It was yet another 90-degree day in Los Angeles, so a perfect day to spend indoors with air conditioning at the Aero Theater for Cartier Cinema Club’s screening of Opening Night, from independent-film pioneer John Cassavetes.
Jacob Elordi had personally picked the movie that day.
“I probably made three movies that I thought were pretty bad when I was young, and I had hopes and dreams of being this kind of terrific, ferocious stage actor,” Elordi said in a packed theater that included Duke Nicholson (sans Devon Lee Carlson), who slid into an aisle seat. ]Near them? The Pitt’s Sepideh Moafi and Shabana Azeez enthusiastically waved someone down for more popcorn, and Cailee Spaeny, who appeared to support her previous Elvis costar.
From left: Photo: Isabella ElordiPhoto: Isabella Elordi
From top: Photo: Isabella ElordiPhoto: Isabella Elordi
“I watched this movie, and it was one of the first times that I saw the creative process of an actor sort of fleshed out in detail,” Elordi continued. “The movie made me feel a lot less insane and alone.”
Just a month earlier, in a packed room that included John Malkovich and Parker Posey, the club was launched in the most glamour way: with a screening of Wild Horse Nine at the Venice Film Festival. The Cartier Cinema Club might be a new program but it has been decades in the making, starting in the early decades of the 20th century with Broadway stars. One early example is Don Valentino, who wore his own personal Tank watch in the 1926 movie The Son of the Sheik. This West Coast screening marked the first stateside event, but the club’s next stops include Kyoto and Rome.
Photo: Isabella Elordi
Arnaud Carrez, the senior vice-president and chief marketing officer at Cartier, helped create the club as a way to celebrate film. “Thanks to our long-standing relationship with the world of cinema, we have had the privilege of collaborating with directors, actors, scenographers, and many other creative talents, and these encounters naturally inspire new projects,” he said. “For example, Claude Lelouch received the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award in 2024 during the Venice International Film Festival and also took part in one of our master classes co-organized with the festival. This relationship naturally led to Cartier supporting the restoration of A Man and a Woman to celebrate the film’s 60th anniversary.” He added, “The Cartier Cinema Club is designed to continue this dialogue through screenings, conversations and discussions that highlight different creative métiers and offer audiences a deeper understanding of the collaborative nature of filmmaking.”
Photo: Isabella Elordi
He said that some of his favorite film moments include, maybe not surprisingly, Cartier. “In Heaven Can Wait, Gene Tierney says that ‘Cartier never makes a mistake,’” he noted.
This is not your average movie club, though. Bellhops wearing Cartier-red uniforms stamped each ticket before we entered the lobby, and once inside, everyone gravitated toward the large silver tubs overflowing with Champagne bottles. Guests ordered cocktails served in classic red-and-white striped paper cups and picked up buckets of sweets filled with Twizzlers, Swedish Fish, sour candy, and fresh berries, because, well, it’s L.A.
From left: Photo: Isabella ElordiPhoto: Isabella Elordi
From top: Photo: Isabella ElordiPhoto: Isabella Elordi
Opening Night blurs the lines of reality and performance in its play-within-a-movie setup. Rowlands’s portrayal of Myrtle is a showcase of frayed emotions as the boundaries between her character and sense of self slowly unravels.
Elordi said he thinks of the film as he prepares for his next project. (Though he didn’t name the film, he’s attached to Ari Aster’s latest A24 project, Scapegoat, also starring Scarlett Johansson and Jude Law.)
“You can be searching for a character and not know that you’re searching for it,” Elordi said. “It starts happening in your toes and your knees and your chest. And that’s why I picked this movie: because it always makes me feel less crazy.”
Photo: Isabella Elordi
Stay in touch.
The latest in style, self, culture, and power in your inbox.
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice
Related