Mark Reviews Movies: LAST NIGHT IN SOHO

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 28, 2021

As a filmmaker, Edgar Wright is great with a gag, and even though it's far from a comedy, Last Night in Soho, the co-writer/director's latest, revolves around a pretty nifty bit. A young woman, who finds comfort in the music and style of an era well before her time, is mentally or magically or supernaturally transported to that period: London of the swinging '60s. Everything seems like a fantastical dream, as Wright employs some clever trickery to put our protagonist into—while also keeping her removed from—this world of the past, but that's the thing with dreams: They're not real, and they don't last.

A good portion of this movie, especially the central gimmick and the technical elements Wright uses to achieve it, is clever and enjoyable—firstly as a lark of wish fulfillment but, then, gradually as a diabolical nightmare about being careful with those wishes. In terms of craft, this is a neat fantasy that becomes an efficient thriller, but Wright becomes so enamored with the style, both of the period and of his own trickery, that there's very little in terms of story or character beneath the movie's alluring and shallowly layered surfaces.

In the present day, we meet Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie)—or "Ellie," as she's called, so she doesn't seem too old-fashioned. She's plenty old-fashioned without the name, as Wright and co-screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns introduce the character dancing through a house, which looks as if its décor hasn't been updated in decades, to a tune that pre-dates her birth by about 45 years. Ellie lives with her grandmother (played by Rita Tushingham) in the country, but her dream is to become a fashion designer.

That was also the dream of her mother, who died when Ellie was a child. Grandma is worried that the influence of her dead daughter might be too strong for her granddaughter. Ellie has been following this path for years, so whether or not it's actually her real ambition is impossible to determine now. Also, Ellie has visions of her mother, which caused some kind of breakdown recently, and the movie is smart in the way that the character's false denial—that she isn't seeing her mother anymore—tells us it's a problem and that she'll lie about it.

Little of that, ultimately, matters, except to inform us that Ellie's mental state isn't exactly to be trusted. The screenplay does that quite a bit here—establishing intriguing ideas and potential conflict, only to abandon them for flashier story elements and to bring them back when they help complicate the plot.

Here, the plot proper begins after Ellie, who has been accepted to study at a London fashion school, decides to move out of her dorm. Her roommate Jocasta (Synnøve Karlsen) is a narcissistic, backbiting gossip, so Ellie answers a room-for-rent ad from Ms. Collins (the late Diana Rigg). The room is on the top floor of an old house in the eponymous neighborhood, and at night, Ellie is somehow transported to the Soho of the 1960s.

Then and there, an aspiring singer named Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy) hooks up professionally and personally with a local talent manager named Jack (Matt Smith). Ellie is inspired and, after seeing the results of Sandie's dream of stardom, horrified by her nighttime jaunts to the past.

The technical aspect of these trips revolves around an ingenious use of mirrors and reflections, as well as some elaborate staging that puts Ellie into the action, even if she's really only a passive observer of Sandie's story. Amidst the lavish designs of various clubs of the era, Ellie exists primarily within the reflective surfaces, following Sandie through her apparent rise toward fame and sudden fall into the harsh reality of behind-the-scenes exploitation.

The effect of Ellie existing in these mirrors is seamless, in terms of how the two actors' movements and postures copy each other, and surreal, as Ellie is watching and, at times (such as during a dynamic one-take dance sequence, in which choreography and camera movements allow Ellie and Sandie to trade places mid-dance), participating in these flashbacks. The idea isn't that Ellie is or replaces Sandie, but that she feels the rush, the promise, and, as Sandie's tale takes that darker turn, the nightmare of being manipulated, used, abused, and disposed. A rather effective moment has Ellie shattering a mirror, not to save or stop Sandie, but to simply embrace her.

Those sequences work, even if Sandie's story is a bit too predictable and superficial in terms of its arc and its goals, mainly because of Wright's skill in creating and juxtaposing Ellie's connection to and distance from Sandie. Less effective, though, is Ellie's own story, which has her passively investigating possible culprits from the past in the present day (Terence Stamp plays a locally notorious ladies' man), having a half-hearted romance with sweet classmate John (Michael Ajao), and experiencing the nightmares of Sandie's faceless men in her waking life. Since there's never really a sense of Ellie as a character beyond her unreliable psychological state, much of her story comes across as a game of cheap scares and tricks.

All of Last Night in Soho is, ultimately, a series of technical and narrative tricks. How Wright pulls of the former is admirable. What the latter provide as a foundation for this story is far less so.

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