Like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, Jacob Elordi introduces an erotic, toxic masculinity into the feminine fantasy world of Emerald Fennell’s melodramatic “Wuthering Heights.”

Amidst the old Hollywood technicolour campery of Fennell’s adolescent fever dream, his Heathcliff is broody and serious, stern and monochromatic. It’s as if he is playing Hamlet to Margot Robbie’s Barbie.

At the showing I attended, there were gasps from the predominantly female audience when Heathcliff reappeared to Cathy, suited, booted, shorn and shaven. From that moment on, Jacob owned the screen.

He may not be a brown skinned gypsy, but he oozes swarthy, exotic otherness. Fennell’s camera loves his long silhouette, lingering on his frame as he smoulders across a sofa, caressing his torso when he undresses in the shadows and devouring his flawless face in giant close-ups. His upper lip curls sensuously and his dark eyes hypnotize us before we casually notice that Heathcliff has a new gold tooth and earring. (What wickedness has brought him this fortune?)

The female gaze has never been so sharp as Fennell’s on Elordi, and yet she resists the temptation to stray into tasteless titillation. It would be easy to show us more of Elordi’s body, but like Cathy pleasuring herself out of sight on the moors, we are left to imagine what Heathcliff looks like below the waist. Fennell does not objectify Elordi in that way but focuses on the primordial allure of Heathcliff, who is unselfconsciously a sex god.

The misogynistic Heathcliff dislikes female admiration. The unique bond which he has with Cathy is almost genderless, their love growing innocently during a wild childhood spent together on the moors. However, Heathcliff is both obsessive and possessive  and when Cathy’s sister-in-law is physically drawn to him, although he detests Isabel, he uses her devotion to his advantage by eloping with her, gaining power over Cathy and her husband Edgar. Isabel’s BDSM degradation echoes gay “domcom” Pillion. In both films consent is given – if your dom is Alexander Skarsgård or Jacob Elordi you can see the attraction – but with Elordi’s Heathcliff, there is no question that this is abuse.

While Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” centres around Cathy, Emily Bronte’s novel continues long after Cathy’s death and its main protagonist is the tortured Heathcliff. It is as if he is the only authentic character transposed from the book to the film, and perhaps this is why Elordi’s part is more credible than Robbie’s.

But in the end, it is Elordi’s charisma that seduces us. As Heathcliff, he is at once suave, sensitive and savage. Like  Cathy, we adore him.

Cubby Broccoli spoke of how Sean Connery moved like a panther at his Dr. No audition, and with his feline physicality, it is no surprise that Jacob Elordi was rumoured, last week, to be in line for the role of 007. He has already shown his ability to play characters as varied as Elvis in Priscilla, Felix in Saltburn, and the monster in Frankenstein, but if he tumbles down the Bond rabbit hole, he may miss out on a more illustrious film career.

Either way there is no doubt that Jacob Elordi is not just a talented actor. He is a movie star.