Margot Robbie’s striking hair-inspired ensemble at the Wuthering Heights London premiere last night sparked confusion among fans thanks to one accessory.
As the press tour for the hotly debated upcoming movie continued, the 35-year-old actress and producer wowed in a custom sheer corseted gown, designed by Dilara Findikoglu, which was trimmed in hand-dyed braids that looked like hair wrapping around her legs, torso, neck and across her shoulders.
While at first perhaps an unexpected look, this feature was a very deliberate nod to a special accessory on her wrist, as the Barbie star was wearing a replica of a 175-year-old bracelet made with Wuthering Heights author Emily Brontë’s own hair.
Intertwined with her author sister Anne’s locks too, it was originally a piece of Victorian mourning jewellery owned by Jane Eyre writer Charlotte Brontë, Emily and Anne’s oldest sibling, with an amethyst set at its centre.
It’s a suitably gothic look for a film that follows the doomed and obsessive love between Cathy Earnshaw (Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi), but some fans called the look ‘profane’ and ‘disrespectful’ after becoming convinced it was original.
This wasn’t helped by an X user posting a picture purporting to be at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, where this piece is usually on display, showing that it was ‘temporarily removed from display’.
‘I just don’t think celebrities should be allowed to wear pieces like this,’ argued Zie, while others asked if we’d ‘learned nothing’ after Kim Kardashian caused uproar for wearing one of Marilyn Monroe’s real and iconic dresses to the Met Gala in 2022.
However, Harper’s Bazaar confirmed it was a careful copy, made by Wyedean Weaving, which also likely accounted for any temporary removal from the museum.
London provided constant rain on the carpet on Thursday night – which was also suitably black and decorated with trees to evoke the mood of the novel and the windswept Yorkshire moors where it’s set.
Speaking to Metro‘s social video producer Catriona Walsh about her own ‘emo’ tendencies as a teenager who would have loved the novel at that time, Robbie recalled: ‘I used to cut [my hair] with a razor blade and dye it black. I mean, I was so emo!’
She also recalled that the phase for her involved ‘a lot of heavy metal music’ and ‘a lot of band shirts’, adding: ‘If you had told me back then that I would return to my blonde hair when I was older, I would have been like, no way!’
Elordi was also out on the carpet, mostly forgoing an umbrella as he dedicated much of his time to taking photos with fans and signing copies of Wuthering Heights – and also keeping co-star Robbie and others dry in the wet weather.
Filmmaker Emerald Fennell was in attendance, resplendent in bright red, alongside cast members Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Saltburn’s Alison Oliver, Martin Clunes and others, with many full of praise for her bold vision in reinterpreting the novel.
Latif plays Edgar Linton, a neighbour to Cathy and the man who comes between her and Heathcliff – but Fennell was ready to do something different with him for this adaptation, taking him away from being ‘a milquetoast sap’ and less sympathetic.
‘She said, “I want to make him a credible threat. We know he’s rich, but he’s also loyal and kind and gentle – make him a viable option”,’ Latif explained to Metro of his take on the role. ‘[Cathy] does love him. It is real. It’s just that this other love is way more powerful. So, it’s just heartbreaking to play that and such a fun challenge.’
When discussing the yearning quality of the film that critics have been swooning over, Latif compared the feeling of this Wuthering Heights to the letter to Mantua in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, where Friar Laurence is not able to explain to Romeo that Juliet’s death is a ruse – thereby preventing the tragedy of their deaths.
‘It’s like you’re playing the annoyance of everyone’s behaviour. But then when everything is put together, with the music that Anthony Willis and Charlie XCX have done, it does have that yearning feeling – and yes, you want the audience’s hearts to be stretched.’
Oscar nominee Chau called it ‘gratifying’ to see how the ‘beautiful’ film has been received so far, ahead of official reviews being published on Monday.
‘Sometimes you just don’t know when you start a project how it’s going to turn out, but we had such a great hope for this one and then to see it turn out the way that it did was just really gratifying,’ she told Metro of audiences so far embracing its take on a much-loved classic.
Chau is Nelly Dean in the film, a servant and companion to Cathy who plays a major role in her relationship with Heathcliff and is also a narrator in the novel – and was a ‘tricky’ character for her and Fennell to ‘figure out’.
‘I met with her and I confessed that I had not read the book and she was not bothered by that,’ the actress told Metro.
‘She still hired me! And she also confessed to me that Nelly was a really tricky character for her that she hadn’t quite locked in yet, so we played around with it quite a bit and that was fun for me as an actor.
‘I love getting to serve the director and be of service to the story, and then just trust that our editor Victoria [Boydell] was just going to do a fantastic job of winnowing down all of the great performances that everybody did.’
Doc Martin star Clunes appear as Mr Earnshaw, Cathy’s father, who is seen through a harsher lens in Fennell’s adaptation than in Brontë’s original novel as an abusive and alcoholic parent with an unpredictable nature. He has taken on the traits of his son Hindley, a character not featured in the film.
Describing bringing this more wretched take on him, and the squalor in which he lives, Clunes responded: ‘Grotty, grimy, but you had to sort of go with it.
‘Emerald would say, “So there’s the pile of vomit. If you lie in that and then get up as we call action, you’ll be emerging from the vomit.” So you go, “OK, that’s what I’m doing today!”’
Wuthering Heights is released in UK and Irish cinemas on February 13.
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