“Wuthering Heights” director Emerald Fennell sat down with Fandango this week to explain the quotation marks in the title of the upcoming Emily Brontë adaptation. The film stars Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, the doomed characters from the 1847 novel.

Fennell, who previously helmed Saltburn and Promising Young Woman, told the outlet that the quotation marks stemmed from her decision not to make a completely faithful adaptation of the novel.

In a video Fandango shared on Wednesday, she said, “The thing for me is you can't adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book. I can't say I'm making Wuthering Heights. It's not possible.”

This also may explain why the trailer for “Wuthering Heights” says it is “inspired by the greatest love story,” as opposed to being based on Brontë’s novel, which many consider to be more of a tragedy than a traditional romance.

“What I can say is I'm making a version of it,” Fennell continued. “There's a version that I remembered reading that isn't quite real. And there's a version where I wanted stuff to happen that never happened. And so it is Wuthering Heights, and it isn't.”

The controversy around “Wuthering Heights”

Fennell’s adaptation has already raised eyebrows for certain choices, including Elordi playing Heathcliff despite not being of Romani descent, as some speculate Heathcliff to have been. Meanwhile, 35-year-old Robbie was also criticized for being too old to play Cathy, who, in the novel dies at 19. Fennell, however, confirmed to British Vogue that she aged up the character for the movie.

“Cathy is somebody who just pushes to see how far she can go,” Fennell told the BBC of the character. “So it needed somebody like Margot, who’s a star, not just an incredible actress — which she is — but somebody who has a power, an otherworldly power, a Godlike power, that means people lose their minds.”

Others have noted that the costuming for “Wuthering Heights” is not accurate to the book’s period, which takes place in the late 1700s and early 1800s. In fact, the more Victorian-era costume choices, coupled with the quotation marks around the title, is what inspired TikToker Jamie McAleney’s (@itsyourfilmsis) viral theory that perhaps “Wuthering Heights” would be about a reader of the novel imagining herself in the role — not a direct adaptation of the book itself.

And while it seems like Fennell will be directly adapting Brontë’s tale of yearning and woe through her own lens, Robbie previously said fans should expect a true romance that differs from Fennell’s salacious Saltburn.

“Everyone’s expecting this to be very, very raunchy. I think people will be surprised. Not to say there aren’t sexual elements and that it’s not provocative — it definitely is provocative — but it’s more romantic than provocative,” Robbie told British Vogue. “This is a big epic romance. It’s just been so long since we’ve had one — maybe The Notebook, also The English Patient. You have to go back decades. It’s that feeling when your chest swells or it’s like someone’s punched you in the guts and the air leaves your body. That’s a signature of Emerald’s. Whether it’s titillating or repulsion, her superpower is eliciting a physical response.”