I Went to the Wuthering Heights Hollywood Premiere—and I Left Crying

From behind a velvet rope guarded closely by a man with some sort of powerful credentials, we caught glimpses of the cast. Margot Robbie appeared in a sculptural, corseted Schiaparelli gown, looking absolutely luminous. Jacob Elordi was harder to spot—even at 6’5”—though his presence somewhere was unmistakable. You could hear of him before you saw him, his name being screamed out constantly by the crowd.

Inside the Chinese Theatre, that shrine to old-school movie royalty, gowns shimmered under the lights. The dress code for the evening was “Old Hollywood Glam,” with a deck of James Bond-type references and Oscars-appropriate silhouettes sent out to premiere guests ahead of time.

We awkwardly clambered over people to reach our seats. In the rows, I spotted Cara Delevingne, Jeremy Scott, Petra Collins, and Phoebe Tonkin with her husband Bernie LaGrange. A woman next to me in her early 30s was practically vibrating with anticipation—and when the cast appeared briefly to introduce the film, she leaned forward and bellowed across the cavernous room: “I LOVE YOU, JACOB ELORDI.” As the lights dimmed, the applause was quickly swallowed by total silence. And for two hours and 15 minutes, everyone was transfixed.

There is something unhinged about watching an explicitly sexual film in a room full of strangers. When Elordi’s Heathcliff first puts his fingers into Robbie’s mouth, the woman next to me audibly gasped before letting out a small moan. She shifted in her seat like she was trying to make what was clearly a very personal experience socially acceptable, failing spectacularly.

I won’t spoil the plot, but Fennell takes bold liberties with the material, reshaping Brontë’s story for a 21st-century audience without softening its cruelty. The surreal-leaning sets and costumes do not care for historical accuracy either. (Please peep Heathcliff’s fuck-boy gold hoop earring when you watch.) Tumblr users circa 2010 would simply have gone crazy for these stills, if you ask me.

When the credits rolled, the room was thick with emotion. I looked over at Tish, who, like me, had tears in her eyes. We urgently made a beeline for the powder room, where women in ballgowns swapped notes of heartbreak and devastation. One declared she wanted to go home and cry. Another, her mascara running, confessed she needed to calm her anxiousness with a cigarette.

Back outside on Hollywood Boulevard, the post-picture post-mortem was split predictably amongst the genders. Men in tuxedos insisted they had known exactly what would happen, making it clear they had read the book, while others confidently predicted the film’s impending commercial success. As someone who has also read the novel, I admittedly did not know what would happen. And yet, I loved it. I might even see it again.

We wandered over to the after-party, drifting past guests we’d run into at the premiere, until I was abruptly stopped at the door. “No press. You can’t come in,” a woman with a headset announced directly into my face.

I decided that discretion—and dignity—were underrated virtues, and cut my losses. I walked home in my Chanel dress, thinking about the catalogue of unrequited and unfinished loves waiting for me. All I wanted was to collapse into bed, cry a little more, and let my cat curl up beside me—a modern-day antidote to an evening of gothic excess.