**SPOILER WARNING**
From visionary director Edgar Wright comes Last Night In Soho. The folks at Universal were kind enough to send me a copy of the movie and I went into it completely blind. I will say I enjoyed the first half very much while the second half kind of lost me but I still enjoyed the overall visual flare and style of the film.
In Edgar Wright’s psychological thriller, Eloise, played by Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit, Old), an aspiring fashion designer, is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s, where she encounters a dazzling wannabe singer, Sandie played by Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma, The Queen’s Gambit).
The film starts out as your average coming of age teen film with a young girl, Ellie, heading off to a fashion design college. The normal adjustments ensue. New people, surroundings, dealing with bullying from your peers and so forth but all of a sudden the film makes a sudden shift to something very different.
In what starts the beginning of the visual flares, Ellie starts dreaming about the 1960s and finds herself as a singer, Sandie. There is some really clever editing with Ellie/Sandie’s reflections changing in the mirrors and some great camera work done specifically during a dance between Jack and Sandie/Ellie is shot brilliantly with a steadicam as the two actress changing out seamlessly.
The film takes us into a story of murder and slightly supernatural elements. Ellie and Sandie develop some sort of mental bond despite being from different times and the lines of what’s reality and what’s the past begin to blur with visions of murder and ghosts of men following Ellie. We later realize the ghosts being seen are actually the souls of all the men Sandie slept with and murdered wanting to be freed. The supernatural elements of this portion of the movie kind of lost me a little bit but not enough to make me dislike it overall.
Last Night In Soho has some great visual flare and a fantastic soundtrack. Some of the music and dancing reminded me of an old Fosse performance. I would’ve preferred some questions have been answered as I’m not really sure how some of the events were occurring but it was entertaining nonetheless. The cast’s performances are solid even if Ellie’s screaming started to get on my nerves towards the end. The film has some great supporting cast members as well with Diana Rigg, in one of her final roles, as Ellie’s landlord and Terence Stamp. I do think the first half of the movie is much stronger than the second, however, there is a nice twist to the ending that I appreciated. Edgar Wright remains a truly creative artist in the world of filmmaking and I will always respect anyone who takes big creative swings hit or miss.
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