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★★★☆☆
I can pretty confidently state that Edgar Wright is my favourite director of all time. As far as I’m concerned, the vast majority of his films are classics, and some could even be considered UK national treasures. I have quite literally lost count of the number of times I’ve seen Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz- and his last work, Baby Driver, was in my opinion one of the best films of 2017. So naturally, when Last Night in Soho was first announced, I couldn’t have been more excited. But how does Wright’s latest work compare to the rest of his filmography?
In a vacuum, Last Night in Soho is a perfectly adequate horror yarn, with some mesmerising lead performances, excellent visual design, and incredibly ropey writing. I’d be lying, however, if I said Soho wasn’t Wright’s worst film. Which isn’t necessarily the damning indictment that it sounds on paper, given the competition, but upon finishing this film I wasn’t left with the same satisfaction I’ve derived from his earlier works.
Last Night in Soho follows Ellie Turner (played by Thomasin McKenzie), a wannabe fashion designer from Cornwall with a deep reverence for everything 60s; from the music, to its icons, and of course its style. She is also revealed to have an “I see dead people” complex, which may be hereditary and is heavily implied to have caused the suicide of her mother. Ellie begins the film preparing to move to London to start University, and quickly finds herself a fish out of water amongst her snobbish, partying, and frankly bitchy peers. Modern London is very much a disappointment for Ellie, who begins to slip deeper into precognitive dreams and fantasies of the place of 60 years ago; visions which begin to follow the exploits of a hopeful singer, Sandy (played by Anya Taylor-Joy) and her charming manager Jack (played by Matt Smith). From here, psychological horror hijinks ensue.
One of the film's core themes concerns the idea of nostalgia; particularly how we of the modern age can have reverence for times that we never even experienced ourselves. How we can view past eras with rose-coloured glasses, and that our love for these times can overlook some very ugly truths. Our main character is certainly guilty of this, with Ellie’s love for the 60s, in my opinion, partly born out of her seemingly complete inability to fit in with anyone her age. The film explores ideas of “being born in the wrong generation” and the hidden darkness of the past with a very deft hand, anchored by an excellent lead performance by Thomasin McKenzie. It is very easy to sympathise with Ellie, and at the beginning, we share in her delight at finding herself transported to the glitz and glamour of 60s Soho. Even then, there is an undercurrent of unease that something isn’t quite right in her visions of Sandy, especially when recurrent family issues of mental health are brought up. The idea that this character only feels comfortable in an imagining of a completely different time period is quite a sad one, especially when she begins to see that the past wasn’t all that she cracked it up to be. Despite my issues with where the story ends up going, I was always rooting for Ellie, and a lot of this is down to McKenzie’s very engaging portrayal.
The subject of Ellie’s dreams, Sandy, serves as a mirror image of how Ellie sees herself in the present. With dreams of performing in all the top clubs of bustling London town, Sandy found herself utterly crushed flat by the system and saw these aspirations wither away. With Ellie feeling as though her goal of being the next best fashion designer is being ruined by the world around her, she sees a kindred spirit in Sandy, and the lines between the two become more and more blurred as the film draws on and her visions get more intense. The world of 60s Soho is expertly captured and brought to life by Wright through some choice editing and production design, and Taylor-Joy’s portrayal of Sandy is equally full of colour, life, and dimension. We really feel her connection to Ellie, and their shared plight of struggling to succeed in a world that’s holding them down makes for a fascinating and unnerving watch.
For me, the film falls short in a couple of key areas and is a downright disappointment in others. One of the biggest issues Last Night in Soho has is that to put it bluntly, it just isn’t scary. At all. You can tell that Wright has never made a straight-up horror film before, with an overreliance on some cheesy “spectres”, tacky jump scares, and a general lack of any viscerally scary moments. The film is at its best when exploring Ellie’s slow descent into madness and paranoia in the quieter moments, but when it’s trying to outright frighten us, it flounders. As much as I enjoyed the characters, performances, and style of a lot of this film, it is being marketed as a horror, and it can only be described as a failure in this regard. In fact, given the way the story unfolds, you could argue that it’s more of a dark mystery than a horror- but even then, the mystery elements of who’s who and what’s really going on are just as much of a disappointment as the horror ones, given just how predictable they turn out to be. The final twist isn’t so predictable, however- but it brings with it much bigger problems.
By far the biggest flaw for me was the film’s third act, which stumbles and then falls flat on its face in concluding the story. There is a climactic twist towards the end which, in my opinion, outright betrays the tone and themes of the first hour and a half of the movie. Without wishing to delve into spoiler territory, an incredibly messy climax sees us as the viewer expected to sympathise with a completely reprehensible character, which just isn’t earned in my opinion. The film tells us up until this point that the worlds surrounding these characters are much bleaker than they first appear and have a habit of crushing dreams and ruining lives; but we are then expected to side with a character who, as much as the film ignores this idea, is just as much a part of the dark underbelly of Soho as they are a victim. The turn is given no room to breathe and then we as the viewer are told to change our tune on the villain just as they are revealed. It was a frankly baffling path for the story to take, and I was completely taken out of the film by the way some of the characters were acting in the final act. I felt it to be a massive disappointment considering how enjoyable the film had been on the whole up until that point.
Would I recommend Last Night in Soho to you? On the whole, I would have to say yes. Edgar Wright is a director with a lot of talent and flair, and the films he makes are always entertaining stories with (mostly) well-written, capably-acted characters and great attention to detail in terms of the visuals. Soho is not an exception to this rule, and it raises a lot of noble themes, but if you are looking for a straight-up, hair-raising horror ride, or are particularly unforgiving when it comes to the consistency of writing, then you might not be too impressed with what’s on offer here. Much like Ellie’s visions of 1960s London, Last Night in Soho starts brightly but loses its lustre the longer it draws on.
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