OnScreen Review: "Last Night In Soho"
Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic
In some ways, Last Night In Soho is a departure for director Edgar Wright. In other ways, it fits right in with the rest of his filmography. The director became famous with his Cornetto/Three Flavors Trilogy in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End. To date, I do not think that Wright has made a bad film yet, as I also thoroughly loved Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and Baby Driver. But Last Night In Soho might be the first Edgar Wright film that I’m not rushing out to purchase to add to my movie collection.
Wright is known for crafting genre-specific films that are homages to other films that have come before it; often the film is wearing its heart on its sleeve while lovingly lampooning something about the genre. As a concept, Last Night In Soho seemed like a perfect premise for Wright’s imagination; an aspiring fashion designer who sometimes see dead people, Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie), moves to London after getting into an elite fashion school and begins having dreams of an aspiring singer, Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), trying to make it in glamorous 1960s London. The dreams soon become a nightmare, as Sandie’s story takes a turn and Ellie’s dreams begin to invade her everyday life.
After coming out of Last Night In Soho, I thought that Wright had decided to play it straight, but it turned out that I wasn’t paying attention to the subgenre that Wright was working in. Turns out, similar to James Wan with Malignant, Wright is taking as stab at a giallo-influenced psychological thriller, riffing on the influences of Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, et al. There are overall similarities to Susperia involving Ellie moving to prestigious school and struggling to fit in.
The film does a fantastic job of recreating the look and feel of a film set in 60s London. The cinematography of the film is exquisite. When Ellie travels back to the 60s each night, she bounces in and out of being in Sandie’s shoes to being her reflection in a mirror, to being a general observer as scenes transpire, much like what happens in dreams. There is a wonderfully choreographed scene where Sandie is dancing in a night club with Jack (Matt Smith), the man who wants to be her manager, and the camera is doing a tight swirl around them as they are dancing, and every few rotations around, McKenzie and Taylor-Joy take turns swapping in an out, creating a four-person dance with them and the camera. It is a perfectly executed practical effect.
The film ties Ellie to the past in more ways than just through her dreams. Raised by her grandmother after the death of her mother, she prefers the fashion and music of the period rather than the more modern. This causes her to clash a bit with a group of mean girls as the school, and to eventually move out of student housing to find a room for rent from an elderly lady named Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg in her final role). It is here that Ellie’s visions become enhanced; whereas she used to see just her mother back home in the mirror, she begins to experience Sandie’s tale. McKenzie does a fantastic job of portraying Ellie’s slow descent into madness and increasingly losing her grip on reality.
Sandie’s story is a familiar one of an aspiring young lady who comes to the city looking for fame only to be taken advantage of by lecherous and lascivious men. Observing Sadie shows Ellie that nostalgia glosses over a lot of dark territory; a message that can be universal but especially true for women. When Sadie fully realizes her situation, she runs for an exit, passing scene after scene of increasing debauchery, which felt like an homage to Wendy running through the Overlook Hotel in The Shining and seeing the man in the bear suit.
When I made the giallo connection with Last Night In Soho, it got me thinking of another recent giallo-inspired film, James Wan’s Malignant. While they are very different, they have female protagonists who have some psychic connection that allows them to see things in an extra-sensory way. Coincidentally, both protagonists witness a gruesome stabbing in a bed right before their very eyes. Wan’s Malignant came across much more schlocky and whereas this film is a lot more polished.
And yet, something still holds me back slightly from unabashedly loving Last Night In Soho as I have everything else Edgar Wright has directed. Perhaps it is my general dislike of giallo films overall. It certainly wasn’t the cast, as I jumped on the bandwagon early for both Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy. It might be that this psychological thriller is a detective case to find out who was responsible for Sadie’s fate back in the 60s when things take a dark turn, and while all of the breadcrumbs are laid out by Wright and his screenplay co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917), but they manipulate clues so the ultimate reveal feels like a cheat.
Last Night In Soho is an artfully crafted psychological thriller that follows a well-worn path of a young woman out of place in a strange, new environment who experiences a slow descent into waking horror as the film progresses. While as technically proficient and visually lush and inventive as just about anything that has come from Edgar Wright, I did not connect with it like I had with literally every previous film he has done. There is still plenty to like and appreciate, if not as much to outright love.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars