and hyperviolent, Birds of Prey is a serious treat for fans of comic book films. But it wouldn’t work without the equal parts goofy, hilarious, and unhinged performance of its lead. I’ll be back at the end of the year to remind Oscar voters just how great she is.

When it was first announced that Quentin Tarantino was going to do a film centered around the Manson Family murder of Sharon Tate and her three houseguests, there was immediate concern that the film would be an exploitative blood bath. I, for one, wasn’t all that worried. For all his punkish aesthetic, fetishization of violence, and bad boy posturing, Tarantino has a rather strict moral code (think about his recent slate of revisionist history films where the oppressed take down the oppressors). In that sense, he’s downright old-fashioned.

It’s the old fashioned Tarantino who takes center stage in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which, it turns out, is less about the Tate murders and more about a particular time in Hollywood history—when black and white turned to color, when films about cowboys and police officers grew more morally complex, when pants-legs got wider and sideburns got longer, when youth and drug culture exploded, and, yes, when the hippies came to town.

Tate, played by Margot Robbie, is a character in the film but not the main one. We see the young starlet arrive in Hollywood, with her new husband, the director Roman Polanski. She’s beautiful and filled with optimism. There’s a poignant scene where she goes to a downtown movie theater and gets a ticket for The Wrecking Crew, the Dean Martin film she has a supporting role in. We watch the pride and happiness wash over her as the audience laughs at the antics of her klutzy character. As her face glows beatifically from the light being cast off the screen, it feels like a benediction of sort, a moment of bliss for a doomed character. So yes, Tate, and what we know of her awful fate, hovers over the film, giving it a slightly ominous edge, but she’s not the film’s primary focus. Instead, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a classic buddy film, and an homage to the Hollywood of old.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton (perfect name), a strong, silent type of Hollywood actor, who specialized in Westerns and Nazi-hunting WWII flicks. His TV show, Bounty Law, has been cancelled and he’s now doing guest spots on other TV shows, usually playing the heavy. When he’s approached by a Hollywood broker of some sort (Al Pacino) to make spaghetti Westerns in Italy, he begins to process the depressing truth: He’s on the downside of his career, his Hollywood leading man days are behind him. Beset by self-loathing, he begins drinking (even more) heavily.

At his side, loyal as ever, is his best friend and stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Cliff is a war vet and a certified cool guy—with his moccasin-style shoes, aviator sunglasses, and Hawaiian shirt, he’s clearly lot more laid back than Dalton. Cliff lives with his adorable and obedient pit bull in a trailer that overlooks the Van Nuys drive-in movie theater (I’m not exaggerating when I say that some of the film’s best scenes involve Cliff feeding his dog). And he’ll do just about anything for his buddy Rick.

Tarantino plays to both actor’s strengths, and they are both wonderful. Pitt gives Cliff a “been there, done that” weariness, coupled with a cocksure grin, and an unrushed way about him. He’s almost comically strong and brave and righteous, but Pitt plays him with so much lived in, natural charisma, you believe in him—or at least, want to believe in him.

DiCaprio’s role is much more dark and complex—and the actor is nothing short of brilliant. He deftly switches from his “hey there little lady” style public persona to the tormented, self-doubting, twitchy alcoholic he is in private. “You’re Rick Dalton!” he screams at the mirror, all but begging himself to channel the confidence of his screen roles into his real life.

Tarantino’s style for the past several years has been to incorporate lengthy set pieces—almost short films within his films—into his movies, which he does here. In one, Cliff gives a pretty hitchhiker a ride to Manson Farm, a converted film set, where he meets many of the famous Manson players and insists upon checking up on his old friend, the ranch’s aging owner George Spahn, played by Bruce Dern. We’re worried for Cliff, but he’s so half-amused, half-disgusted by the Manson Family members and so languorously confident, we go along for the ride with him.

In another, Dalton finds himself on the set of a cowboy show where he’s guest starring as the bad guy. It’s here that he meets a precocious child actress (Julia Butters) who first takes pity on him and later gives him a much needed confidence boost. “That was the best acting I’ve ever seen in my whole life,” she says, and it tells you something about Dalton’s fragile state that the words of an 8-year-old mean so much to him.

The film looks incredible. You truly feel like you’re in Hollywood in the ’60s, with the neon signs and tacky, faux-Mexican restaurants and shiny convertibles. The film has a wonderful golden glow about it—a beauty that suggests that the old Hollywood Dalton longs for was worth preserving. And although it has a staggering 2 hours 45 minute runtime, it’s impossible to resist the way Tarantino luxuriates in the world he has recreated—from parties at the Playboy Mansion to film sets where a young Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) picks a fight with Cliff to joy rides on the Sunset Strip.

Honestly, I could’ve watched the film for two more hours, but I do have one small quibble: There’s an inexplicable narration that pops up once, early in the film, and then again, for an extended period of time late in the second half. Narrations are generally lazy devices, and this one seems particularly arbitrary. (I almost wonder if Tarantino is referencing something I don’t understand. Were sporadic narrations a staple of B movies in the 60s?).

As for the film’s ending, some will love it, some will hate it. (I loved it.) I will say that it provides that burst of absurdist violence we were all waiting for. The rest of the film is less hopped up on Red Bull and show-offy than most of Tarantino’s works. It has a confident, leisurely pace. If this represents the beginning of a new, more mature era for the aging phenom—his Cliff Booth phase, if you will—I couldn’t be more excited for it.